Collaboration Between Libraries and Education: Supporting The Learner

Sarah McNicolGraham Matthews

David KaneKaty Lancaster

Stella ThebridgePete Dalton

Centre for Information ResearchFaculty of Computing, Information and EnglishUniversity of Central England in BirminghamPerry BarrBirminghamB42 2SU

Tel: 0121 331 6891Fax: 0121 331 5675Email: Sarah.McNicol@uce.ac.uk

November 2002

Contents

Page

Contents 2

Acknowledgements 7Acronyms 8Executive Summary 9

1. Introduction 15

1.1 Aim and objectives 161.2 Methodology 161.3 Report structure 20

2. Literature review 21

2.1 Introduction 212.2 Collaborative activities 222.2.1 Resource sharing 222.2.2 ICT 222.2.3 Access arrangements 232.2.4 Staff training 232.2.5 Promotion 232.3 Benefits of collaboration 232.4 Motivation for collaboration 252.5 Barriers to collaboration 262.5.1 Lack of time 262.5.2 Lack of knowledge of other agencies 272.5.3 Lack of community co-ordination 272.5.4 Inadequate leadership 272.5.5 Lack of common professional standards 272.5.6 Lack of funds 272.5.7 Too few trained staff 272.5.8 Competition among agencies 282.5.9 Legal and technical issues 282.5.10 Staff attitudes 282.6 Success factors 282.6.1 Shared vision/philosophy 282.6.2 Shared strategic direction 292.6.3 Commitment from senior management 292.6.4 Staff skills, attitudes and commitment 29

2

2.6.5 Adaptability 302.6.6 Formal agreements 302.6.7 A well-focused co-ordinating body 312.6.8 Good communication 312.6.9 Visible progress 312.7 Conclusion 32

3. Interviews with the regions 33

3.1 The role of Regional Agencies (RAs) 333.2 Benefits of collaboration for both sectors 353.2.1 Benefits of collaboration for the library sector 363.2.2 Benefits of collaboration for the education sector 363.3 Ways in which cross-sectoral collaboration between

libraries and education helps to combat social exclusion, in particular rural isolation 37

3.4 Success factors 383.4.1 A strategic approach 383.4.2 Planning and management 383.4.3 Commitment 393.4.4 Communication 393.4.5 High-level support 393.4.6 Funding 393.5 Barriers to collaboration 403.6 Ways in which problems may be overcome 413.7 Changes in the nature of cross-sectoral

collaboration in the next five years 423.8 Conclusion 44

4. Questionnaire responses 45

4.1 Geographical location 454.2 Size of project 464.3 Sectors involved 464.4 Timescale 474.5 Foci of work 484.6 Target audience 484.7 Successful aspects of the projects 494.7.1 Networking and co-operation 494.7.2 Benefits for learners 504.7.3 Benefits for staff 504.8 Unsuccessful aspects of the projects 504.8.1 Cross-sectoral links 504.8.2 Levels of commitment 514.8.3 Technical issues 514.9 Success in achieving aims 52

3

4.10 Benefits of collaboration 534.10.1 Improved access to resources 534.10.2 Sharing of skills and expertise 544.10.3 Greater understanding of the working

practices of other institutions 544.10.4 Training and CPD opportunities 544.10.5 Improved funding opportunities 544.11 Barriers to collaboration 544.11.1 Geographical barriers 544.11.2 Lack of time 544.11.3 Differing aims, objectives and level of commitment 554.11.4 Different working practices 554.11.5 Restrictions on access to electronic information 554.11.6 Financial barriers 554.12 Social Inclusion 564.13 Sustainability 574.14 Conclusion 57

5. Case studies 59

5.1 Canterbury Circle of Libraries 595.1.1 Background 605.1.2 Aims of project 625.1.3 Roles of the various partners 625.1.4 Successes 625.1.5 Benefits of collaboration 635.1.6 Problems experienced 635.1.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas 655.1.8 The impact of ICT 665.1.9 The future 665.1.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects 665.1.11 Conclusion 675.2 DELTA (Derbyshire Learning and Technology Access) 685.2.1 Background 685.2.2 Aims of project 695.2.3 Roles of partners 705.2.4 Successes 705.2.5 Benefits of collaboration 715.2.6 Problems experienced 725.2.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas 725.2.8 The impact of ICT 735.2.9 The future 735.2.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects 745.2.11 Conclusion 755.3 Find it in London 775.3.1 Background 775.3.2 Aims of project 78

4

5.3.3 Roles of the various partners 795.3.4 Successes 795.3.5 Benefits of collaboration 805.3.6 Problems experienced 815.3.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas 825.3.8 The impact of ICT 835.3.9 The future 835.3.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects 845.3.11 Conclusion 845.4 Libraries Together: Liverpool Learning Partnership 855.4.1 Background 855.4.2 Aims of Project 865.4.3 Roles of partners 865.4.4 Successes 885.4.5 Benefits of collaboration 915.4.6 Problems experienced 925.4.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas 945.4.8 The impact of ICT 965.4.9 The future 975.4.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects 975.4.11 Conclusion 985.5 MKLCLN – Milton Keynes Learning City Libraries Network 995.5.1 Background 995.5.2 Aims of the project 1005.5.3 Roles of partners 1015.5.4 Successes 1025.5.5 Benefits of collaboration 1035.5.6 Problems experienced 1045.5.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas 1055.5.8 The impact of ICT 1075.5.9 The future 1075.5.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects 1085.5.11 Conclusion 1085.6 RIDING Project 1095.6.1 Background 1095.6.2 Aims of project 1105.6.3 Roles of the various partners 1105.6.4 Successes 1115.6.5 Benefits of collaboration 1125.6.6 Problems experienced 1135.6.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas 1145.6.8 The impact of ICT 1155.6.9 The future 1155.6.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects 1165.6.11 Conclusion 116

5

6. Conclusions 117

6.1 Benefits of collaboration 1186.2 Success factors 1186.3 Problems of collaboration 1196.4 Political agendas 1206.5 The role of the Regional Agencies 1206.6 Collaboration in the future 120

7. Recommendations 123

7.1 All those involved in collaboration to supportthe learner should: 123

7.2 The DCMS/DfES/Resource should: 1237.3 Regional Agencies should: 1247.4 Professional bodies should: 1247.5 Existing projects should: 1247.6 Managers in organisations involved in

collaborative projects should: 125

8. References 127

8.1 Literature review 1278.2 Sources for case studies 1298.2.1 Canterbury Circle of Libraries 1298.2.2 DELTA (Derbyshire Learning and Technology Access) 1298.2.3 Find it in London 1308.2.4 The Libraries Together: Liverpool Learning

Partnership (LT: LLP) 1308.2.5 MKLCLN – Milton Keynes Learning City

Libraries Network 1308.2.6 RIDING 131

Appendices

Appendix 1: Interviews with Regional Agencies 132

Appendix 2: Questionnaire for collaborative projects 133Appendix 3: Questions for project partners 137

6

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Jan Faux for her work in the early stages of this research and Joanna Spry for administrative support. Clare Nankivell was project head on the original proposal.

7

Acronyms

DCMS Department for Culture, Media and SportDfES Department for Education and SkillsFE Further EducationHE Higher EducationICT Information and Communications TechnologyLIS Library and Information ServicesODPM Office of the Deputy Prime MinisterRA Regional Agency

8

Executive summary

This research was conducted by the Centre for Information Research (CIRT) at the University of Central England (UCE). It addresses the requirement from Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries to:

investigate the impact of existing collaborative arrangements between libraries and education

identify good practice and examples of successful working in collaboration to support learners

recommend ways of establishing cross-sectoral collaborative arrangements.

The research was commissioned on behalf of the DfES demonstration projects working party and was intended to contribute to its work by drawing on lessons learned to benefit future collaborations. The research aimed to identify the factors that enable collaborative projects, including public and academic libraries and other institutions, to establish effective arrangements that meet the needs of learners in order to guide the working party in developing strategies for encouraging and supporting cross-sectoral, collaborative arrangements that produce the best possible outcomes for learners.

The preliminary stage of the research consisted of a brief literature review and Internet search. Concurrently, representatives from agencies in each of the nine English regions were contacted and asked to participate in a telephone interview. The next stage of the research was a questionnaire survey sent to collaborative projects and initiatives identified. Six case studies were selected from the responses received to allow more in-depth analysis. Each case study project was asked to supply key documents and individuals from each of the main partner institutions involved were asked to take part in an interview.

The main conclusions and associated recommendations of this research are presented below.

Conclusions

The level of emphasis afforded to the needs of learners differed considerably from project to project. While the aims of some projects centre directly around learners, the majority of existing collaborative ventures aimed to foster more general collaboration between libraries and education, one aspect of which may be to provide benefits for learners. It is important to remember that while sharing of skills and expertise is a valuable exercise, its ultimate purpose needs to be clearly focused on the improvement of services for learners.

In many cases, collaborative projects do not yet possess a sophisticated understanding of the needs and aspirations of learners and potential learners.

9

Without this knowledge, it is not possible for library managers to design and deliver services which are focused on learners. This means that relatively few partnerships focus on the needs of different audience segments and, therefore, do not tailor services to the specific needs of various types of learners.

The benefits of collaboration

In general terms, collaboration is valuable because it allows more to be achieved than would be possible if each institution was to work in isolation. The main benefits of collaboration identified were: improved access to resources for learners; sharing of staff expertise; greater understanding of other institutions; opportunities for staff to participate in training; and better opportunities to apply for joint funding. In addition, collaboration was believed to help raise the profile of a library within its own institution; in the locality; and more widely.

For learners, access to a greater number of resources, including study space; more convenient access; and greater awareness of learning resources available within a locality were identified as the main benefits of collaboration. However, interviewees from a number of case studies acknowledged that, at the moment, they had no formal way of measuring the benefits for learners.

Success factors

Good planning, management and communication; adequate funding; and commitment at all levels were identified as the most important factors which helped to secure the success of any collaborative project. Demonstrable success was believed to help to overcome many problems, in particular with regard to lack of enthusiasm among staff and learners. The importance of personal relationships was emphasised by a number of case studies; this may have been particularly important because the majority had adopted a democratic, informal structure. Another important success factor was the need to involve all staff in order to ensure that the library as a whole was committed to a collaborative approach.

Problems of collaboration

The most problematic aspects of collaboration were difficulties establishing cross-sectoral links; differing levels of commitment between partners; and technical issues, for example the sharing of electronic resources between partners serving different sectors. Difference in procedures and working practices between institutions presented particular problems. There were also a number of practical barriers such as lack of time, geography and lack of financial support. It was acknowledged that partners needed to be sensitive to the differences which existed between them as well as focusing on commonality. Partners in collaborative ventures involving libraries from a number of different sectors sometimes commented that it was difficult to see the relevance of

10

working with librarians from organisations with which, at first sight, they had little in common.

Political agendas

While many collaborative projects are concerned with issues such as social inclusion and lifelong learning, awareness of these political agendas rarely, in themselves, provide a motivation for collaborative initiatives. While partners acknowledged the importance of these concepts in terms of achieving service goals and securing funding, the overall aims of most collaborative activity transcends such short-term political agendas.

The role of Regional Agencies

Regional Agencies clearly have the potential to support collaboration, particularly by providing strategic direction and encouraging the sharing of good practice. However, in many cases, their role has not yet been adequately developed.

Collaboration in the future

Over the next five years, greater regional collaboration is anticipated, particularly to address the learning and access agenda. Most projects expected to see their work expand, as the projects grew geographically or incorporated libraries from other sectors or organisations such as museums or archives.

While the development of ICT was seen to offer enormous opportunities for collaboration, particularly in fostering communication between partners, it also presented a number of difficulties, such as licensing agreements and non-institutional learner access. One issue that has not been adequately addressed is the possibility of providing public access to computer networks in HE and other libraries.

At present, in terms of benefits to library users, the majority of initiatives focus on access rather than learning. Before collaborative initiatives which truly focus on supporting learners can be established, there is a need for institutions to develop an in-depth understanding of the needs of their learners and to consider the ways in which collaboration with other institutions can help to meet these needs more effectively.

Therefore, although much has been achieved, collaboration between libraries and education is still at an early stage in terms of having major impacts on the learner. Most of the identifiable benefits so far have been those for institutions and their staff.

11

Recommendations

All those involved in collaboration to support the learner should: ensure that the development of collaboration and the aims of partnership

are built around a detailed understanding of the needs of learners and potential learners.

investigate ways to measure the impact of collaboration on learners.

identify opportunities for both sector-specific and cross-sectoral collaboration.

investigate ways in which collaboration can provide direct, as well as indirect, benefits for learners.

be aware of the different models of collaboration.

work together to tackle long standing issues which hinder the progress of cross-sectoral collaboration.

The DCMS/DfES/Resource should: identify, and then promote, those activities where libraries and education

can most effectively collaborate to support learners.

provide guidance for collaborative groups on the appropriate involvement of partners from various types of organisation.

provide support for the national infrastructure of co-operation.

provide, or encourage others to provide, funding to support new collaborative initiatives and follow-up funding to allow projects to develop in a new direction.

co-ordinate investigations into ways in which the technological barriers to collaboration might be overcome, and encourage their application.

foster and support initiatives which investigate and implement sharing of access to electronic information or learning networks between libraries.

identify and pilot the most effective ways for collaborative initiatives to measure the benefits they have for learners.

investigate ways in which those who wish to collaborate to support learners might establish contact with other organisations.

Regional Agencies should: further develop their roles to support cross-sectoral and cross-domain

collaboration.

help those who wish to collaborate to support learners to establish contact with other organisations.

12

be aware of developments in national planning and initiatives taking place in other regions which may inform collaboration in their regions.

Professional bodies should: promote the benefits of collaboration to support learners and provide

practical support, for example through conferences, training and publications

Existing projects should: have a common goal which unites the partners.

adopt a model of collaboration best suited to the aims of the collaborative initiative and the needs of member organisations.

take advantage of opportunities to share good practice, to promote their own work and demonstrate success; to encourage others to work more collaboratively; and to learn from other initiatives.

investigate ways to measure the success of projects to provide evidence of the benefits of collaboration, in particular the impacts on learners.

make further use of electronic communication to overcome the barriers of time and distance faced by partners.

where appropriate, investigate ways in which access to electronic materials might be improved.

projects with a large number of partners over a wide geographical area might consider establishing local sub-groups.

projects with a large number of partners from different sectors may wish to establish sub-groups for those from closely allied sectors.

consider involving learners themselves in the development of initiatives.

Managers in organisations involved in collaborative projects should: allow staff sufficient time to participate in collaborative projects.

involve as many staff as possible (at all levels) in collaborative activity.

promote the benefits of collaboration within their organisation.

attempt to gain a better understanding of the needs of their learners and consider how collaboration can be used most effectively to meet these.

be aware of the training and development needs of staff in their institution with regard to involvement in collaboration and supporting learners.

be flexible in terms of financial, ICT and other procedures and to compromise to allow collaboration with other organisations to take place.

13

develop a good understanding of the needs and concerns of other partners and be aware of how these differ.

investigate what other institutional links and partnerships exist, to determine if they may be potential partners for library collaboration.

14

1. Introduction

This research was carried out to address the requirement from Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, on behalf of the DfES demonstration projects working party, to undertake research to:

investigate the impact of existing collaborative arrangements between libraries and education

identify good practice and examples of successful working in collaboration to support learners

recommend ways of establishing cross-sectoral collaborative arrangements.

Empowering is a joint DCMS/DfES programme, of which the DfES demonstration projects working party is a part. This part of its work reflect the first recommendation of Empowering the Learning Community, which suggested the following actions:

Encourage organisations to collaborate on providing information support to lifelong learners (1.1)

Ensure that services these organisations provide benefit excluded groups (1.2).

However, although there are a number of well-known examples of collaboration, such as those listed in the report itself, the best ways to achieve successful collaboration are not always obvious. As Richter and Nankivell argued:

Very little research into cross-sectoral co-operation has been conducted or published in the UK to date. This makes it difficult to outline elements of good practice (Richter and Nankivell, 1999).

The research was intended to contribute to the work of the demonstration projects working party by drawing on lessons learned to benefit future collaborations and provide the best possible outcomes for learners.

Warren concluded that:

The extent of LIS local or sub-regional collaboration is considerable, but it is very hit-and-miss, including different categories of user, reaching across different LIS sectors in different areas and applying to different materials and services (Warren, 2002).

The diverse funding and administration arrangements for the library sector mean that cross-sectoral collaboration is a complex issue. It is, therefore, vital to examine initiatives where there is collaboration in action in order to develop a better understanding of what leads to successful, sustainable outcomes. This research helps to determine what the barriers are; how these might be mitigated; and what leads to the greatest benefits for learners. In addition, examination of

15

lapsed collaborative arrangements supports understanding of the barriers and problems with collaboration and its sustainability.

1.1 Aim and objectives

The research aims to identify the factors that enable collaborative projects including public, education and other libraries (for example health or business libraries) to establish effective arrangements that meet the needs of learners in order to guide the working party in developing strategies for encouraging and supporting cross-sectoral, collaborative arrangements that produce the best possible outcomes for learners.

Within this aim, there are four objectives:

1. To examine the impact of current and lapsed collaborative arrangements in England, including, as a minimum, collaborations between public libraries, FE and/or HE.

2. To determine, through in-depth case studies of existing projects, the impact that cross-sectoral collaborations have had on the communities in which they operate from the point of view of learners, professionals and policymakers.

3. To identify the barriers which prevent successful collaboration and steps that could be taken to mitigate them.

4. To review the provision made by regional agencies to support cross-sectoral collaborations and to identify the need for and the role of such arrangements.

1.2 Methodology

Stage 1: Literature review

The preliminary stage of the research consisted of a brief literature review and internet search. This identified current and lapsed collaborative arrangements involving libraries in England. In addition to those listed in Appendix 2 of Empowering the Learning Community and in Richter and Nankivell (1999), further examples were found from other sources such as journal articles, published reports and websites. In addition, more general literature was located which discusses, in broader terms, the advantages of and possible barriers to collaborative arrangements. This literature is reviewed in chapter 2.

