Consortia Purchasing: The Himmelfarb Experience

Most academic health sciences libraries are faced with either zero growth or shrinking budgets. At the same time, faculty, staff, and students are demanding access to more and more resources, and libraries are expected to support students in new and expanding programs in areas such as public health and genetics. The format of choice is electronic, and 24/7 service from any location is the expectation. The Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library found it was necessary to build a series of strategic alliances to meet these new demands in difficult financial times. Alliances have been formed with campus libraries, campus academic support services, and outside groups. These relationships have ranged from formal consortial arrangements to informal understandings. Over the past several years, the Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library has been able to provide new services and resources such as electronic reserves and off-campus access to full-text electronic journals and textbooks as a direct result of these relationships. This presentation reviews the strategies used for creating these and other alliances, the real benefits of such arrangements and the factors that have led to successes. Other topics covered include the issue of sustaining partnerships, negotiating in a non-library environment, and opening dialog among institutions that compete at the corporate level but not at the library level