Stage 2: Interviews with regional agencies

Representatives from each of the nine English regions were contacted and asked to participate in a telephone interview. Where they were already in existence, this was the Regional Agency; elsewhere, Regional Library Systems and Library Development Agencies were asked to participate. The issues which regional agency representatives were asked to comment on included:

16

the provision they make to support cross-sectoral collaboration

their views on the need for and the roles of cross-sectoral collaborative arrangements in the region

how rural issues and other forms of social exclusion are addressed through collaboration

the best ways to ensure that collaborative arrangements are successful

the potential problems with and barriers to collaboration and ways in which these might be overcome (See Appendix 1).

The regional agencies were also asked to supply any relevant documentation eg reports, newsletters. In addition, they were asked to provide information about collaborative initiatives and projects which have been conducted in their region to supplement the list in Empowering the Learning Community (LIC, 2000) and to provide examples to illustrate the points discussed during the interview.

Stage 3: Survey of existing and lapsed collaborative partners

Initially, a questionnaire survey was conducted of all those collaborative projects and initiatives identified in Empowering the Learning Community (LIC, 2000) and in Supporting Life Long Learning (Richter and Nankivell, 1999). The short questionnaire sought basic information, for example the partners involved, the aims of the collaboration, the timescale. It also sought comments on:

the main impacts of the collaboration, for example in supporting inclusion or in audiences reached

the perceived advantages of collaborative ventures

any barriers or constraints experienced

the main factors leading to successful or unsuccessful outcomes

sustainability (See Appendix 2).

In addition, the research team also sent questionnaires to representatives of further projects and initiatives identified through the literature search and by the regional agencies. It was anticipated that a minimum of thirty individuals from a variety of organisations involved in collaboration would respond to this stage of the research, thus providing an overview of the different types of arrangements in England in terms of models of working together; scale of the project; aims of collaboration and success factors. In fact, there were twenty-nine respondents in total.

The research team acknowledged at the start of the project that it may be more difficult to contact representatives of lapsed projects and this proved to be the case; none of the responses came from lapsed projects although there were a number which had technically lapsed, but had gone beyond their initial period of funding in a different form.

17

Stage 4: In-depth case studies

The range of projects identified in stages one to three were presented to the working party as examples from which a sample of six case studies was chosen.

The case studies were selected to be representative of:

collaborative arrangements involving different types of library eg. HE, FE, public, health, school, voluntary, business, and other partners eg. archives, museums, social services, basic skills units

projects or initiatives operating at different scales, in terms of area covered, number of partners involved and levels of funding

lapsed and current arrangements

projects or initiatives with both short and longer time frames

projects or initiatives in the different regions of England

projects or initiatives targeted at various groups of learners eg. basic skills, HE students, informal learners

projects aiming to meet the needs of learners in different ways eg. online collaboration, shared facilities, promotion

projects that cover successful and less successful outcomes

different types of collaboration such as those with physical access or those confined to ICT.

Each case study project was asked to supply key documents such as evaluation or other reports, minutes, project briefs. Individuals from each of the main partner institutions involved were then asked to take part in an interview. These were conducted in person or by telephone and covered the following broad areas:

the extent to which the projects or initiatives met their aims

the impact of the collaboration on the community in which it operated for learners, professionals and policymakers eg. cost implications, ease of access, staff, professional support, demand for the service, engagement with end users and social inclusion issues

factors contributing to successful/unsuccessful outcomes

the benefits of cross-sectoral working

the barriers that prevent successful collaborations and steps that were or might be taken to mitigate them

the role of regional agencies (See Appendix 3).

In total 32 interviews were conducted across the six projects.

18

Stage 5: Analysis

Initial analysis of the interviews with regional agencies (Stage 2) and questionnaire responses (Stage 3) occurred at the start of Stage 4 in order to select the case study subjects.

The main task at this stage was, therefore, to analyse the interviews and documentation supplied by each of the case studies to identify:

the impacts of collaboration on the community in which it operated for learners, professionals and policymakers

factors contributing to successful/unsuccessful outcomes

benefits of cross-sectoral working

barriers that prevent successful collaborations and steps that were or might be taken to mitigate them.

In addition, during Stage 5, data from the questionnaires, together with any relevant literature, was analysed to identify:

the advantages of collaborative ventures

any barriers experienced and how these might be overcome

the main factors leading to successful or unsuccessful outcomes.

The insights gained from the interviews with the regional agencies and any further points raised during the case study interviews were also incorporated.

The existing and possible future role of regional agencies was explored in the analysis of the interviews with representatives from these bodies, along with any supporting documentation and interviews with the case study partners.

Stage 6: Report writing

This report includes:

an overview of the current and lapsed cross-sectoral collaborations involving public, education and other libraries in England

an examination of the impacts of collaboration on the communities in which they operate for learners, professionals and policymakers

identification of the factors that enable collaborative projects including public, education and other libraries to establish effective arrangements that meet the needs of learners and lead to sustainable outcomes

discussion of the barriers which prevent successful collaborations and steps that could be taken to mitigate them

19

a consideration of the role of regional agencies in supporting cross-sectoral collaborations

recommendations which will guide the working party in developing strategies for encouraging and supporting cross-sectoral, collaborative arrangements that produce the best possible outcomes from learners.

1.3 Report structure

The main report starts with a review of existing literature examining the benefits of collaboration between libraries and education, and also about the difficulties facing libraries from various sectors, which wish to collaborate to support learners. Chapter 3 reports on the finding of the interviews with Regional Agencies and Chapter 4 presents an analysis of the main findings from the questionnaire responses from the survey of existing and lapsed collaborative partners. This is followed by a chapter devoted to the six in-depth case studies. The final section of the report draws conclusions from these four strands of the research and makes recommendations to guide the future work of the working party.

20

2. Literature review

2.1 Introduction

A number of commentators have written about the benefits of collaboration between libraries and education, and also about the difficulties facing libraries from various sectors which wish to collaborate to support learners.

There is a tradition of libraries in the UK co-operating with each other, and within higher education multiple mechanisms have existed for many years to aid service provision; for example, document supply through inter-library lending, shared bibliographic records, locally agreed access arrangements, and so on. Regional Library Systems for inter-lending and catalogue sharing were set up in the 1930s. These eventually included almost all public and academic libraries in ten regions of the UK and Ireland. By the 1990s, the work of some of these had moved beyond inter-lending and document delivery to include training and research and development. Another important concept are Library and Information Plans (LIPs). These are management plans, normally spanning three to five years, which co-ordinate all the library and information services in a given geographical or subject area. Their purpose is to provide a framework within which planned co-operation and co-ordination can take place (Fox, 1998).

In 1995, the Apt Review showed evidence of considerable cross-sectoral use of libraries, in particular Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) students making use of public libraries (Apt Partnership, 1995). In the same year, a report by Book Marketing reported that 55% of full-time and part-time students used both academic and public libraries, and a further 20% used public, but not academic libraries (in Hall and Curry, 2000: 38). Similarly, the People Flows report (Nankivell, Foster and Elkin, 2000) found that over two-thirds of HE and FE library users also used public libraries and over half the users of public libraries also used other libraries. However, as Hall and Curry (2000) pointed out, members of the public often face difficulties in accessing university libraries which are located on Greenfield sites away from city centres.

While Hall and Curry highlight the fact that much informal and undocumented collaboration goes on in libraries, they also point to a division between library sectors which is “increasingly inappropriate in the current learning environment” (Hall and Curry, 2000: 38). Richter and Nankivell (1999) agree, arguing that there is a “real gap between the education sector and the library sector”, pointing out that:

unless libraries are acknowledged as equal partners in the process of lifelong learning, multi-sectoral library co-operation is unlikely to advance towards integrated strategic planning for lifelong learning.

They also found that “the value of interlibrary co-operation is often not recognised at the strategic level needed for this integrated approach”. More needs to be done to encourage and reward strategic planning between the sectors, but for

21

this to be achieved, academic institutions must first see the value of sharing information resources and services with the public sector. In its review of library co-operation, the Apt Partnership (1995) found that, while the ethos of co-operation was well-established, practice often lagged some way behind. While Regional Library Systems are, in fact, cross-sectoral, they have often been perceived as being public library based, with most inter-lending taking place between public libraries or between public and academic libraries (Sumsion, 1998).

Attenborough, Fuegi, and Gianoli (2001), argue that, for public libraries, collaboration is “a manifestation of what they have always done”, while for academic libraries, it is something they might support in principle, but they tend to see their first duty as being to their own community of students and teachers. Nevertheless, as this report pointed out, external learning opportunities can act as a “hook” to attract new students.

2.2 Collaborative activities

There are a variety of ways in which public libraries and education may collaborate. Some of the most common types of activity are resource sharing, access, staff training, promotion and ICT. Other areas include strategic planning, archiving and research.

2.2.1 Resource sharing

Views on the extent of this type of activity are inconclusive. For example, The Apt Review (1995) found that inter-library lending “is by far the most developed form of library and information service co-operation at the present time”. However, according to Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consulting (2002), as far as collection sharing is concerned, “despite some activity, available data suggests very little success has been achieved to date”, even within the HE sector alone. The major holding libraries have traditionally been particularly cautious, and few appear willing to relinquish ownership of material. There is, however, considerable informal local action whereby libraries ‘take account’ of the holdings of others, but without a formal agreement. Other than this, new activity is primarily of three kinds: bilateral agreements, some involving the British Library; a few voluntary subject based arrangements; and short term, project funding.

2.2.2 ICT

Collaborative work revolving around ICT might include working on creating digital content; ensuring compatibility of library management systems; shared purchasing of electronic materials; and shared access to electronic resources. Although intuitively it would seem that there must be potential efficiency in sharing library management systems, in practice there are only a few examples. This is partly because acquiring a new system is expensive and requires much

22

effort and time and replacement cycles rarely coincide. In addition, joint operation is seen to restrict an individual library’s flexibility (Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consulting, 2002)

Some commentators have perceived the rapid development of ICT as a threat to regional library co-operation, as networks can easily bypass libraries. However, the role of librarians in signposting validated, relevant information and the role of public libraries as local access points has been widely acknowledged (eg Stephens, 1998; Watkin, 1998). Craven and Fisher (1997) recommended that electronic service developments made in alliance between public and academic libraries should focus on public libraries as local access points, taking advantage of the geographical spread of the public library system.

2.2.3 Access arrangements

There are a wide spectrum of joint access agreements, from open access for reference purposes to borrowing rights, usually for a fee and restricted to a small number of items.

The report to the RSLP (Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consulting, 2002) found that the greatest progress towards resource sharing within HE had been made in relation to access. There are many examples of undergraduate access, if not of borrowing rights. However, access by outside students and non-students is generally severely limited. This is especially true of electronic materials which are subject to licence restrictions by most publishers. Other concerns that need to be addressed include protecting the needs of core users; coping with demand with limited resources; and security of resources and facilities. While many academic libraries admit members of the public for reference purposes, the ease with which they can find out about these arrangements and ease of actual access varies considerably.

2.2.4 Staff training

This might include cross-sectoral induction training to allow new staff to meet others working in the region; joint training on supporting users; customer care training; and general career development training.

2.2.5 Promotion

Joint promotional activities can provide opportunities for networking and provide financial savings as well as increasing the effectiveness of promotional campaigns.

2.3 Benefits of collaboration

Collaboration can lead to a number of benefits for the institutions involved, their staff and learners themselves.

23

In the SAILS project, the benefits of co-operation for educational institutions were identified as:

improved relations, leading to collaboration and resource sharing

bringing learners onto academic campuses, thereby giving them confidence, encouraging new learners and supporting student progression.

The benefits of co-operation for libraries were:

raised profile within the library world, the local area and other organisations

shared success leading to enthusiasm and pride among staff

enhanced service to core users

generating new ideas, developing new services and ways of working and encouraging a sense of ownership

sharing problems and providing a range of expertise to find answers

improving specific services

additional support for staff for example training, visits and working groups to create mutual understanding and respect

working together to apply for funding (Hall and Curry, 2000).

Formal collaborative agreements provide opportunities for libraries to gain knowledge of what other institutions are collecting and also give them confidence that access to collections will be sustained. This means they are less likely to duplicate work done in other institutions, reducing time, effort and expense. The advantages of economies of scale in sharing expertise and facilities have been well-documented (eg Malley, 1996; CONARLS, 1998; NFIP, 1999) and the HATRICS report found one of the main benefits of collaborative working to be cost-effectiveness (Capital Planning Information and Hatrics, 1999).

Collaboration also brings direct benefits to learners. In the HATRICS report, it was found that, through collaboration, learners were able to access a whole network of information resources through local outlets. This report found that learners preferred to deal with local sources, where they had contact with known individuals who understood their requirements and where trust and confidence had been established. However, there was a need to ensure that service standards were comparable across the whole network (Capital Planning Information and Hatrics, 1999).

In their study of the SAILS Project, Hall and Curry (2000) identified the benefits of library co-operation for learners as:

convenience of location

24

convenience of time

improved access to information from a wider range of collections and the opportunity to study at whatever level they wished

improved access to study places

improved staff support, in particular, increased communication and understanding.

2.4 Motivation for collaboration

Recently, pressure on library and information services to work in collaboration has increased for several reasons which include: the general recognition that the explosion of published knowledge is such that no single library can expect to collect all research materials; rising library costs; and the transforming nature of LIS technology (Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consulting, 2002).

Reporting on document delivery projects established as part of the British Library’s Co-operation and Partnership Programme, Smith (2001), claims that co-operation was increasingly necessary because of rising costs, for instance, the need for new and continuing investment in technical support and the increase in serials prices. Funding was a major impetus for co-operation identified by Hall and Curry (2000); this may include British Library funding, Community Grids for Learning and other lifelong learning projects focusing on the socially excluded; and JISC funding for example Clumps projects and digital preservation. Other driving factors were developments in technology; changes in patterns of learning; and directional push from the government impacting on libraries from all sectors. Pilling and Kenna (2002) also stress the importance of the government emphasis on co-operation, linked to the political agendas of regionalism and value for money. They argue that government agendas and policies can be extremely powerful incentives to collaboration as they provide the legislative and financial backing to support ventures.

Most Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are keen to widen participation as the educational environment diversifies away from traditional full-time students. However, the increase in the number of HE students in the early 1990s left many academic libraries struggling to cope with demand, while at the same time, both public and academic libraries suffered from funding reductions (Hall and Curry, 2000). Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consulting (2002) recommended that any moves towards greater resource sharing in support of research and teaching should take account of government and funding body policy on widening participation and recognise that the increasing demand for access to research materials, due to growth in student numbers, means that libraries are not able to meet the needs of all their users independently.2.5 Barriers to collaboration

25

According to the Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consulting (2002), the primary barrier to greater and deeper resource sharing involving the HE sector is that no strong and convincing case for it has been made to HEIs. Until this case is made, most institutions are unlikely to address the local and technical barriers to deep resource sharing that exist. The case must be underpinned by persuasive evidence of the benefits, and these may not yet be proven. As was suggested in the Hatrics report, the results and benefits of co-operation are often appreciated more by users than providers of information. This investigation highlighted the difficulties of pointing to direct evidence of the impact of collaboration. Currently, the potential advantages of deep resource sharing are perceived as relatively marginal in relation to mainstream library provision. Most activity is voluntary, risk free, and organised on a bottom up basis. Although this may be appropriate for current activities, such an approach is unable to deal with the more strategic and institutionally sensitive aspects of provision (Capital Planning Information and Hatrics, 1999).

In 1974, Tom Wilson identified nine barriers to effective co-operation:

1. lack of time and too many meetings

2. lack of knowledge of purpose, function and work of other agencies

3. unwillingness to put community interests ahead of vested interests

4. lack of community co-ordination

5. inadequate leadership

6. lack of common professional standards

7. lack of funds

8. too few trained staff

9. competition among agencies (in Capital Planning Information and Hatrics, 1999).

Many of these have been supported and expanded on in more recent research. Some examples are given below.

2.5.1 Lack of time

Difficulties in establishing links or partnerships identified by Attenborough, Fuegi, and Gianoli (2001) included:

a lack of time and resources to implement and develop proposals

involvement in too many projects, involving considerable time commitment for courses, meetings and so forth.

2.5.2 Lack of knowledge of other agencies

26

Attenborough, Fuegi, and Gianoli (2001) referred to a lack of understanding of aims and objectives; difficulties of working with partners from outside the sector; and the fact that institutions do not automatically consider opportunities for cross-domain involvement. In particular, there are indications that academic libraries do not yet perceive public libraries as equal partners in lifelong learning.

2.5.3 Lack of community co-ordination

The major difficulties identified by LASER were the lack of a representative role for individual members at a strategic level and the perception that the organisation was too divorced from library authority members (Education for Change, 2000). People Flows (Nankivell, Foster and Elkin, 2000), reported difficulties in securing organisational and political agreement for the changes.

2.5.4 Inadequate leadership

The Hatrics report claimed that local government reorganisation meant that there were a number of senior managers in post with limited experience of library networking and less commitment to co-operation, who needed to be convinced of the value for money and other benefits of collaboration (Capital Planning Information and Hatrics, 1999).

2.5.5 Lack of common professional standards

Futures Together identified the use of different terminology as a difficulty experienced by institutions from different domains and sectors engaging in collaborative ventures (Warren, 2000). Hutchinson and Campbell (1998) also referred to cultural differences between various sectors.

2.5.6 Lack of funds

Information North co-ordinates library and information services and promotes co-operation through strategic level planning, joint projects, increased awareness and access. The main constraint facing this organisation was limited funding restricting the initiative to a small executive office and leaving no money for strategic or external activities. Other projects, for example SCONE, also mentioned lack of funding (Education for Change, 2000).

2.5.7 Too few trained staff

People Flows (Nankivell, Foster and Elkin, 2000) mentioned dependence on volunteer staff as a factor which acted as a barrier to collaboration. Partners in the CEDARS project, which concentrated on the preservation of digital information, identified the absence of key staff as a difficulty experienced (Education for Change, 2000).

27

2.5.8 Competition among agencies

Hutchinson and Campbell (1998) referred to the fact that partners may compete as well as co-operate and pointed out that a refusal to accept this can undermine partnerships. One of the constraints mentioned by the partners involved in SCONE was the fact that individual institutions were not inclined to identify weaknesses in their collections (Education for Change, 2000).

A number of additional barriers emerge from the literature.

2.5.9 Legal and technical issues

Mackay (2001) reported on an initiative set up by the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute, linking thirteen colleges and 560 learning centres and using public libraries to help to overcome the problems of rural isolation. This article identified a number of problems relating to intersite collaboration, in particular, technical issues including network problems.

Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consulting (2002) identified licensing of electronic materials and liability for VAT on inter-institutional charges as two major technical issues. The implementation of the European Directive on Copyright may cause difficulties for collaboration in the future. For example, it may mean that libraries have to charge a higher rate for copying and inter-library loans for commercial purposes (SINTO, 2002).

2.5.10 Staff attitudes

Staff attitudes were identified as a potential barrier to collaboration in the Hatrics report. In particular, there were thought to be negative attitudes among some staff who were worried they would not be able to cope with the resulting increase in the number of enquiries (Capital Planning Information and Hatrics, 1999).

2.6 Success factors

A number of factors believed to be key to successful cross-sectoral co-operation can be identified from the literature.

2.6.1 Shared vision/philosophy

Hall and Curry (2000) refer to the need for a vision to inspire and motivate partners which needs to be strong enough to overcome traditions of competition and fears about funding and loss of identity. For a successful partnership, the commitment to work through differences of opinion and accept different viewpoints is also necessary. The report on the Hatrics project (Capital Planning Information and Hatrics, 1999) also stressed the importance of a shared vision or

28

philosophy relating to the mutual benefits of collaboration and a strong belief in working in partnership.

2.6.2 Shared strategic direction

Hall and Curry (2000) argue that responsibility for direction and leadership needs to be democratically shared by all partners to bring credibility at the highest levels.

2.6.3 Commitment from senior management

Linked to this is the need for commitment from senior staff in each of the partner organisations, as indicated in the Hatrics report (Capital Planning Information and Hatrics – the Southern Information Network, 1999). One of the success factors identified by Information North was the commitment of board and institutional members and the CEDARS project regarded support from “influential individuals” as being important (Education for Change, 2000).

2.6.4 Staff skills, attitudes and commitment

According to the report on the Hatrics project, staff skills, attitudes and commitment are especially important in the short to medium term. Hall and Curry (2000) found that the choice of personnel at all levels is key to building acceptance and enthusiasm. They believe that, “the major requirement for success is not money but enthusiasm and commitment from library staff at all levels”. This report also mentions staff training and awareness as measures to secure the support of staff. It makes a number of recommendations for core attitudes, knowledge and skills necessary for successful co-operation. These are summarised below.

Attitudes Respect for partners

Sensitivity to different cultures and working practices

Commitment and perseverance

Openness to new ideas

Willingness to change

Positive thinking

Prepared to take risks

Flexibility

Knowledge and understanding

29

Knowledge and understanding of the co-operative scheme itself and benefits of working co-operatively

Knowledge and understanding of the partners, their culture, management, working practices, services and facilities

Knowledge and understanding of the potential of ICT to help realise aims

Knowledge and understanding of funding opportunities

Skills Enhanced personal skills

Good two-way communication skills

Ability to manage change

Good team working skills

Good marketing and promotional skills.

2.6.5 Adaptability

Hall and Curry (2000) point to the need for flexible management to permit changes to traditional thinking and attitudes and argue that, encouraged by positive leadership, organisations need to be prepared to take risks. The report on the Hatrics project refers to a number of success factors relating to adaptability:

the ability to adapt over time and respond to changing member requirements

an organic, evolving structure

willingness to absorb ideas from consultants’ reports

awareness of and involvement in national initiatives

the ability to adapt to internal and external developments (Capital Planning Information and Hatrics, 1999).

LASER, an organisation which existed primarily to promote co-operation, attributed its success to its flexible structure which meant it was ‘light on its feet’ and able to respond quickly and effectively to members’ needs; changing economic developments; and technological change (Education for Change, 2000).

2.6.6 Formal agreements

The Hatrics report (Capital Planning Information and Hatrics, 1999) argues that determination to make joint working a success needs to be underpinned by formal service level agreements. These can provide the strategic planning to underpin initiatives in addition to clarity about what each partner offers and how it

30

expects to benefit. The report identifies people and relationships as being crucial to success, but also comments that shared values should not simply be assumed, but may need to be reiterated and formalised.

2.6.7 A well-focused co-ordinating body

The People Flows report (Nankivell, Foster and Elkin, 2000) identifies a funded and staffed co-ordinating body as being critical to success and the Hatrics report argues that a well-focused organisation is needed to provide central facilitating capacities such as set up costs and management.

2.6.8 Good communication

According to the Hatrics report, marketing and promotion are necessary to extract maximum benefits and to encourage wider membership and increased use. However, as this report points out, this adds to staff workloads. “Real communication” was thought to be vital to duplicate the success of this project (Capital Planning Information and Hatrics, 1999). Hall and Curry (2000) also referred to the need for good communication to build confidence and trust as well as publicity which is targeted to reach those who influence learners as well as to maintain interest amongst staff and senior managers in the partner institutions. Attenborough, Fuegi, and Gianoli (2001) also refer to the need to employ lobbying and advocacy to ensure the flow of information between potential partners.

2.6.9 Visible progress

Hall and Curry (2000) highlighted the importance of visible progress to encourage partners to look for benefits not problems and to encourage institutions to focus on the learner and put their needs first. The partners in the SCONE project also mentioned the significance of a project dividend which is visible to users (Education for Change, 2000).

Other success factors, mentioned less frequently, included:

an awareness of, and respect for, differences in focus, culture, political context, working practices and management styles

acknowledgement that each organisation’s ability to contribute to particular issues will vary, depending on different skills, agendas and viewpoints

time for partnerships to succeed

understanding of needs of learners.

31

dialogue with related developments nationally and internationally.

a structure for political debate.

2.7 Conclusion

As Hall and Curry stated:

If they are truly to focus on learners’ rather than their own needs, libraries in all sectors should give serious consideration to developing cross-sectoral co-operative partnerships. Such partnerships offer learners more flexible access to a wider range of resources and offer a greater choice of where, when and at what level they study (Hall and Curry, 2000: iv).

Although both libraries and learners can clearly benefit from collaboration, it is important to remember that “learners and not libraries must be the primary beneficiaries” of collaboration (Curry and Hall, 2000: 46). In order to provide the maximum benefits to learners, libraries need to overcome a number of potential barriers. These include lack of time and funding, lack of knowledge, insufficient co-ordination and leadership, staff attitudes and technical difficulties. These problems are often exacerbated when libraries attempt to collaborate with institutions from another sector and, in particular, from another domain. However, these more ambitious schemes have the potential to deliver significant benefits to learners.

A number of factors have been found to be important in securing the success of collaborative ventures and these may suggest ways in which the barriers outlined might be overcome, for example through improved communication; a shared vision; commitment from senior management; and formal agreements. Although the importance awarded to each of these will depend on the aims and concerns of each initiative, most of these factors are likely to be transferable to some extent to the majority of collaborative ventures between libraries and education designed to support the learner.

32

3. Interviews with the regions

All nine English regions were invited to contribute to the research. Resource is establishing Regional Agencies (RAs) for museums, archives and libraries in each region and telephone interviews were conducted with, or email responses received from the following RAs: South East Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (SEMLAC); East Midlands Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (EMMLAC); North East Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (NEMLAC); South West Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (SWMLAC). Where Regional Agencies for museums archives and libraries are not yet operational, representatives from London Libraries Development Agency (LLDA); Yorkshire Museums Council (YHMC); East of England Library and Information Services (ELISA); The Libraries Partnership – West Midlands (TLP-WM) and, in the North West , Lancashire County Council. 3.1 The role of Regional Agencies (RAs) As the RAs were in the early stages of development and will only all be in place by April 2004, few had fully established their role in supporting cross-sectoral collaboration between libraries and education. In regions where the RA does not yet have its full complement of staff, representatives had particular difficulties addressing some of the issues raised. For example, one of the representatives stressed that its “work is at an aspiration and rather vague level at the moment”. However, most of the interviewees acknowledged that learning and access across all the domains was one of the crucial areas of work for RAs and it was an issue they were keen to address. All agencies which contributed were able to refer the research team to examples of cross-sectoral collaboration being carried out in their region, but several admitted that there were probably activities that they were not necessarily aware of at present. The creation of RAs had presented a challenge for individuals and organisations to gain sufficient knowledge about activities outside their own domain over a short period. For example, most of the work conducted by one RA so far has been research to find out what exists in terms of both single sector and cross-sectoral collaboration. However, over the next few months it intends to be more proactive in terms of promoting and facilitating collaboration and providing support through grant aid.

The move towards RAs has meant a change of role for some agencies. For example, hitherto, one agency had been mainly concerned with inter-library lending, but its ultimate ambition is to become increasingly involved in strategic issues. It is currently revising its objectives and has recently held a meeting of public and HE librarians to try to further collaboration. This agency is seeking to establish more co-operation and to develop and publicise a formal statement for the region.

33

Most regional agencies saw their main role as a strategic one. However, different approaches were taken in various regions. A few examples are given below.

EMMLAC’s role will be in facilitating and leading, in particular, strategic leadership and encouraging the sectors to come together.

For some time, ELISA has had a strategic role in supporting cross-sectoral collaboration, facilitated by the presence of HE and public library representatives on its board. Specifically, its main areas of activity are:

establish EECLAIM (East of England Connections Between Libraries, Archives, Information and Museums)

develop a strategy for the regional support unit involving HE and public libraries.

establish broadband consortium to encourage schools and sixth forms to introduce innovative ICT projects

set up ACER, a support network for FE librarians

conduct preliminary work on cross-domain web portal with some HE/FE input

work closely with Co-East. NEMLAC:

sits on the Regional Education Forum that was set up by the Regional Assembly

supports development of regional strategies eg ICT Strategy, Education Strategy

has developed an Access and Learning Strategy to encourage the development of policy and practice

establishes sub-regional partnerships eg Tees Valley

sets up professional groups eg libraries joint working party.

The LLDA has developed strategic links to connect libraries and learning services, building links with different library sectors and also with organisations such as LSCs. This was achieved by building up working relationships with a range of individuals, from chief executives to basic skills representatives.

TLP-WM provides strategic level support through its relationships with various regional agencies such as the Regional Cultural Consortia and Advantage West Midlands.

A number of interviewees also referred to their role in grant provision and one interviewee mentioned that the regional agencies worked to support bids for

34

funding or sometimes submitted bids on behalf of libraries. One interviewee referred to the role of the RAs in attracting funding to the region.

Agencies were also responsible for the creation of exemplar projects which were intended to demonstrate successful collaborative working and show that learning outcomes can be delivered in different and new ways. These supported their strategic role with front line work at a practitioner level. For example, the LLDA has developed a library specific exemplar project for basic skills which aims to make resources accessible to foster different approaches to learning and demonstrate the different experience learners might expect in a library than in a FE college.

Another role for regional agencies is in the co-ordination of projects and in encouraging communication to enable people to learn from each other and to share experiences.

Training courses were another service offered by some agencies. For example, the LLDA runs Breakfast Seminars for managers of Learning and Skills Councils (LSCs) and courses on the importance of basic skills for librarians.

Collection development and access mapping were also mentioned, although these were considered areas for future work for in most regions.

3.2 Benefits of collaboration for both sectors

One of the main benefits identified was that, through collaboration, public libraries, FE and HE could gain an understanding of what each other is doing. A number of benefits were identified for library staff. It was argued that collaboration encourages staff to look outside their immediate profession and workplace and to realise that there may be certain services which could be performed more effectively by another organisation. Staff development may also be an offshoot of collaboration as staff gain more skills in supporting learners.

Large-scale projects are often not feasible, or advisable, for one sector to undertake in isolation. Collaboration can also save duplication of effort and provide the benefits of economies of scale as resources in all sectors are used to the best effect. Both public and education libraries can gain from access to additional resources such as ICT, book stock and extra staff to mediate access to learning resources. This is not just a benefit in terms of number of resources, but also the range of resources made available. For instance, it allows access to academic research resources via public libraries. Collaboration also allows libraries to extend the range of services they offer without significant financial outlay.

35

It was also pointed out that collaboration is part of the changing political culture between libraries and education; links to the modernisation agenda; and also helps libraries to address the government’s regional agenda.

3.2.1 Benefits of collaboration for the library sector

It was clear from the interviewees’ responses that “learning will always be a key role for libraries”; it is seen as an area where libraries can demonstrate real achievements and collaboration can lead to a better understanding of their role as part of the learning community. Libraries are coming to realise that they are stronger in partnership than as individual units. It was pointed out that learners often do not realise the boundaries of library services and it should be possible for them to cross between authorities and also sectors as and when it was appropriate to do so.

Public libraries can also benefit from tying in with education in terms of profile raising. Links with education might help libraries to attract new users at a time when issues are declining for many. Several interviewees mentioned audience development and collaboration was viewed as a way to tackle under use in certain areas.

3.2.2 Benefits of collaboration for the education sector

It was thought that collaboration with public libraries gave educational establishments more options for delivery and reaching new learners. Libraries could be argued to provide a more inclusive method of delivering learning, as a result of more flexible opening hours and a more adaptable environment for instance. One interviewee pointed out that people who were reluctant to participate in traditional, formal learning opportunities may be more comfortable using libraries. Collaboration helps to bring together learners who would not normally interact. For example, HE students may work with school children and adults with basic skills needs.

In addition, people often appreciate having facilities delivered locally. Collaboration with public libraries is a way to “take things to people where they want it delivered”. It helps educational institutions to reach new audiences, thereby increasing the number of learners and turning verbal or strategic commitments to community learning into reality.

Catalogue sharing was identified as a particular benefit, especially for FE libraries which often experience budget difficulties. This allows learners in FE access to more extensive resources than would normally be available in their own college.

As several interviewees pointed out, education and public libraries can learn many lessons from each other. For example, the customer focus is usually more

36

heightened in public libraries; educational libraries serving a more clearly defined community may be more inward looking.

3.3 Ways in which cross-sectoral collaboration between libraries and education helps to combat social exclusion, in particular rural isolation

It was generally agreed that collaboration allowed all types of libraries to reach people in different ways, thereby helping to combat social exclusion. This might be achieved through partnership with other organisations such as neighbourhood renewal and regeneration officers for example. One interviewee argued that library services are “fundamental” in reaching non-learners, but they needed to take a proactive approach; it has to be about “going out there and trying innovative approaches”; people are not necessarily going to visit the library of their own accord. This issue was being addressed in both formal and informal ways. An interviewee from one RA mentioned that it was in the early stages of setting up an Inclusion Strategy group.

Most of the interviewees felt that public libraries had the potential to act as a community resource in a way that an FE college or HEI could not because of both size and location. It was acknowledged, however, that library use had its own problems, for instance the need to produce identification before joining, and it was recognised that libraries only form part of the overall picture in terms of community learning provision.

Collaborative ICT projects were frequently referred to as a way to combat exclusion and, in particular, rural isolation. One obvious example of this was the People’s Network. One interviewee described ‘virtual campuses’ which were established in partnership with libraries, colleges, the Open University and open learning providers. Access to restricted resources available in educational libraries was discussed, for example, authorised access through PINs to serial collections and catalogues for remote learners. ICT access was also seen as a way to encourage new users, especially those from socially excluded groups.

Agencies in several regions were able to cite examples of particular groups they had worked with. For example, one referred to travellers, children in care and people living in hostels. Another pointed out that its libraries are well used by older people and those in rural locations, who were often at risk of social exclusion. One interviewee pointed out that, in rural areas, the provision of resources in villages avoided the need to travel to larger centres which may be a problem for some people, especially if they rely on public transport. In villages, libraries can act as learning centres. FE colleges were already being used as satellites for HEIs in a number of areas and it was envisaged that, in more rural communities, public libraries could become satellites of HE or FE institutions, providing online access to learning and extending the campus.

37

The provision of outreach and mobile services are particularly relevant to tackling rural isolation. One interviewee described a project which had built on the strengths of the mobile library service to bring a wider range of resources to isolated communities. The library service was working collaboratively with the school library service and museums by organising joint events. It was suggested that this way of adapting the use of mobile libraries could be extended to other services.

As one interviewee said:

Libraries have the ability to welcome and nurture informal learners and provide sign-posting towards formal education opportunities. Their provision goes down to grass roots level and they may be located in areas where “hard to reach” communities are located. They can work in partnership with education to encourage such communities to take part in educational activity.

3.4 Success factors

Interviewees identified a number of factors crucial to the success of collaborative initiatives.

3.4.1 A strategic approach

Most interviewees stressed the need for a strategic, regional approach based on sound political understanding.

3.4.2 Planning and management

There is a need for clear planning and good project management. It is necessary to have common, shared aims and objectives, or as one interviewee put it, “a shared vision of the value of partnership”. Even if their aims were not identical, it is important to know what all the partners are trying to achieve and for aims and objectives to be clear. In a successful collaborative venture, it is vital to consider which organisation is really best placed to undertake each role. All partners need to be aware who is best at doing each aspect of the work and to understand each other’s roles. All partners need to realise that there was something to be gained from collaboration and there were clear benefits for all involved. The extent to which organisations have the same aims is not always recognised and may need spelling out. Written agreements were thought to be important to ensure that “everyone knows what’s required”.

It was thought that by starting with a project with fairly easily achievable goals, partnerships would gain in confidence before moving on to trickier projects. In particular, one interviewee felt that trying to do something too resource-intensive initially could lead to failure. It was pointed out that collaborative ventures could learn from similar initiatives in other areas, for example by using models such as

38

draft access agreements. Effective evaluation and monitoring was also thought to be important to ensure the successful development of the project.

3.4.3 Commitment

It was acknowledged that the commitment of all partners is crucial; a project cannot succeed if only one organisation is enthusiastic. As one interviewee stated, “a lot is based on personalities”. It is important to build up trust between partners and this can only happen if people get to know and understand each other. One interviewee stressed that commitment at all levels was required, not just from senior managers, but also, those staff responsible for delivering the service.

3.4.4 Communication

Communication is crucial, not just between the various partners, but between the organisations and their users. If the community is not involved in decision-making, initiatives were felt to be less likely to succeed.

There is also a need for trained and well-briefed staff with a good understanding of the project. At a practical level, one interviewee felt that simply having staff working in the same location could help to develop a joint service approach and ensure that everyone was aware of the mutual advantages of collaboration.

3.4.5 High-level support

It is necessary to secure the support of the governing bodies and senior management of all the institutions involved. This helps to ensure that money and staff resources are directed towards the work. As one interviewee explained “it has to be top-down”, because librarians themselves do not have sufficient strategic power. This commitment at a senior level needed to be supported in policy documentation such as joint Service Plans.

One interviewee pointed out the need for “an influential driver”, suggesting that this could be a potential role for RAs as they were more independent, not being based in a particular institution.

Conversely, some interviewees argued for more delegated decision-making to allow more responsive collaboration to take place at a local level. It was felt that many library services are very centralised in their management and budgeting. Too rigid an approach could hamper attempts at collaboration.

3.4.6 Funding

While there is often a need to inject substantial resources at the start, funding is also required on a sustainable basis to ensure that projects are able to continue

39

beyond their initial period of funding. One interviewee pointed out that working with other organisations could help to secure funding and to widen the range of funding options.

3.5 Barriers to collaboration

In general, when asked about barriers to collaboration, interviewees responded that these were the opposite of the success criteria.

Lack of planning was a common problem, as was lack of time.

This meant that there may be suspicion due to lack of understanding between the sectors. One interviewee claimed that barriers are “all in the mind”. One of the most obvious examples of this was the fear that education libraries would be ‘swamped’ by suddenly expanding the number of potential users. These types of barriers are usually based on people not understanding each other’s aims. Fear based on lack of knowledge is a barrier to effective collaboration. People are often wary about others coming “onto their patch”; they see the work as duplication rather than complementary.

Staff attitudes can be a major barrier. Staff may not be supportive of schemes aimed at people they do not see as their core clientele. They may also be “over-protective” of resources and fail to perceive the added value of access to other resources and services that can be gained. Even to make fairly minor advances, the cultural shift is enormous and it is difficult to keep staff on board in an initiative that is viewed by some as “not what many of them came into libraries for”.

Commitment was a problem in some cases if the political will was not there; this may mean that clear plans at strategic level are sometimes lacking. If everyone is not on board, there may be problems. Some institutions may not be supportive because they see collaboration as the dilution of resources, allowing resources to be used by people they are not really intended for.

Reluctance on the part of many people to change their ways of doing things was a problem and the different systems operating in different sectors could be a real problem. As one of the interviewees pointed out, people needed to be more flexible and “to give up a little” to make collaboration succeed. One interviewee thought that rigid planning structures sometimes stand in the way of useful, speculative partnerships and initiatives; different planning cycles were an example of this. IT compatibility was another problem; there are often huge differences in the systems used by different sectors.

Insufficient funding: In particular, it was pointed out that certain funding sources were closely linked to the agendas for particular sectors and could not be transferred to cross-sectoral projects.

40

Involving FE is the greatest challenge according to one interviewee. This might be achieved via HEIs, as FE colleges often serve as satellites of universities. Where dealing with FE directly has proved to be difficult, local authorities need to find ways to establish arrangements “by the back door”.

Interestingly, one interviewee warned against libraries being “involved in everything” and “doing things in partnership for the sake of it”, without a true understanding of why they are involved and what the aims are. Libraries need to take more care to consider how the “endless opportunities” in the learning agenda fit into their wider planning and whether they will actually help the library service to achieve its outcomes.

3.6 Ways in which problems may be overcome

One of the most important, yet also the most difficult issues is, therefore, to bring about a change in attitudes. People need to be made aware that they will gain more than they lose as a result of collaboration. In the opinion of one interviewee, this can be best achieved by a change of attitudes at the outset, challenging assumptions and demonstrating aspects of operational effectiveness. It was thought that by providing examples of good practice, which show it is possible and beneficial for disparate services to collaborate, initial reluctance might be overcome.

Interviewees felt it was important to keep staff informed to ensure they were supportive of collaborative ventures. Training and other support could help to boost staff confidence in an area which many considered to be beyond their normal day-to-day work. The support of trade unions, professional bodies and personnel departments was also crucial.

It was clear that support for collaborative ventures was required at all levels, including government, which it was argued provided an “impetus for change” at national and regional level. Commitment is required from all the relevant sectors. More effective promotion may help to secure this along with greater understanding of the role and strengths of libraries from various sectors: “time to sit down and explain to each other”. Several interviewees referred to the “change agenda”. For example, one mentioned that the change management group had an important role to play in overcoming barriers to collaboration.

It was felt that stronger leadership at a regional level was important. However, whether, initially, this was best undertaken at a single or cross-domain level was debateable. Some regional agencies had a clear strategy for libraries, but others found it difficult to separate libraries from the wider cultural sector.

In the words of one interviewee, “money is the key to change”; more resources, in particular long term funding, was seen as crucial as this would allow the

41

opportunity to plan projects over a longer period of time. One interviewee argued that instead of spending government resources trying to encourage people back into formal education, funds might be directed to the cultural sector which can engage with those who are disengaged. Another called for greater “flexibility of funding streams” to allow money to be used in the most effective way to support collaborative ventures. In particular, there needs to be funding in place to support the development of more innovative solutions.

Although targeted project funding has its disadvantages and may lead to problems concerning the sustainability of collaborative ventures, it was acknowledged that extra funding is sometimes useful to get a project up and running.

If it is to be truly successful, collaboration needs to be integrated into normal working practices. It should not be seen as something “over and above” what is done normally. It needs to become a part of the everyday work of all libraries.

3.7 Changes in the nature of cross-sectoral collaboration in the next five years

Interviewees forecast that, over the next five years, there was likely to be greater regional collaboration:

Partnership is an emphasis that will be developed.

Partnership is increasingly the name of the game…it’s the direction we’re going in.

In particular, libraries would be impelled to undertake more collaborative work by the learning and access agenda:

Education is becoming more a part of everyday life, so the way that the sectors develop in this respect will be crucial.

The creation of RAs was thought to embody this movement and these bodies would encourage collaboration not only among libraries, but between libraries and other organisations such as museums and galleries.

Several interviewees forecast more regional collaboration on the acquisition of electronic resources across all sectors. It was thought that technological developments would suggest more practical solutions to current difficulties such as compatibility between sectors:

Collaboration will help to break down the concept of what the library is; technological developments mean that a library is now much more than a single building.

42

It was pointed out that ICT has the potential to deliver particular benefits to learners, for example by personalised learning and greater accessibility which enable learners to:

learn where they want to and when they want to, rather than being trapped into one mould.

One interviewee referred to an overarching framework of data for libraries which would collate the information collected by various government departments and other organisations. This would allow more effective planning to be undertaken.

It was believed that regional library systems would become less operationally based, following the example of LASER, which was previously based on the operation of inter-library loans, but had later become more focused on strategic and resource discovery issues.

One interviewee referred to “better, closer collaboration”; this included shared staff development which would allow the different sectors to learn more about each other. The LSC was identified as an organisation whose role in supporting collaboration was likely to expand over the next few years.

Another interviewee foresaw changes in the way in which libraries, and collaborative ventures in particular, are staffed. He argued that it would be good to have project management staff who can “zip across” projects to respond as the learning agenda changes. It is difficult to say what may happen to the learning agenda more than two years ahead, so libraries need to be more flexible otherwise they may be left with posts for which there is no longer funding available.

Government policy will clearly affect the nature of collaboration. One interviewee referred to the regional agenda; this encompassed the impact of regional government and the push for HEIs to engage in regional development. Best Value was another factor which was thought to encourage collaboration as it requires local authorities to take a thematic approach rather than looking at each service separately.

One interviewee hoped to see the development of a ‘strategic line’ linking HE, FE and public libraries and was hopeful that, although collaborative projects would continue to increase in the immediate future, after about two years, it would probably level off as partnership working becomes the norm and people automatically think of working together. Collaboration will become part of core funding and service delivery, something people have to examine at every point when planning to deliver a service rather than being tied to particular projects.

43

3.8 Conclusion

As one interviewee said, it is important that the sectors work together to provide for different communities. They are “more likely to succeed together than separately”. Collaboration has significant benefits for both sectors in terms of profile-raising; attracting new learners; economies of scale; and staff development for example.

The most important factors which helped to secure the success of any collaborative project were: good planning, management and communication; adequate funding and commitment at all levels. Obviously a lack of any of these factors would act as a barrier to success. A particular problem identified was a lack of understanding which can often exist between organisations from different sectors. A change in attitudes was seen as crucial, but extremely difficult to achieve.

RAs clearly have the potential to support collaboration between public and education libraries, particularly by providing strategic direction. However, in many cases, their role has not yet been adequately developed. It is important that RAs quickly establish their position in this area as collaborative activity is likely to increase in the next few years and libraries and education are likely to look to RAs for support.

44

4. Questionnaire responses

4.1 Geographical location

As Figure 1 shows, the geographical locations of the 29 projects represented were divided across the Regional Agency regions.

5

2

4

2

2

4

1

4

Wales 1

Scotland 1

n=28 (One project was operating on a national basis)

Fig 1: Map showing geographical locations of projects

45

Just under half the projects (14) were considered local, involving partners from within a city or similar local area. Seven were categorised as sub-regional, for example involving libraries within a particular county; and six covered areas corresponding to the Regional Agency regions. The remaining project was a national-level arrangements.

4.2 Size of project

For the purposes of this summary, projects, which involve 10 or more partners, have been classified as ‘large’, 5 to 9 partners as ‘medium’ and 4 or less as ‘small’. Thirteen (45%) of the project reported were ‘small’; eight (27.5%) were ‘medium’; and the remaining eight (27.5%) were ‘large’. It should be noted that, of the number of large projects, two respondents indicated that their projects involved 80 partners, while one project comprised 250 partners. The modal number of partners was three and seven projects had three partner organisations.

4.3 Sectors involved

Respondents were also required to indicate from which sector project partners were drawn. Table 1 summarises their responses. It is important to note that where respondents have indicated that more than one institution from a particular sector is involved e.g. three HE libraries, this has been counted simply as the involvement of a HE library within the project in question.

Type of organisation/partner Number of respondents noting involvement

HE institution 23Public library 18FE college 16National bodies/agencies/institutions 8Medical/NHS 6Local authority/chamber of commerce 4Museum 3Special library 3Secondary school 3Business links/ Local business 2Primary school 1Private sector 1Government agencies 1Voluntary organisations 1n=28 (one respondent did not provide information relating to project partners)

Table 1: Analysis of project partners

46

Unsurprisingly, HE and public libraries were the types of organisations most frequently involved in collaborative projects; the former being referred to by around four-fifths of respondents and the latter by around two-thirds. Over half the projects reported involved a partner from an FE library. Twenty projects included partners from both a public library and HE institution, and thirteen of these also had a FE organisation involved. Some projects involved other types of libraries such as special, school or health libraries. Twenty projects (69%) were cross-sectoral, but only one involved museums and archives as well as libraries. However, in a number of cases, there were one or more non-library partners. More than one-quarter of projects had the involvement of a national body such as the British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC). Other types of organisation to feature included businesses and local authorities. The latter included a number of record offices or archives.

4.4 Timescale

Respondents were asked to indicate the duration of their projects and the results are shown in Table 2. Approximately half the projects were, initially, expected to last just two years or less. However, one-quarter were seen as long term ventures lasting more than five years.

Duration of project Number of respondentsLess than I year 5Up to 2 years 9Up to 3 years 3Up to 4years 2Up to 5 years 15 years + 7n=27 (two respondents gave responses that did not indicate clearly the length of time the project had been running and have been omitted from these results)

Table 2: Duration of projects

Sixteen of the respondents indicated that projects were ongoing. Half of these had been established for three years or less, but a number were well-established; six were projects over five years old. One had been initiated in the 1960s. In other instances, initiatives which had commenced as time-limited projects had proved sufficiently valuable to be continued after the end of the initial funding period and had become an integral part of service provision.

47

4.5 Foci of work

Respondents were asked to indicate the focus of the project in which they were engaged. They could select as many as appropriate. The following table summarises the responses.

Area of focus Number of responsesAccess 25ICT 19Service delivery 19Training 18Promotion 15Collection development 11Research 8Strategic planning 7Archiving 5Financial contribution 2Networking 1Document delivery 1n=28 (one respondent did not complete this section of the questionnaire).

Table 3: Area(s) of project focus

Access was the most frequently cited focus for collaboration (mentioned by 89% of respondents who completed this section). In many cases, this was linked to ICT developments; eighteen projects mentioned both access and ICT as foci for their project. In addition, service delivery, training and promotion were each referred to by more than half the respondents. The less immediately learner-focused areas, such as research, strategic planning, collection development and archiving featured less often. It would, therefore, appear that a significant number of projects were focused on the more practical, immediate aspects of learning provision. However, in terms of their specific aims and objectives, the projects were extremely varied in nature.

4.6 Target audience

Respondents were then asked to indicate a target audience for each aspect of their particular project. Table 4 summarises the responses received. It should be noted that respondents were free to nominate as many or as few audiences as they felt necessary. It is interesting to reflect on the different terms respondents used to identify their audience(s). Unsurprisingly, students and the public were most frequently mentioned. Terms such as ‘anyone’ and ‘all learners’ emphasise the inclusive nature of many projects. In other cases, initiatives were aimed at a specific group of learners such as children, academics

48

or job seekers. In a number of cases, the target audience was not library users themselves, but the library staff.

Target audience Number of respondentsStudents 10Public 9Anyone 6Librarians/Information providers 4Staff 3Researchers 3Business organisations 3Children/young people 3Lifelong learners 2Basic skills/adult learners 2Professionals 2Teachers 1Academics 1All learners 1Local people with particular needs 1Job seekers 1Users of HE, FE and public libraries 1N=28 (One respondent failed to complete this question)

Table 4: Target audience

4.7 Successful aspects of the projects

Comments relating to the successes of the various projects undertaken were again many and varied. Some respondents referred to specific project aims, but others made more general comments. Several recurring themes were apparent and these are summarised below.

4.7.1 Networking and co-operation

The fact that a project had succeeded in encouraging networking, awareness raising and greater co-operation was clearly seen as a benefit. A number of respondents referred to the opportunities to discuss common problems and exchange ideas. It was acknowledged that partners needed to learn from each other and share expertise if they were to meet the needs of learners. One respondent felt that the most successful outcome had been the fact that the various partners had demonstrated a willingness to compromise. Other examples included:

Getting 15 library services to sign up for the scheme…

49

Collaboration, networking. Good working relationships on colleague network basis…

Making use of local expertise…networking and sharing good practice.

The exchange of ideas and the sense of community among librarians in the area

Talking to each other about common issues and ways of addressing these

Catalyst for dialogue and discussion including unexpected inter-regional discussion.

4.7.2 Benefits for learners

Many respondents were obviously focused on the needs of learners. They saw clear benefits for learners themselves as the most successful aspects of the project. For instance:

Students taking part said the project had helped greatly.

Public satisfaction and take-up are high.

4.7.3 Benefits for staff

Staff also enjoyed a number of benefits as a result of collaboration. Several respondents mentioned joint staff training and staff development days and visits. It was clear that many staff appreciated that working in collaboration was beneficial; a number of respondents praised the commitment and attitudes of staff involved in the project:

Staff chosen to undertake the project were very committed and they expanded the scope of the project greatly.

Resilience and dedication of project staff.

4.8 Unsuccessful aspects of the projects

Similarly, a number of themes could be identified relating to the less successful aspects of the projects.

4.8.1 Cross-sectoral links

Some respondents reported that they had experienced considerable difficulties in trying to establish cross-sectoral and cross-domain links. In most cases, this was attributed to poor communication and a lack of understanding between the various partners.

50

Lack of engagement with wider learning agenda. The learning community still does not see libraries as a major player in this area.

Creating links with formal education providers (LEA lifelong learning service) has been slow. Progress is being made with Learndirect but it will be difficult to establish a consistent level of service across 45 libraries.

Communication between departments needs to be improved.

4.8.2 Levels of commitment

Respondents claimed that the level of commitment differed between partners and this had implications for the success of the project overall. In many cases, it was thought that lack of time and the low priority awarded to collaborative projects were responsible.

We were promised substantial professional input from the Education Service (teacher time to advise on content etc.) which did not materialise…

Most academic user group members made little contribution to the project, probably because of lack of time.

Some partners failed to meet their modest targets for populating the database with collection information. This has been particularly frustrating: I attribute the failure to the pressure under which the public libraries, archives, museums and FE library sectors find themselves, and perhaps a relative lack of experience in some of the partners of participating in such projects and a tendency to make it a low priority.

Variable commitment between different institutions.

The questionnaire responses, however, only represent the view of one partner involved in each partnership. The way in which each of the partners view their role and the amount of support they feel they have given is an area which is investigated further in the case studies.

4.8.3 Technical issues

Technical issues presented significant difficulties for some projects. For example:

IT procurement, also getting the Library IT server and the Education department server to 'speak' to each other, numerous other IT problems (plug ins, buying correct equipment)…

Some technical - capacity of library technical network…

No shared catalogue or document delivery system yet. Libraries at different stages in their development here.

51

In some instances, problems encountered impacted upon the expressed aims of the project. This is particularly evident where technical issues have hampered the achievement of key deliverables, such as the launching of a website or creation of a union catalogue.

4.9 Success in achieving aims

Of the 29 respondents, only three indicated that the project aims had been met in full. Approximately four-fifths (23) indicated that certain aims had not been met or advised that the project was ongoing. Two respondents made no comment and one advised that the project had yet to be launched whilst noting “but it is not expected that aims will not be met.”

The reasons given by respondents for the non-achievement of aims were many and varied. Aims that seem most difficult to achieve are those involving the sharing of electronic resources, particularly between partners serving different sectors:

Licensing agreements for academic libraries have not been extended to the public sector. It will require work at a national level for this to be facilitated.

Not every library has an OPAC which makes it difficult to share more specialised areas of collection and highlight to all library users what is available locally.

Has proved impossible to provide access to electronic materials in academic libraries.

The more innovative aims of some of the projects, for instance, those aiming to produce a website, also ran into problems, mainly of a technical nature:

Technical problems with IT have seriously delayed the project…we originally were not doing all the technical side of things…but this had to change with DCMS and Wolfson guidelines.

Another reason given for failure to achieve aims was the differences in procedures and working practices in the various sectors represented.

Inter-lending scheme not as far-reaching as I would have liked, through difficulties in agreeing terms across a wide range of different types of library (school, hospital, FE, HE etc).

Extending academic purchasing consortia into the local authority realm and across further and higher education – differing managing organisations with differing finance prove a barrier to such consortia…

52

There were also difficulties due to varying levels of commitment to the project, for example:

…the slow input of data from some of the partners and the missing of deadlines.

One respondent noted that staff opposition to a proposed project aim caused the abandonment of the objective prior to completion of the project.

The key to successful outcomes, therefore, appears to lie in communication, in particular the clear definition of goals, ongoing consultation and the pooling of knowledge and expertise. A number of respondents reported that demonstrable successes helped to overcome many of the problems they had initially faced, including a lack of enthusiasm from staff and partner institutions.

Reciprocal access in the region for HE has improved as fears of being ‘swamped’ by users from other institutions has proved inaccurate.

Not too ambitious – stayed small and concentrates on the practical – limited but effective.

Another approach detailed by one respondent was to undertake a pilot project to identify the main barriers to working and to find ways to overcome organisational and cultural differences on a small scale before scaling up the project to include other institutions over a wider area:

We expect the other libraries, museums and archives to accept that their sectors have already had input and they can join in with less need for groundwork.

4.10 Benefits of collaboration

Respondents were asked to identify the benefits of a collaborative approach. The main themes identified are detailed below.

4.10.1 Improved access to resources

As the majority of the projects focused on providing access, it was not surprising that a significant number of respondents thought that a collaborative project, if successful, results in the improved provision of, and access to, information resources. In particular, collaboration between HE and public libraries was seen as a way to provide access to specialist resources. Some respondents also referred to awareness raising: collaboration provided learners with information about a range of libraries and also about resources which would otherwise not be widely known about or used.

53

4.10.2 Sharing of skills and expertise

The sharing of skills and expertise was also identified by a number of respondents as being both a benefit, and necessity, of a collaborative effort. Technical expertise was an area where this was seen as particularly valuable.

4.10.3 Greater understanding of the working practices of other institutions

A greater understanding of the working practices and agendas of other institutions was identified as a benefit of collaboration, although it is interesting to note that the differing priorities of differing institutions were also identified as a barrier to successful collaboration.

4.10.4 Training and CPD opportunities

The opportunities for joint staff training and development, particularly on a low-cost basis, were noted as a positive outcome.

4.10.5 Improved funding opportunities.

Finally, the chances of a successful funding bid were seen to be greater when applying as a consortium.

4.11 Barriers to collaboration

Four respondents stated that they had experienced no barriers to collaboration. For the others, the main issues are summarised as follows.

4.11.1 Geographical barriers

One respondent identified the widely dispersed nature of the learners served and their reluctance to travel as a barrier. Another acknowledged the fact that all the partners were in the same city made logistics simpler than they would otherwise have been.

4.11.2 Lack of time

Approximately one-quarter of respondents (7) mentioned lack of time as a barrier to collaboration. In particular, one referred to the increased workload for staff in the lead institution and the danger that they would be forced to neglect core tasks to devote attention to collaborative projects. Co-ordinating meetings and finding time to prepare bids presented difficulties for some projects. Collaboration was

54

often an activity which had to be fitted into existing workloads rather having dedicated staff time available.

4.11.3 Differing aims, objectives and level of commitment

As one interviewee pointed out:

The individual member’s agenda does not always correspond to the needs of the co-operative.

Ten respondents made some reference to differing aims, objectives and priorities. In some instances there was a lack of clarity regarding the role of each of the partners.

Some projects were felt to depend on the enthusiasm of a few individuals rather than enjoying equal support from all the partners. Even within an institution, there were differences in the degree of commitment from staff. Those not directly involved in the project were likely to be less committed due to a “lack of ownership”.

4.11.4 Different working practices

In addition, there were more practical differences between practices usual in different sectors and domains, for example in terms of collection description; different client groups served; and resources and staffing available. The speed of implementation was another factor which differed between partners, making co-ordination awkward.

One respondent referred to the ‘unease’ expressed in some HE institutions about the implications of opening up access to resources to those from outside the institution.

4.11.5 Restrictions on access to electronic information

Access to electronic materials was seen as a barrier on a number of different levels. Firstly, the licensing of electronic materials was identified as a problem, both in terms of cost and legal issues. Secondly, technical issues, i.e. interoperability between library systems, was seen as a barrier to successful collaboration.

4.11.6 Financial barriers

Particular issues mentioned included the number of different funding organisations involved; prohibitive licence fees; and “funding regimes which mitigate against collaborative working”.

55

4.12 Social inclusion

Of the 29 respondents, three-quarters (22) indicated that their project involved aspects of social inclusion. However, this term was interpreted in a number of different ways.

Many of the respondents stated that widening access to resources, encouraging use of libraries, raising awareness of learning opportunities and lifelong learning were high priorities of the project they were involved with. The nature and aims of some projects meant that they were targeted at specific user groups who were often excluded from learning.

[the project targets] deprived wards and people who do not have access to, or are [un]comfortable with mainstream training opportunities.

A prime objective for the service is to bring ICT to people who would not otherwise enjoy easy access.

However, the majority identified their target audience as “anyone” or “all learners”. In most instances this was a fairly vague aspiration to be as inclusive as possible. For example:

Engaging the widest possible audience in learning…

Promote access to information and learning for everyone of all ages in the City, based on the learner not institutions.

Some respondents referred to making resources available in various formats as a method of combating social exclusion. In particular, it was claimed that having a website as a project outcome would encourage social inclusion, as the resource would be freely available within the public domain. For instance:

…the removal of physical barriers in learning, through sharing electronic resources and providing electronic access to catalogues and databases.

This by itself, however, does not ensure a project is socially inclusive. There is a danger that means of access and academic level of the resource may simply reinforce existing problems of exclusion in some cases. With this in mind, a few projects focused on providing access to ICT equipment for people who would otherwise be excluded from such resources.

Another common way for projects to address the problem of social exclusion was to state that access to specialist collections, normally only open to the FE and HE communities, would be made available to all, free of charge, through public libraries:

56

This enables independent students access to collections which would previously have been restricted to students enrolled at the various institutions.

It is interesting to note that given the high proportion of respondents who cited social inclusion as an element of their particular project, few referred to an outcome of this nature when invited to comment on the successful aspects of the work undertaken.

4.13 Sustainability

Of the 29 respondents, only one indicated that the project, in its present form, was unlikely to continue; failure to secure additional funding was given as the reason for curtailment. In another instance, it was stated that, although the project was designed to be fixed-term and would end soon, the main deliverable, a website, would continue, “as long as it serves a useful purpose and can be maintained adequately”. Other respondents indicated that the future of their work would depend on funding being obtained.

Several respondents indicated that the project was likely to grow. Some were vague about exactly what this would involve:

Co-operation is ongoing and will evolve as opportunities arise.

However, other respondents outlined more definite plans to extend the partnership:

Grow network to include school libraries and voluntary agency information staff etc.

In most cases, it was simply a question of different partners being involved; the aims of the project would remain the same. However, a few respondents anticipated that their projects would develop in a particular direction. For instance, one thought it was likely that social inclusion and Internet publishing would be developed further and another hoped to launch a membership card.

In some instances, further funding to sustain the project has already been obtained and in other cases, the partners themselves had agreed to sustain it, either in the long term, or until further external funding was obtained. Several of the projects in question were mature (one has been in existence for 25 years).

4.14 Conclusion

The projects identified through the survey were varied in terms of geographical location, scale, length of time established and types of libraries and other partners involved. In addition, they had widely differing aims and objectives. Nevertheless, it is possible to draw a number of general conclusions.

57

The most successful aspects of collaboration identified by respondents were: networking and the opportunity to exchange ideas; opportunities for staff development; and benefits for learners. Conversely, the least successful aspects were: difficulties in establishing cross-sectoral and cross-domain links; technical difficulties; and a lack of commitment from some partners. The key to successful outcomes appears to lie in communication, in particular the clear definition of goals, ongoing consultation and the pooling of knowledge and expertise. A number of respondents reported that demonstrable successes helped to overcome many of the problems they had initially faced, including a lack of enthusiasm from staff and partner institutions.

Collaboration was seen as a worthwhile activity because it had a number of benefits such as improved access to resources; opportunities to share skills and expertise; greater understanding of the working practices of other institutions; training opportunities; and improved funding opportunities.

However, there were a number of barriers to successful collaboration. Some of these were practical such as geography; lack of time; or lack of finance. However, other barriers were more fundamental, for example different aims, objectives and level of commitment; and different working practices.

Despite the difficulties, most respondents indicated that their partnership was likely to continue and, indeed, in many cases, extended providing funding could be secured.

58

5. Case studies

Six case studies were selected from the twenty respondents who indicated an interest in being involved in this stage of the research. These were intended to be representative of collaborative arrangements:

involving different types of libraries (and other organisations)

operating at different scales in terms of area covered and number of partners

established for different lengths of time

located in different regions

targeted at different types of learners

aiming to meet learners’ needs in different ways

having successful and less successful outcomes

having different foci for collaboration.

The research team also took the following DfES criteria into consideration in the selection of case studies:

projects should help to promote social inclusion

at least some of the case studies should address issues relating to rural localities

the main focus of the projects should be on providing opportunities for adult (post-16) learners.

The following section provides a report on each of the case studies based on interviews with project partners and analysis of supporting documentation.

5.1 Canterbury Circle of Libraries

The methodology used to investigate the Canterbury Circle differed from that used in the other case studies. It was originally planned to visit Canterbury to meet with a number of members of the Circle. However, it was not possible for a member of the research team to travel on the day planned. The Circle decided to go ahead with their meeting and to discuss the issues raised by the research. It was not possible to arrange another meeting within the timescale of the project, so the case study contact agreed to provide the research team with a report from the meeting. This was followed up by short interviews with a number of the Circle members.

59

5.1.1 Background

Canterbury itself is a fairly prosperous area, although there area areas of social deprivation in the surrounding coastal area, for example Thanet, Margate and Dover. As there are three HEIs, the student population is high. The area attracts a large number of tourists.

The Canterbury Circle of Libraries is a self-financing group, which has been in existence since the 1960s; it was one of the earliest examples of collaboration between libraries and education in the country. It was therefore in existence before most of the current project contacts took up their posts and this made it difficult for them to comment on reasons for joining. As one said, “most of us joined it when we took up our posts here”.

The Circle now has a very wide membership including universities, colleges, schools, public libraries, medical libraries and special libraries. There are currently seventeen member libraries. Most are based in Canterbury and the surrounding area, but some are part of larger institutions within Kent (e.g. Kent Arts and Libraries, Kent Institute of Art and Design). Although the core membership from the main libraries in Canterbury and the surrounding area has remained the same, membership has obviously not been static over the four decades the Circle has been in existence. As new people are appointed to libraries in the area, they are encouraged to join the Circle. In addition, the Circle has expanded to include school libraries; specialist libraries such as the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies and Chaucer College; and those outside the original geographical area, such as Thanet College.

The Circle promotes co-operation among a wide range of libraries in Canterbury and the surrounding area. Examples of the types of activities it carries out are: joint training events and visits and an inter-lending scheme. The primary work of the Circle is to act as a forum for the exchange of ideas and information between the heads of various library services. Members meet three times a year as a committee to exchange information and to strengthen links.

HE Institutions Kent Institute of Art and Design: a specialist library for fine art, design and

architecture with reference access for all Canterbury Christ Church University College: the library serves a

population of over 10,000 full-time and part-time students. Humanities, science, business studies, media, health and nursing studies courses have been added to the College’s original teacher education focus.

Chaucer College, Canterbury: the library provides resources for the academic needs of Japanese students undertaking foundation studies in English and the liberal arts and also serves as a resource for the University of Kent and the community in the area of Japanese studies.

University of Kent at Canterbury, Templeman Library: the university has over 12,000 students

60

Imperial College at Wyes and Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine: a collection mainly focused on agriculture, horticulture, the rural environment and supporting sciences and social sciences.

FE Colleges Carey Learning Resources Centre, Canterbury College: a resource centre

with a broad-based bookstock. People from the wider community and pupils from neighbouring schools are able to use the centre for reference purposes.

Thanet College: a collection reflecting the wide range of academic and vocational courses taught at the College. The library is available to the public for reference use.

School libraries Barton Court Grammar School Kent College The King’s School

Public Libraries Canterbury Library: the library houses a general adult and young people’s

lending collection; a reference collection which includes business information, community information, sources for genealogists, maps and statistics; and a local studies collection.

Medical Libraries Kent & Canterbury Hospital Non-Medical Library: based in the Nurse

Education Centre, the library supports all Trust staff who require up-to-date information to support their work. Titles cover nursing, healthcare and management issues.

Kent Postgraduate Medical Centre: medical books and books and journals on dentistry and veterinary medicine plus a special section of books written for patients.

East Kent Community NHS Trust: the library houses materials relating to mental health, nursing, professions allied to medicine, health visiting and psychology, open to non-members for reference. A small branch of Kent Public Libraries is adjacent.

Special Libraries Canterbury Cathedral Library: an historic library containing a large

collection of early printed books for reference only. Franciscan International Study Centre: a study centre with stock mainly in

the fields of theology and philosophy; university staff and theology students have borrowing rights.

61

The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies: an extensive collection of genealogical and heraldic reference materials available by prior appointment.

5.1.2 Aims of project

The Circle focuses on access arrangements, collaborative promotion of library services and joint training. The overall aims of the Circle relate to quality “the pursuit of excellence”: the sharing of best practice; the sharing of resources; and support for member organisations. All the Circle members who attended the meeting felt that these fitted well with the aims of their respective organisations:

We are all in some way or other providing services to learners and access to all resources in the area has been at the core of our work.

5.1.3 Roles of the various partners

The members of the Canterbury Circle are the Librarians, or equivalent (eg Learning Resources Managers, Director of Information Services), in each organisation represented. The group has a Chair and Secretary, but it is run on an informal basis with all members participating in decision-making and planning. The Chair and Secretary are both elected by the members. The Secretary organises the programme of visits with the help of the host institutions and training is organized among the members themselves. The group meets formally twice a year and visits and other events are arranged at other times. Outside these, the Canterbury Circle also provides an informal network for librarians across a wide range of different libraries to meet socially.

Since the Circle was first established, the roles of member organisations have changed little, although naturally the roles and responsibilities of many members have changed over the years within their organisations.

5.1.4 Successes

The members felt that the fact that the Canterbury Circle has kept going for so many years and has widened the range of its activities to keep up with new developments within libraries was, in itself, an indication of its success.

One of the most successful aspects of the initiative was felt to be the benefits of networking among librarians from many different sectors. The Circle has allowed people working in libraries of different sizes; serving various user groups; and based in different types of organisations to meet and share ideas and information. For example, one interviewee reported how a “Book Talk” feature of her library’s staff meetings had recently been adopted by the Circle. The Circle provides opportunities for librarians to discuss common problems and devise solutions, fostering a “sense of community” which might not otherwise exist. Members also felt that the programme of visits was very beneficial, enabling staff to gain “a better understanding of other libraries”. The inter-library loan scheme

62

also works successfully. They felt that the fact that the group had been kept informal was an important factor contributing towards success.

5.1.5 Benefits of collaboration

Benefits for the partner institutions and their staff

The librarians themselves reported that there has been great value in sharing information and comparing experiences within a supportive network. The Circle members agreed that, “the network benefit is seen as one of its main attractions”. All the members who attended the meeting felt they had gained a good deal of knowledge about the working of other libraries through the Circle’s activities. One librarian who was interviewed spoke about having a greater understanding of the priorities of different types of libraries through involvement in the Circle; this insight was useful when considering other joint projects. Members believed that the regular programme of visits and the occasional training events provide the opportunity for all library staff to meet with colleagues from many different types of libraries and make their own contacts. One librarian said that having a list of contact people at various local libraries could be extremely valuable. In particular, it was noted that smaller libraries had the opportunity to receive support from larger partners and, through joint initiatives, had opportunities to take part in training and other activities which might otherwise not be available to them within their own organisations.

At the meeting, several people commented on how much they valued the Circle as a means of getting to know other librarians in the area. However, it was felt that the importance of opportunities for informal networking offered by Circle membership are often not fully recognised.

Benefits for learners

As staff gain knowledge of the collections and services available from other libraries through visits and other contact ,they are able to direct learners to appropriate locations if their needs cannot be met within a particular library. Learners benefit directly from the Circle’s activities as, through individual contact or through the website, they can gain reference access to any of the other libraries in the Circle and, where appropriate, can take part in the inter-library lending scheme. One interviewee commented on the importance of providing learners with access to resources in locations near to their homes or places of work; collaboration can help to provide resources in the most convenient locations for learners.

5.1.6 Problems experienced

All the Circle members attending the meeting expressed an awareness of the limits of their own resources: library materials, time and staffing. This meant they were sometimes not able to advance the Circle’s activities as quickly and as extensively as they might like if unlimited resources were available. Being self-financing, the Circle has adopted “a fairly cautious approach”, for example with

63

regard to inter-lending and the training programme. However, this has not necessarily been a problem. Representatives at the meeting felt that the Circle’s low-key approach to collaboration had worked very effectively as it meant that:

expectations were not raised to a level that we could not deliver.The different funding rules and mechanisms operating in the various institutions belonging to the Circle can be a barrier to effective collaboration. In particular, it has proved tricky to agree terms for inter-lending across the different types of library. This means that the arrangement for inter-library loans is not yet as developed or as formal as it might be. Similar problems have hindered the introduction of other formal access policies.

As the Circle has been in existence for approximately four decades, it is inevitable that the member organisations will have changed considerably during this time. This has meant that it has sometimes been difficult to get representation from all groups, for example, the public library no longer has a librarian based in Canterbury. Although there are a large number of members of the Circle, some are not regular, active participants. In particular, it has sometimes been difficult for the librarians of smaller libraries to come to meetings and even in larger libraries, it is often not possible for the same member of staff to attend each meeting; although this has the advantage of involving more staff in the Circle, it can mean there is a lack of continuity. Members of the Circle, such as schools and smaller health libraries, who have very few staff, find it particularly difficult for people to leave the library to attend external meetings. An interviewee from a smaller library explained that, as the only fulltime member of staff, she had to carefully consider the possible benefits of attending any particular meeting, weighing these against the difficulties of arranging staff cover. For this reason, she found that the Circle membership was “more an ideal than reality”.

There has been some evidence of tension between the large and smaller institutional members of the Circle. Some of the larger academic libraries have expressed concern that they will be “swamped” by requests from smaller libraries in the region due to the more extensive nature of their holdings in comparison to the smaller libraries in the Circle. However, this was also true of smaller libraries with specialised collections. Librarians feared that they would not have sufficient staff, space or resources to cope if demand were to increase significantly.

While having seventeen member libraries ensures that a variety of library sectors, and therefore, types of experience, are represented in the Circle, this can make it difficult for members to appreciate the relevance of certain aspects of the Circle’s activity in relation to the needs of their library and its users. While there are clear links between certain sectors, such as health and academic libraries, the connections between other sectors, for example health and archives, are less obvious.

Although the representatives on the Circle are enthusiastic about the benefits of membership, this view is not necessarily shared by other staff in their institutions. Among some staff, the Canterbury Circle is viewed “an exclusive club for Chiefs”

64

and, therefore, irrelevant to staff at lower levels; it was originally named Circle of Librarians rather than Circle of Libraries. Although the members of the Circle maintain that having a forum where librarians can exchange experience remains valid, they also recognise the need to be more inclusive and to involve other library staff in the visits and training events.

5.1.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas

The members of the Circle are:

a diverse group representing all sorts of different libraries and different types of learners.

Coming from such a diverse range of library services, members of the Circle are concerned with different political agendas. One interviewee reflected that having the opportunity to discuss current political issues with colleagues in other sectors was a useful exercise as it helped her to understand how government concerns impacted on different organisations. For example, at the meeting, members of the Circle agreed that having personal contacts in a number of libraries in the area made it easier to encourage learners who may be lacking in confidence to make use of resources across all the libraries in Canterbury. This was thought to be especially true for the number of distance learners to whom some members actively promoted their services. Through access agreements, the Circle also allows members of the public access to specialist resources in university libraries and special collections.

Many of the current political buzzwords, such as the concepts of lifelong learning, joined-up services and social inclusion were not in existence when the Canterbury Circle was formed. However, the members attending the meeting did not see the length of time it had been established as a disadvantage. The Circle had not had to fundamentally alter its aims to reflect current political thinking. Rather, it had been practising these concepts long before they became part of political rhetoric.

I think we are all aware now of the importance of collaboration and resource sharing in the context of lifelong learning. In this we feel the Canterbury Circle has been ahead of the game in relation to the number of new projects now starting up.

Similarly, in terms of accountability, best value and sharing good practice, it was argued that these were principles the Canterbury Circle were espousing before they became high on the political agenda.

Through the Canterbury Circle we are making our resources more widely available locally and sharing best practice.

65

5.1.8 The impact of ICT

ICT has been used by the members of the Circle as an administrative tool, to email dates of meetings, minutes etc; to check catalogues on the web; and to establish their own website. This is seen as a useful place to direct learners who are looking for resources which are not available in a particular library. However, ICT has also presented difficulties; licence constraints mean there are problems in the electronic access of resources in the individual libraries. In general, ICT resources are only available to students registered at a particular institution.

5.1.9 The future

All those members of the Circle who were present at the meeting were keen to continue to participate in the activities of the Circle. They also suggested a number of ways in which they expected the Circle to develop over the next few years.

The training events currently run by the Circle were seen as one of the most successful aspects of its work and members were anxious to see these continue. However, taking on board comments that the Circle was seen as an organisation for library managers rather than staff, it was suggested that more library staff might be involved in the organisation and running of these events.

Members also thought that the membership of the Circle might be expanded further, for example by involving museums and archives or business partners. Others suggested that partnerships developed through Circle activity could be extended to apply for funding or to establish joint projects involving a limited number of partners. Following local government reorganisation, public library membership has become an area of concern and something which the Circle was aware needed clarification.

However, regardless of changes in the membership or types of activities undertaken by the Circle, it was thought to be important that the initiative should continue on a goodwill basis. Members did not envisage seeking funding or “doing anything that would cause more administrative burdens for members of the Circle”. However, as one interviewee pointed out, if the Circle was to remain self-financing, its impact would inevitably be limited.

5.1.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects

Collaborative projects are seen as important in Kent because the county covers a large area and distances are a barrier. Members see the particular benefits of the Canterbury Circle as being the fact that it is small and that the members are all near to one and other, making it easier to meet and to organise events.

However, members of the Circle are also involved in a number of other collaborative projects. Many of these are sector-specific. For example, the HEIs

66

are members of the M25 Consortium and/or UK Libraries Plus, which enables part-time, distance, and placement students to borrow material from other libraries. Likewise, school librarians belong to various national and regional groups and the NHS Trust Librarians are part of the regional network. The Service Level Agreement, currently under development, will hopefully allow equitable access to NHS library resources for HE students on placements

There are also local branches of COFHE and CILIP. The recently formed KILN (Kent Information and Library Network) is more wide-ranging and includes more than forty organisations from sectors as diverse as education, health, the voluntary sector, public libraries and commercial organisations.

5.1.11 Conclusion

This project is the most long-established of the case studies, but it has adapted in response to change in the library domain over time. Despite the longstanding nature of this project, different funding arrangements and other institutional ‘rules’ have also presented difficulties. A formal inter-lending scheme and other formal access policies have not proved workable. Being self-financing, the Circle has deliberately taken a cautious approach. However, one of it strengths is that it is seen as a good way to exchange ideas and to encourage informal contact. In the future, the Circle members plan to involve more library staff in its activities and to widen its membership.

67

5.2 DELTA (Derbyshire Learning and Technology Access)

5.2.1. Background

The DELTA project was an initiative of Derbyshire Libraries and Heritage, which was successful in a bid to the DCMS/Wolfson Public Libraries Challenge Fund in 1997 to launch its first phase. It is now nearing completion of the fourth phase. These are detailed below.

Phase 1 (November 1997- January 1998)

The total money committed on this phase was £200,000. £100,000 was from DCMS/Wolfson funding, £24,000 from local Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) and £30,000 in kind from British Telecom (BT). Prior to the funding, there was no public ICT and little staff ICT provision; in particular, there was no computer catalogue. The money enabled all eight district headquarters libraries to go online plus one other (New Mills). BT’s help was particularly useful because there was no infrastructure in Derbyshire; much of the county is inaccessible, and cable providers had shown little interest in setting up lines. BT provided training, literature and ensured the work was done on time. Thirty-three personal computers (PCs) and two servers were set up in nine locations. The timespan for this phase was extremely short, but work was completed because of very good management and help from BT.

Phase 2 (1998 – 1999)

In order to link into Government objectives for social inclusion, Derbyshire applied for DCMS/Wolfson funding in the next round to enable ICT to serve isolated communities. Their success meant that by the end of February 1999, there was a network of over 70 PCs and a further eleven libraries were catered for, this time the smallest in the county, were targeted.

Phase 3 (1999 – 2000)

This looked at the mobile library service, which accounts for 22% of the use of Derbyshire Libraries, with thirteen vehicles serving 1,700 locations. Most of the vehicles are medium-sized because of the roads on which they have to travel. However, a bid was prepared to fit out the three maximum capacity vehicles with Internet access. Some residents opposed this, fearing loss of bookstock to make way for the computer, and so shelving was added to compensate for this. The biggest problem was one of topography, that is, the cost of getting satellite coverage for remote areas. BT found a company that sorted out the problem using wireless technology (Breezecom). The library negotiated with 21 buildings and fitted each with an ISDN link and transceiver. These buildings ranged from community halls and a swimming pool to a broom cupboard in someone’s home. The mobile vehicles are fitted with transceivers which lock onto the building

68

transceiver when within a three kilometre radius of the building. The system, which cost £190,000 to implement, has been “remarkably robust”, the only difficulty being where buildings in some locations have recently undergone refurbishment and have not been able to maintain the link for periods of time.

Phase 4 (2001-2002)

This has been undertaken via the People’s Network initiative. This has enabled the extension of Internet access to all 46 libraries and the replacement of ISDN links with broadband, though unfortunately this has not been possible in the 21 remote buildings.

The DELTA project has enabled Derbyshire library service to move from a position in 1997 where there was no public access to ICT to 315 access points in 2002.

5.2.2. Aims of project

DELTA’s aims are to:

improve access to information for all library users in Derbyshire, overcoming those barriers which result from geographical isolation, or social or economic disadvantage

broaden the appeal and relevance of the library, especially to young people and to those who may not be regular library users

enable local people to explore opportunities for life-long learning in an informal and non-threatening environment

improve access to on-line facilities for visually impaired people

improve the quality and availability of information about Derbyshire County Council and other public services

improve access to information for small and medium sized businesses and for job-seekers

improve communications and the transfer of information by the use of video conferencing technology, making more efficient use of specialist advisers and information providers in other County Council departments.

They clearly match three of the key aims of Derbyshire Libraries as a whole, which are:

to increase social inclusion

to enhance lifelong learning

to improve access to services.

69

5.2.3. Roles of partners

Derbyshire Libraries have had a mixed history in terms of their place in the hierarchy of the Council’s services. Many years previously they had been placed with the Arts. They were then moved to the Education department, before forming a separate department with Heritage. Some mixed experiences within the Education department had led the library service to be cautious in developing partnerships once they were again a separate department, and for this reason, the partnership that has since flourished as a result of the DELTA project, with the Adult Education Department in particular, was not built into the original DELTA proposals, but has emerged from careful working together once the DELTA ICT infrastructure was established.

The Adult Education department has seventeen dedicated community centres, but delivers courses across a range of subjects over 250 sites in Derbyshire. It has been delivering basic skills classes in libraries outside library opening times for many years. The department has been carrying out a parallel project to DELTA under the Capital Modernisation Fund programme which has provided the seventeen community centres with Internet access. The fuller collaboration with the Libraries Department has helped both departments to combine their strengths in order to reach a greater number of learners more effectively. While the Library service had the computer infrastructure in place, it could not release staff from other duties to conduct time-consuming one-to-one help sessions with users. The Adult Education department, on the other hand, did not have the same access to users, but has revenue funding to provide tutors, so was able to place tutors in libraries to help individuals progress with their ICT skills while using the library’s facilities.

5.2.4 SuccessesThis project has generated a lot of numbers.

In general, this was a project to provide ICT to the whole county particularly to those who might not otherwise have access to ICT. This means that the learner base is not known in numerical terms. However, usage data confirms that the target groups are using the PCs. The latest system gives demographic information based on the user’s log-in (assuming he or she uses a library card number). The borrower database is downloaded into the log-in system and is searchable. Of the 70,000 sessions logged in between March and August 2002, 18,000 were visitor log-ins. Of those who logged in using their library membership number, it was possible to deduce the following:

11,000 were in receipt of unemployment benefit

10,000 were under 12 years of age.

70

3,000 were over retirement age

The remaining 28,000 who logged in were everyday adult users.

In the early phases there was a print evaluation form by each PC. Many of these were filled in and provided a lot of useful feedback. Now they are used infrequently and are to be redesigned and perhaps targeted in a different way. However, an example of useful information from the original forms is that 95% of respondents found the interface either “easy” or “very easy” to use.

There was a Best Value review of information services in Derbyshire Libraries, and three focus groups were convened to look at information-seeking behaviour among non-library users. The participants were recruited in the street by an independent research company, and attended a group in one of three contrasting parts of the county. Many had no idea of the range of information services which the library could offer, and as a result all libraries are to be re-badged as “library and information centres”.

The success of the project is often anecdotal, because there is no formal mechanism for measuring outcomes of the learning experience and people do not generally tell the library staff of particular instances that have increased their skills. From observation, staff have noticed large numbers of older people learning to use the computers (and this is borne out by the log-in information).

5.2.5 Benefits of collaboration

Benefits for the project partners and their staff

Everyone wants to know us now.

The Library Service has a much higher profile now, both in the County Council, where other departments now come to them when they wish to impart information, and in the wider public library community, where practitioners from all over the UK are visiting in order to inform development of their own ICT systems.

The Council has a large-scale change management programme. The library service hopes to be able to develop some buildings both for library use and for integrated use with other departments. For example, officers involved in remote working or working from home might be able to use office facilities in the local library.

Library staff have benefited from increased ICT training, both in-house under the DELTA project and from the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) national ICT training initiative. Staff have gained in confidence, both in having access to a fuller range of resources and in being able increasingly to supply what users want.

71

Benefits for learners

Learners have benefited both in improved access to resources and in the sense that some have become learners without realising it. Those who may not have thought of themselves as learners have learnt to use the PC in their local library because they perceive it as a friendly, safe environment in which to risk trying out their skills.

Derbyshire has many areas of deprivation, often in former coalfield areas. Access to the Internet is available in only 29% of households (though this may in part reflect the lack of an appropriate cable network in many parts of the county). This means that young people in particular will continue to have inadequate access to ICT in many areas, and so the library service has been able to increase opportunities so that they have equivalent access with their peers in other areas. This fulfils one of the requests emerging from library research conducted by Priority Search in 1995 where young people repeatedly asked for “IT in libraries”. Chesterfield Library (the largest in the county) now has 40 PCs and they are in constant use by a cross-section of society.

The collaboration with Learndirect has been twofold:

1. the tutor-led learning in an increased number of libraries

2. encouraging users in the library to access Learndirect courses. It is now possible for learners to enrol directly from the library.

Both of these have enhanced users’ experience of ICT in the library. In particular, Learndirect has offered the most suitable means of meeting the needs of distance learners.

5.2.6 Problems experienced

The only problems experienced related to the need to secure funding:

Difficulties encountered in the DELTA project have all been to do with funding, either acquiring funds or monitoring the budget.

5.2.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas

The whole DELTA project was conceived as a response to the need to address the twin agendas of social inclusion and lifelong learning.

Other issues have impacted on the project, notably joined-up services, where the interest of other departments like Adult Education, including Lifelong Learning, and Trading Standards and the legal department has been harnessed to make Derbyshire Libraries’ facilities more widely available.

72

Local government reorganisation has not particularly impacted on the DELTA project. Derbyshire Libraries continue to enjoy the good working relationship with Derby City Libraries which was established after reorganisation in 1995.

Derbyshire Libraries continue their effective regional links with other public libraries and with Further Education Colleges and the University of Derby. They are involved with regional groups including an information group and a regional training unit.

Issues of accountability, particularly the Best Value requirement, have been huge in their impact on DELTA. Pilot Best Value reviews in 2000 and 2001, on ‘information services’ and ‘materials and acquisitions’ respectively, have informed development of the DELTA project, and the current whole service review will undoubtedly affect developments of the ICT infrastructure. One of the previous reviews examined alternative information services available ‘in the market place’. The only serious alternative appeared to be Instant Library. Derbyshire Libraries therefore made contact with them and now has a contract with them, through DELTA, to maintain high quality web data, and, where resources are paid for, for them to negotiate the fees with the suppliers. Instant Library are also marketing the booking system for PCs which Derbyshire Libraries have developed in-house. This is being sold to other library authorities.

5.2.8 The impact of ICT

ICT was central to the whole project.

5.2.9 The future

Although the fourth phase of the DELTA project ends at the end of October 2002, the project’s sustainability has been assured through earmarking of funds to support maintenance of the infrastructure. Further developments are planned as follows:

Videoconferencing

This is the latest development in the DELTA project, and the facility is now being taken up locally by Derbyshire’s Trading Standards Department and nationally by the Inland Revenue. Derbyshire Libraries will be a national pilot for new call centres for the Inland Revenue and will monitor the effect of the new telephone-style videoconferencing machines.

Virtual reality for people with special learning needs

DELTA is hoping to build on work undertaken at Nottingham Trent University, where virtual reality has been used to help individuals with special learning needs. A ‘virtual shopping trip’ has been created online. Students work through

73

this, then go to a real shop to try the experience with the benefit of the virtual learning experience fresh in their minds. Nottingham Trent University are making a ‘virtual courtroom’ at the moment, in order to help with the experience of giving evidence in court. It is hoped that these online situations can be rolled out to the general public through the DELTA network. Such an initiative would contribute hugely to the Council’s social inclusion agenda.

5.2.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects

Collaboration is clearly seen as a valuable method of working by Derbyshire Libraries and Heritage. It has formed partnerships with other public library authorities, libraries from other sectors, businesses, education and other bodies.

Picture the past is a digitisation project in collaboration with the library services of Nottingham and Derby City. A further partner is the local newspaper, the Derbyshire Evening Telegraph. Because of the DELTA and People’s Network infrastructures it is now possible to deliver such a service. A combined total of 400,000 images is held by these authorities and these are being digitised at the rate of 1,000 a month. Funding was awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund after a protracted bid.

Various links have been established with the BBC. In earlier years the Adult Education department was involved in the “Committed Learner” project which centred round the production of videos from BBC night-time educational programmes, which were then made available through the public libraries. The scheme was not followed through effectively. At present the links have been established again through provision of a BBC learning bus. Other ‘learning’ buses in Derbyshire have been set up by organisations, for example, Age Concern’s IT bus, and the two buses belonging to the Adult Education Department use the Derbyshire Libraries mobile infrastructure to access the Internet. This kind of co-operation prevents duplication of effort and resources and is extremely beneficial to the people of Derbyshire.

Moving here started three years ago and is organised by the New Opportunities Fund, the Public Record Office, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL). Derbyshire Libraries have been represented through the SCL, which is hoping to make more widely available appropriate resources in public library local studies collections.

The project is setting up a website about migration to the UK, concentrating particularly on the experience of people from the Caribbean, from Asia and members of the Jewish communities from Europe. The site will pull together documentary evidence of the experience of migrants including personal testimonies.

74

Peakland Heritage is a website project (peaklandheritage.org.uk) which was set up with a British Library grant under its Co-operation and Partnership Programme. The project partners are Derbyshire Libraries and Heritage, the British Library and the Peak District National Park Authority. The site was launched in March 2002 and provides a wealth of material drawing on the resources of all the partner institutions.

Learning partnerships, a collaboration with the Government-led Learndirect scheme has been particularly successful at Alfreton and Ripley Libraries.

A less successful collaborative effort for the library service has been the Derbyshire Learning Partnership. The library services had to work hard to gain representation on the Board, and in the event, Derbyshire and Derby City authorities were allowed only one seat between them, so have to alternate their membership.

For some years, Derbyshire Libraries has had close collaboration with the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield, and this has led to a number of Masters’ dissertations being undertaken on aspects of the DELTA project. These have been extremely useful contributions to the overall evaluation of the project.

IT services to residential homes and the housebound are championed by the head of Lifelong Learning in Derbyshire County Council, who is keen to increase access to the resources of the library service by making the catalogue available and other Internet services. Derbyshire’s difficulties with connecting mobile telephones (in order to make the Internet connection) has been overcome by the provision of BT chargecards to library staff, who can then use the resident’s own phone to make the Internet connection. This project is only just beginning and should enable the Library service to provide links not only to its own resources but to wider Council services. It may also in the future provide the means to support individuals with learning needs through one-to-one support.

East Midlands Broadband Consortium is an initiative funded by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), whose aim is to see the whole region ‘wired up’, including schools and libraries. The partners are all the education authorities in the area, the computer company ICL and a company called TORCH. The project is partly one of creating an infrastructure and partly content creation.

5.2.11 Conclusion

The DELTA project has differed from other case studies in this research in that the project was not a collaborative venture at the outset, but wholly initiated by the Department of Libraries and Heritage in Derbyshire. However, once established it was able to foster the development of partnerships, notably with

75

the Education Department and this has not only broadened the scope of the project, it has enriched what the library service has been able to offer and ultimately has led to the development of a Council-wide service whereby citizens can begin to see seamless access to resources and advice networks across Council departments. The particular contribution of the Adult Education department has been to provide tutors in libraries to complement the extensive network of computers put in place by the DELTA project. For the Adult Education department, this collaboration has increased the number and range of outlets through which their expertise can be offered, and in a place (the local library) which appears more user-friendly than a traditional learning centre.

76

5.3 Find it in London

5.3.1 Background

The Find it in London (FiiL) pilot project grew out of the London Learning Network Group (LLNG). LLNG was established to explore the possibilities for cross-sector collaboration across Greater London in support of lifelong learning. It recognised the growing importance of co-operation and collaboration but found that collaborative work was very limited and tended to be within sectors and not cross-sectoral.

As LLNG came to an end, the group decided to draw on what it had learnt about collaborative working to develop a web-based, cross-sectoral resource discovery tool. The tool aimed to enable learners to find institutions in London with strong collections in their search topic.

A bid for funding was made to the British Library Co-operation and Development stream, but failed because the project was felt to be too ambitious. Anticipating the failure of the bid, £11,000 in funding was raised from contributions from London Learning Network Group, M25 Consortium of HE Libraries, Association of London Chief Librarians, LASER, British Library and London Metropolitan Network Board. FiiL is also being supported by London Museums Agency, London Libraries Development Agency, London Archives Regional Council, London Museums, Archives and Libraries and Further Education Libraries in London.

The money was used to fund a year-long pilot scheme, starting in November 2001. The project management team consisted of a Project Director, Project Manager and Project Technical Manager and ten institutions agreed to be project partners. The partners consisted of two higher education libraries, two further education libraries, two museums, two local authority archives and two public libraries:

London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (Museum)

Birkbeck College, University of London (Library)

London Borough of Enfield (Museum)

London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (Archive)

Harrow College of Further Education (Library)

Havering College of Further Education (Library)

London Borough of Lambeth (Archive)

London Borough of Merton (Library)

University of Westminster (Library)

Westminster Public Library

77

As well as serving a range of areas and sectors, the partners also varied in terms of size and number of users.

As this was a new approach to collaborative work the project management team drew on the experiences of LLNG, but also other similar collaborative projects such as Crossroads and InforM25 in order to see what they were doing but also the schema they were using and the standards in force.

The partners all volunteered for the project and decided to be involved for a range of reasons. Some institutions have a policy on collaboration or are actively looking to be involved in collaborative projects, whilst others simply thought that it sounded interesting. Some of the partners also had links to LLNG and the project management team.

5.3.2 Aims of project

The main aim of Find it in London was to see whether it was possible to work collaboratively with a range of sectors in order to develop a web-based look-up tool allowing learners to answer the question, “Where in London will I find strong collections in my subject?”. However, the limited funding for the pilot scheme meant that the focus was on testing the workability of the concept, the schema and the technology involved, rather than producing an end product.

In order to test the concept, the project team aimed to find common ground between the sectors to develop a collection level description schema as well as developing the technology needed for the online form, database and test website.

The objectives of the project were to provide:

a pilot web-enabled database as a model for a system providing information about and access to library, archive and museum collections in London

data from partners to populate and test the database

a website displaying the pilot database and content

recommendations for a bid for funding for a full FiiL project.

The tool aims to facilitate access to information about the rich resources in London by allowing learners to search across a range of sectors. The search result gives a description of the collection but also links to other details such as opening hours, access rights and contact details, with learners being encouraged to contact the individual institution before visiting. The vision is for the tool to have value for people of ages and levels of interest. By identifying collections in other sectors it hopes to expand people’s horizons beyond libraries, as well as encouraging people who use the Internet, but not libraries, to visit cultural institutions.

78

The aims of the project are well matched with those of the project partners in terms of supporting lifelong learning, promoting use of ICT and increasing access to and awareness of institution’s resources. Many of the partners were also making a conscious effort to increase their involvement in collaborative work.

The project is meeting some of the objectives of the ICT Strategy for London’s Libraries and the High Level Thesaurus project. It is also testing the applicability of the Research Support Libraries Programme collection level description schema and consulting with the UKOLN Collection Description Focus project. 5.3.3 Roles of the various partners

The ten partners were briefed on the project and what was required of them by the Project Director at an initial meeting. Their role involved filling in an online collection level description schema for their collections and the partners felt that their role was fully explained and understood. Some of the partners added that their involvement in the project was minimal, with the majority of the work being done by the project management team.

The initial desk research for the project was conducted by the Project Manager, who was also responsible for liaising with the partners and checking the collection level descriptions before they were inputted into the database. The Project Technical Manager developed the technology for the database and the website. Decisions about the schema and standards to be used were made by the project management team, but the partners were encouraged to input at every stage of the process. The project also has a steering group which meets twice a year.

The partners’ role has remained constant throughout the pilot but the role of the management team has evolved with the project. The focus is now on the final evaluation, the project report and the funding possibilities for the future.

The Project Manager has been in regular email contact with the partners to answer their queries, inform them of new developments and ask for their descriptions. However, the contact between the partners has been minimal, apart from the two archives who have been in regular discussion about how to tailor their data for the project. A few of the partners would have enjoyed more contact with the other partners to discuss the project and how they were getting on.

5.3.4 Successes

The small scale of the pilot project and focus on the concept and not an end product, mean that the main success of the pilot is that it has shown that it is possible to work with a diverse range of institutions to develop a collection level description schema and produce a searchable resource discovery tool.

79

The pilot demonstrated that it is possible for a diverse range of institutions to work together; to overcome organisational and cultural differences; and to gain each other’s trust. The Project Director described the willingness of the partners to compromise in order to reach an agreed set of subject terms and collection level descriptions as a major achievement.

The technical web work has also been successful and the agreement on the collection level description schema and the development of the technology to implement this mean that the groundwork has now been laid for the project to be expanded and include more collection descriptions and more institutions.

The project can also be considered a success in that the partners have found it interesting and are keen to continue to be involved in the project. The partners enjoyed being part of a collaborative project and some also appreciated having to think more specifically about their collections and learn about online collection level description schemas.

The limited funding means that the evaluation process has been on a small scale and involves two evaluations. The search tool received good feedback from the first evaluation and modifications have now been made in preparation for a second evaluation.

5.3.5 Benefits of collaboration

The full benefits of taking a collaborative approach are yet to be felt because the tool is only in the early stages of development and does not contain a large database of descriptions. However, everyone involved in the project is confident that it will be useful for both staff and learners if it can secure the funding to develop further.

Benefits for the partners and their staff

There will also be benefits for library staff, with one partner suggesting that it will be helpful for staff to show learners some concrete information on the screen and give them information about things such as opening hours.

Involvement in the collaboration will help to raise the profile of the institutions and help to publicise their collections and disseminate information about them to a much wider potential audience. The importance of this was highlighted by the FE colleges who were keen to be involved in the collaboration even though they did not think that FE students would be heavy users of the resource.

One of the partners stated that it was easy for libraries to become quite insular within their own sector. This project had reminded them that the focus should be on the learner and giving them access to the best range of resources possible and that collaboration was needed to achieve this.

80

Involvement in the project has enabled the partners and project management team to make contacts with people and institutions that they would not have done otherwise. Many felt that this kind of cross sector collaboration was a positive thing and would help to break down the barriers between the sectors and increase knowledge about other sector’s work and their resources. It will also help to increase contacts within sectors.

Benefits for learners

The partners thought that it would be a very useful tool for learners because they will have access to a wider range of resources. The collaborative aspect will benefit learners who are not interested in the differences between sectors and do not understand why access is often restricted. This tool should help to overcome this problem and one partner added that it will also make public library users feel more welcome in other institutions, as they are sometimes daunted by the prospect of going to a non-public library.

The tool will also be useful for distance learners as they will be able to identify local resources to supplement their course.

5.3.6 Problems experienced

The project management team were experienced in collaborative working and therefore had few reservations about taking a collaborative approach. However, they recognised that it was going to be a slow process as cross-sectoral collaboration would be a relatively new thing for many of the partners.

The partners also did not have any major reservations about taking a collaborative approach, although some were initially unsure about the relevance of the project to themselves as well as the relevance of grouping such a diverse range of institutions. Some of the partners were also concerned about time constraints and whether they would be able to give enough time to the project. A minor concern for the staff at one of the institutions was making it clear that the collections were for reference use only.

One of the major challenges for the project was the inherent differences between archives, libraries and museums. It was particularly challenging to match the schema to the archives as they are quite different in terms of description and subject headings and are currently ‘out of step’ with libraries and museums. The regular contact between the two archive partners reflects this problem.

The choice of schema and standards was also problematic, as there needed to be agreement between all of the partners as well as making sure that the schema was suitable for the search tool. Some of the partners were concerned about using a high level classification scheme and the project management team had to convince them that this was necessary for the search tool to work.

81

The major problem for the project management team has been getting the partners to complete the online collection level description forms about their collections. Two of the partners have not yet contributed descriptions to the database and the Project Manager has had to ‘chase’ some of the partners for their contributions. The project management team believes that this is not because they are unhappy with the project or were unclear about their role, but because many of the partners are severely under-funded. Their limited resources and staff time mean that they find it difficult to allocate time for any additional work. The management team hopes to rectify this problem in the future by securing funding to get someone to visit the institutions and help them with their descriptions. The Project Technical Manager added that although self-input of descriptions had been a problem, it meant that the online form had been developed and tested and would be useful in the future in populating the database with information quickly. The limited funding has restricted the amount of work that has been possible in the first year and also meant that the evaluation has been on a smaller scale than would have been liked.

5.3.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas

The Project Manager recognised the importance of quoting the right ‘buzzwords’ in order to get people involved in projects and saw the key ones, especially for higher education and public libraries, as lifelong learning and social inclusion.

The project’s development from the London Learning Network Group meant that the support of lifelong learning was a big motivating factor, but it also hoped to address social inclusion with its target audience being people of all ages and levels of interest. The collaborative nature of the project and the focus on a cross-sectoral approach also indicate that its development was influenced by the need to break down the barriers not only between sectors, but also the various London boroughs.

All the partners recognised the need to break down the barriers between the 32 boroughs and that collaboration was the best way to do this. However, one of the partners indicated that this was also down to individuals, giving the example of a new library manager who was keen to make contacts with other local libraries and build up partnerships, in contrast to their predecessor.

While the partners were all aware of the importance of issues such as lifelong learning and the increase in distance learning and how this project would help to tackle them, they were not sure how much influence these issues had had on their decision to become involved in a collaborative project.

The most specific comments were made with reference to accountability and Best Value. The Project Manager suggested that partners may be able to use

82

their involvement in this scheme to demonstrate to potential funders the interest in their collections and the need for more funding to develop them. The Project Director added that poorly funded libraries are “in a Catch 22 situation” in that their usage is dropping, but they are reluctant to promote their resources as they do not have the staff to cope with increased interest.

5.3.8 The impact of ICT

ICT has been an important enabler for this project with all participants recognising that a collaborative project would not have been possible without it. Email has allowed the project management team to discuss problems and developments and keep the partners informed of these without having to attend lots of meetings. This was especially important in light of the small budget. 5.3.9 The future

At the end of the pilot stage, a web interface/search tool has been designed and made available on the Internet and is being prepared for a second evaluation. A project report is being written by the Project Manager.

The future of the project is dependent on funding and the main focus is now on securing enough funding for the project to carry on. The funding will be used to enable more descriptions to be inputted; to get more institutions involved; and to offer the partners help with their descriptions. A bid is being made to the LASER Foundation under the aegis of the London Libraries Development Agency for £50,000. This funding would be used to add ten more public libraries to the project; keep the two museums and two archives that are already involved; and provide someone to help them with their descriptions.

The project is also considering a bid to the Vice Chancellor’s Fund at the University of London for funding to add all the University of London libraries to the scheme. This would mean that over half of the M25 libraries were involved in the project.

Another possibility is to make the tool more accessible to schools by seeing whether it would be possible to map the FiiL schema to the National Curriculum subject headings and add collections specifically geared to school children. This involves a possible bid to the London Grid for Learning.

The management team is also considering sponsorship of the website to fund its maintenance and updating.

83

Even if the bids for funding are successful, the Project Director believes that it will be three or four years before the project reaches the final stages. However, it is hoped that there will be a useable tool within eighteen months.

5.3.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects

Most of the partners indicated that they are involved in other collaborative projects, with the number and range varying between institutions. Many of the collaborations tended to be within their own sector and some of the partners added that they were not involved in any collaborative initiatives similar to FiiL.

5.3.11 Conclusion

FiiL was an attempt to respond to the needs of learners, who do not understand why there are barriers to resources held in different sectors. The main problem identified during this one-year pilot was the difference in approach to description of collections across the domains; a major achievement has been the willingness of partners to compromise on an agreed set of terms. The project has also helped to raise the profile of member institutions and to demonstrate success. However, the input of data from some of the partner institutions has been slow; a number have missed targets and deadlines. This suggests that significant further funding will need to be secured to cover staff time if the project is to be successfully extended.

84

5.4 Libraries Together: Liverpool Learning Partnership

5.4.1 Background

The Libraries Together: Liverpool Learning Partnership (LT: LLP) mainly serves the area of the City of Liverpool (population, 439,479, 2001 census). However, the larger libraries of the partnership are seen as major regional libraries serving Merseyside, the North West and beyond. There are six partners.

Liverpool Libraries and Information Services (LLIS) considers all of the citizens of Liverpool as learners, but there is a preponderance of 5-16 year olds in compulsory education and FE and HE students.

Liverpool Community College has around 21,000 students, the majority of whom are part-time.

Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts has around 600 student enrolled on degree courses as well as providing opportunities for flexible learning.

Liverpool Hope University College Library (LHUCL) Library has over 6,000 learners (including 1,000 from outside Liverpool)

Liverpool John Moores University Library has 15,500 to 16,000 student members (FTE); this includes distance learners and students of associated colleges; and remote access for off-site users other registered users of the library include those at partner institutions.

University of Liverpool has around 25,000 students, including those in affiliated colleges.

Interviews were carried out with representatives from five of the partners.

As one of the interviewees commented, ‘”Historically, Liverpool hadn’t collaborated well and that was down to some individuals. As Heads of Department changed that changed”. A Liverpool Libraries Group (LLG) was set up around 1990 and comprised the heads of library services of Liverpool City Libraries, Liverpool Polytechnic (later Liverpool John Moores University), Liverpool University and the City of Liverpool College of HE (COLCHE). Only one of the remaining original Heads of Service is still a member. LLG became the LT: LLP with a re-launching and re-branding.

Access appears to be the key reason for libraries becoming involved in the partnership, as summed up by one interviewee:

… it widens access for our students and I think we have a responsibility to increase access for the local community and this gives a network for it. It’s good to have relations with the other Directors – we gain a great deal individually. It’s good for staff - we have some training … I like the way it is cross-sectoral – there is a good deal of overlap – a slightly different focus – but there is a lot in common.

85

Members wanted to develop closer links between institutions and better referral for their users, some of who were already using the different libraries (for example, all students could and, many did, use the City Libraries). The changing information environment; the impact of ICT; the increase in the number of students; changing political agendas; and new heads of service coming into post, all contributed to the development of the partnership. As one of the new heads put it:

Increasingly, it’s part of the government agenda in HE for sharing resources and with local government for improved regional links. The reason we got involved was not to do with these because they did not exist - there were library plans. It’s become more focused recently.

The success of the partnership attracted newer members. A library that joined the partnership two years ago, wanted:

To become part of the activities within the City and to forge links…we don’t want to be isolated…Wanted to be part of the city learning institutions – we’re geographically very close to [two of the other partners] - they wrap around us, we’re just hundreds of yards away.

5.4.2 Aims of Project

All of those interviewed indicated strong links between institutional and library aims and those of the partnership.

For instance, one of the institutions claimed to be: All about participation, inclusiveness – that’s the main drive – equality and reaching out, broadening the learning base. The aim of [institution] and LT: LLP is to reach out to people – those who use and those who aren’t traditional learners. It’s good for our students to be aware of access arrangements where they previously wouldn’t have dreamed of going.

Another librarian echoed this: This links directly to lifelong learning, the removal of barriers to learning – that’s at the heart of our overall aim. Also, we were already sharing our resources with other agencies, eg schools, so it wasn’t unusual …

The other interviewees referred to library and institutional mission statements, one noting, for example, that one of the library’s aims includes provision of an information gateway to staff and students and access to resources otherwise not available.

5.4.3 Roles of partners

There was a genuine sense of equal membership and roles in the partnership, irrespective of size of library or length of involvement. Some interviewees felt they were key members, but this perhaps reflects what they feel they specifically

86

have to offer. However, the common feeling was partners do not have roles, but that they contribute equally according to their expertise in line with commonly agreed objectives:

The Library has no specific role. We’ve been very democratic. The LT:LLP Chair rotates each year. Each partner has strengths to bring. Because we have a big Print and Design Unit, we have tended to do the publishing.We have no specific role. We don’t take roles as such. We each provide membership to the staff development group and publicity group, and the conference rotates. When we wrote the aims and objectives we were responsible for access sections.

One of the ‘smaller’ partners commented:

… we’ve played our share, we’ve not been treated as a junior partner, for example, we’ve run the annual conference … it cycles round the partners.

The general feeling of those interviewed was that roles have developed rather than changed as the partnership has become more active than the LLG. The partnership has allowed individuals to get to know each other and their services better and to move things forward. Personal relationships and their development appear to be a key factor in the development of roles. One interviewee commented that whereas previously, senior staff didn’t know their counterparts, now:

We’re getting to know one another. The need to get ourselves talking to one another and understanding our different libraries has gone now. The partnership has allowed us to move on.

The general response of those interviewed was that the roles of partners are clear but that these have not had to be defined. One interviewee advised:

I don’t think they [roles] had to be. The partners have gone with the strengths. Obligations are clearly defined – the roles haven’t had to be…Obligations are stated in the agreement – and it’s negotiated at every meeting.

In fact, because of this agreement, some felt that there are no real roles. One interviewee commented:

We don’t have separate roles. The involvement of all partners is understood and we share work out equally – not just Directors but Steering group members too. Their work is shared clearly and understood. I’m not aware of any imbalance. The staff at different partners seem to work well.

87

Formal contact is through:

a quarterly meeting of all Directors

two Steering group meeting per year, attended by all Directors and key senior staff

a staff training and development group

a publicity group

an annual conference.

There is also informal contact via e-mail and telephone as and when necessary. Staff have visited other institutions to get a taste of what they are like; and individuals’ ‘paths professionally cross quite a lot’ at non-partnership events within and outside the institution and through membership of other groups and committees.

5.4.4 Successes

The successes of the collaborative approach taken by Libraries Together: Liverpool Learning Partnership (LT:LLP) were summarised by the project co-ordinator in her initial questionnaire response:

A wider understanding of the management and services of each member library

Information for library users on the services of the major libraries of the City of Liverpool

Access for reference use between member libraries through production of a library membership card

Staff networking between member libraries

Annual conference

Consortium application for successful external funding (Project WARM)

and, specifically, through Project WARM [http://www.o-r-g.org/%7Echeshire/warm]:

Achieving a remote search facility to libraries with differing systems

Resource discovery across public, higher and further education library communities of Liverpool

Increased access to LT:LLP libraries and each partner website

Increase in requests for access by non-members of partner libraries

Satisfaction levels for students/customers increased

Increased profile of the major libraries of Liverpool

88

Potential for collection management across library sectors through LT:LLP.

Interviews provided examples of the above and other areas where collaboration has been successful.

The collaboration has had major impact on access. One interviewee sums this up most positively:

Primarily, seamless access across Liverpool for learners has been a huge success.

Another success, according to several of the interviewees, is the role of personalities, with the relationship between Directors, being particularly important. One noted that:

We now have an open and honest relationship with each other.

Partners also show sensitivity to each other’s circumstances and needs:Each Director is very committed to it and very enthusiastic…We’re sensitive to the aims and objectives of partner institutions so we don’t lend. Individually, we couldn’t continue to serve our home members if we did.

Linked to this are two key factors in achieving success: clear, common goals and determination to achieve these together. One interviewee sums this up:

We have agreed a joint purpose and review the agreement – being clear what we are trying to do and identifying people with responsibility for doing these. Enthusiasm, commitment and belief it’s worth doing. Even with HEFCE and government noise/agenda, it’s important that you want to do it – there are few other incentives. And, we enjoy it, sharing ideas – a positive aspect of the job.

It is also significant that collaboration is recognised as worthwhile by peers externally, in this case as evidenced in the acceptance of a collaborative proposal and the award of funding to undertake this. Such external recognition is not only seen by the partners as a sign of success but as a factor in achieving more. It seems also to be good for morale, judging by one interviewee’s comment:

It’s been good to raise the profile of libraries in the city, and this means outside the city, too. With library co-operation people are always talking about [city X]. We went there and thought: they aren’t doing anything we aren’t doing. We came to the conclusion we were not good at ‘hype’, so we needed to improve publicity. We were doing these things and getting no recognition or credit. So that’s one of the most pleasing aspects.

89

Three interviewees all cited Project WARM as a concrete sign of success:Project WARM has focused all our minds over the last year. Everyone at whatever level of education loves the Internet and we can promote it to our students at all levels – it’s surprising how quickly everyone takes to the Internet.

The annual conference also appears to be regarded generally as a success for staff. One interviewee commented:

I think the conference is a real success – it’s vibrant with good speakers.

There is also scope for ‘one-off’ successes. For example, a collection of about 15,000 books on religion have gone on long loan from one partner library to another.

Little formal measurement of the success of the project has been undertaken, although hits on the website can be counted. One interviewee noted that they had not done any evaluation and that they should have done this. She added that they did submit a bid for funding to allow them to undertake this, but the bid had not been successful. Her view that they should move to something more formal was echoed by other respondents. Several felt that as security/entry systems were upgraded this might facilitate measurement of inter-use.

Feedback on success of the project to date is, thus, largely informal. One interviewee noted:

We feel we’re doing good, so we must be good. We haven’t done any formal measuring but we have anecdotal evidence.

She reinforced this view by adding that the 30,000 leaflets produced a year ago had all been taken. Another interviewee supported her statement that the project had been ‘hugely successful’, claiming that this was evidenced by QAA and Ofsted reports which noted that students had benefited from LT:LLP. Another felt that an external sign of evidence of success was her library’s high ranking on the list of libraries that receive RSLP funding.

Another interviewee pointed to LT:LLP’s three-year plan with its list of objectives as contributing to measurement of its success:

We, the Steering Group, evaluate that plan and whether we have achieved objectives. We have achieved quite a lot. We don’t measure activity statistically, which I believe we should do, but I believe we are creeping towards this.

She added that the annual conference was evaluated by participants. She identified one area which she felt needed evaluation: ‘staff knowledge at the sharp end, on the desk … these are the staff the students meet.’ Another suggested area for investigation was surveys of users:

90

We haven’t done any work to see how members of other libraries use us…and how accessible they think we are …I don’t say we don’t understand their view but we do have a librarian’s perspective.

5.4.5 Benefits of collaboration

Benefits for the partners and their staff

Benefits for academic staff have primarily been access related:

It has broadened the number of academic resources they have access to. Access has been the big success.

Another major benefit has been greater awareness of what resources (including people) are available in the city:

Learning about libraries in the city because everyone’s very inward looking. We say students don’t know about other libraries – staff don’t know either. So, it’s knowledge gathering and making contacts so they know who to approach or refer someone to.Understanding of the other services in the area so they can tell users about it, e.g. know where to send users with a reference enquiry.

The role the annual conference plays in this was acknowledged, in particular, in taking this beyond senior staff:

It has been primarily a senior manager led consortium. Have attempted through the conferences, first an away day, then a seminar, to open up – 80 people there this year.

The partnership has contributed to shared staff development at different levels, for example, with job swaps and reciprocal visits, with varying degrees of take-up. Mutual understanding, especially cross-sectorally between staff of the partner libraries, has been a major benefit:

I have found it of tremendous benefit to find out how academic libraries work. And, LU and LJMU are different to each other, e.g. in their management ethos. I and my staff understand better how other libraries work and that aids a collaborative approach and without it WARM would not have happened.

This has facilitated other key benefits including access and being seen to be involved in collaborative activities which deliver tangible benefits:

Access for all our users and just getting to know one another. There’s a feeling of closeness among the library services of Liverpool which is good. Within the university I have always kept them informed and it does no harm in being seen to be proactive and talking to other people.

91

‘Getting to know your opposite numbers’ has been useful, with one interviewee stressing the cross-sectoral element here:

I find it useful as University Librarian to know what the Public librarian is facing – it’s good for you!

Another also touched on the positive impact on individuals: ‘Being seen as part of the city-wide education services and not being isolated was good for morale.’

Benefits for learners

Benefits for learners relate to access and what is available:Access and letting them know what’s available in the City – not just their own

library. I hope we’ve made it easier to get into one another’s libraries. The leaflet goes like hot cakes and people obviously use it.

Access to a wider range of resources. Being aware that they have rights of access, i.e they have it, but they are aware of it.

One particular benefit, which was mentioned by only one of the interviewees, perhaps significantly from one of the ‘smaller’ partners, was access to study space:

Yes, I promote it [access] as this – study space. The universities have generous study hours, i.e. when we may be closed. This can have a real effect on the success of a student, i.e. somewhere to study at 8.00 on a Friday night. We’re closed – LJMU is open 24 hours. Study facilities are equally as important as resources.

One unexpected benefit has been the ‘filtering down’ of use of the partnership to courses at a particular level. For example, it had originally been thought that use of the partnership services would be made in one college by HNC and HND students, but it has turned out that students on Access courses have also used it.

5.4.6 Problems experienced

Some interviewees revealed that they had a few initial reservations about working with libraries from other sectors.

…this might not be as open a consortium from a public library point of view as all the others worked in the HE environment – how far can we take the collaborative approach within this.

Our resource budget is low compared with [other partner] institutions…so coming in as an equal partner, managing this kind of service, I would be coming in as the minnow. But budgets aren’t everything – students/users are!

Neither interviewee gave the impression that these were serious concerns and, indeed, in practice, they have not been.

92

One of the least successful aspects of the initiative has been sharing electronic resources. The difficulties here relate to different systems, security issues and licensing agreements limiting use to institutional users. More generally, security and access control are geared to each institution’s requirements and can, therefore, be seen as constraints to collaborative working. External factors such as publishers’ licensing agreements are also seen as barriers:

Several interviewees touched on the fact that in the past users from other institutions could come and consult hard-copy material, but this was not now possible where these were available electronically and access was subject to institutional passwords in line with internal security requirements and agreements with publishers/service providers.

The issue of inter-lending facilities for all partner library members has not yet been tackled because as one interviewee put it: ‘it’s too sensitive. There appeared to be a recognition of and sensitivity to each institution’s duty to its own users and an acknowledgement of different funders of resources linked to this.

Two interviewees commented that collaborative purchasing has not happened. One felt that it was the ‘smaller’ partners who had hoped this would happen, but:

…we’re cross-sectoral and all involved in different consortia with different end-dates. Each institution has to demonstrate good value for money to its own institution.

One interviewee pointed out that collaborative disposal has been achieved, adding that.

If we are planning to chuck something away we will offer it to partners first. It’s not as systematic as it might have been but there are good examples of this.

Although staff training and development was reported by some interviewees as an area where there had been some success, one felt that this had not been achieved by the partnership, pointing to opportunities elsewhere in the region which could be taken up rather than duplicating them.

The same interviewee gave the impression that success in access should not be taken for granted and that its impact on students should be investigated:

I suppose access – we’re enabling it in spite of our own control and security systems, we don’t have a partnership card. So, access is hard work – we’re individual organisations funded through different funding systems. We’ve improved our profile but it would be useful to survey students on this.

93

Different funders were identified as a barrier to cross-sectoral collaboration. While universities and colleges are funded through the Funding Councils, public libraries are funded from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM).

The agendas, stage of development and management of institutions can affect partnership. As well as different institutional agendas, personalities and the context are also significant.

One interviewee referred to the budget and staffing within their institution, adding that because of this it “doesn’t have the same people power as the larger partners to send people to meetings take on particular tasks”. It should also be noted that several interviewees noted that the partnership did not have a secretariat. Whilst this was not raised as a major constraint, individuals did seem to be aware of this as a potential issue which external project funding may have tempered.

One interviewee noted that students from nearby institutions are using them and it would be interesting to carry out research into their views on barriers as:

Users are not perceiving barriers we perceive and are getting on with using us – they’re very robust.

Significantly, some interviewees, whilst identifying various barriers, chose to be positive in considering how to deal with them:

I think we’ve easily got over these – it’s not the barriers within the group, it’s those outside.We can overcome them by talking them through and explaining (e.g. this doesn’t fit with the library agenda).

5.4.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas

Terminology seemed to be interpreted differently in the various sectors; perhaps this reflects the current focus of political initiatives and activities in individual sectors and institutions. From the public library view, widening participation and social inclusion has been helped through formalising access agreements and the development of the website and has become formal. For the public library:

The people we are trying to reach are those like the unemployed, those returning to learning (single parents, those made redundant wanting to return to work, wanting to retrain). We’re putting equipment for the disabled (e.g. those with visual impairment) into all our libraries. At Toxteth we have a STEPS project for the Chinese community there (specific software and courses).

94

Although some HE librarians argued that social inclusion is more a focus for the public library, others emphasised its importance. For academic libraries:

With [institution] focusing almost exclusively on inclusiveness, huge student numbers; social profile of student body, many from the poorest post codes districts of the city, one of the poorest cities in Europe, the college has lots of targets.

The main thrust of our strategy is widening participation - ethnic minority students and those where cultural circumstances and where there aren’t universities in their area, and where they wouldn’t travel to undertake HE, e.g. Muslim women.

One interviewee advised that promotion was general, not targeted to particular groups. It was suggested that participation had widened because of understanding by members of the public library that they can come into academic libraries. She added:

The public library has very heavy use of [university] students so it’s not one way traffic. The buildings of university libraries seem difficult to enter – they’re big and impressive and off the beaten track.

As one interviewee explained, lifelong learning, “is an aim for the group – it was introduced as a result of the government’s focus on this”. Another claimed its impact was ‘substantial’, adding:

We wouldn’t have expected to take on the Community College or LIPA without the emphasis on lifelong learning …

Regionalism was recognised as one of the most important factors for all the partners at the moment, perhaps as partners are anticipating its impact:

The biggest impact is regionalism. It’s drawn us all into the wider regional agenda. At the Directors meeting we report what is going on at regional level. Sometimes we ask ourselves what will happen to other consortia once the Regional Agency is established.

An interviewee explained how students go from Access courses to universities; returners also go through to universities:

Proximity of institutions lends itself to this. Students don’t just go to f/t courses at universities, but short and one-year courses too which don’t lead to degrees but there is good participation in these by students who stay registered at college.

Several interviewees felt that the issue of joined-up services had impacted on collaborative working, especially for LLLIS. Likewise, accountability and best value was seen to be of greater significance for the public library However, education libraries were expected to demonstrate value:

Accountability – inspection teams and funding councils – any collaborative work is seen as a real strength by the Learning and Skills Council which looks

95

for collaborative ventures. FE and HE inspecting bodies look to see what resources you have, how they’re promoted, and access to those elsewhere.

There were differences of opinion regarding the expansion of HE. Some interviewees did not feel this had had a great impact, although:

as the number of students has increased members have got more sensitive about pressured budgets and delivering services to their own users and the potential of demand from other consortium members.

However, another interviewee perceived this very differently:Horrendous problems – we’re trying to provide a quality service to increasing numbers of students with no increase in funding.

At least one interviewee saw collaboration and resource sharing as a solution to these problems:

You could argue that expansion has made us more keen to share resources as pressure on them has been considerable.

In terms of wider issues impacting on collaboration, one interviewee referred to the influence of the British Library:

The BL is doing a lot to encourage cross-sectoral agenda – which is why the BL people liked the Project WARM proposal.

Another introduced another item on the local political agenda with national and international implications, the City of Liverpool European City of Culture 2008 bid.

5.4.8 The impact of ICT

ICT has had both positive and negative impact on collaborative working. On the one hand:

Huge impact. It’s facilitated it enormously – just being able to e-mail everybody. All our catalogues are online. It opens up access to information and web pages.’

It makes life a lot easier because of the actual website we have up which can take people to all the other institutions via one URL, and Project WARM. A single tool of linking institutions in one place – easier to brand.

But on the other:

Sharing electronic resources has been problematic. As each institution has moved on, that’s blocked off some things, e.g. print sources would have been freely available …It has created a demand, an expectation

It’s limited access to information. Access to information is more restricted for the user.

96

So, ICT has facilitated collaboration in that it helps people communicate with each other via e-mail and it helps promotion of the partnership and the resources available. However, in terms of access to actual resources, where these have gone from hard copy to electronic, there has been a reduction in access as only those registered as students with a particular institution are permitted access to the computer network. This means that there is a danger that expectations are being raised which may not be met.

5.4.9 The future

All interviewees expressed most positively their desire for future involvement. Several saw the partnership growing, in number of partners and geographically, but are aware of other issues (e.g.regionalism, funding) impacting on this:

Developing as a broader group outside the Liverpool boundary but this could encroach on some of the regional issues.’

I think another development is that it will get to be cross-sectoral and will include archives and museums. It will break down barriers.

Hopefully, putting in other joint bids so we can keep moving and growing. You do need new projects to come on, to keep up enthusiasm and offer something new to students. Would like to see traffic between all institutions grow.

Others were more cautious:

I think this is really dependent on what happens in the region. We have reviewed membership and whether focusing on Liverpool city centre is appropriate. At the time, we felt it made sense. We will have to come back to this and all the other groups we are members of. This is not a problem at the moment, i.e. too many groups, but we need to keep a watching eye on this.

5.4.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects

It became clear listening to interviewees that many of them work or collaborate with others outside the LT:LLP partnership and that there are often valid and pragmatic reasons for doing so.

The partners in LT:LLP mentioned involvement in: The Society of Chief Librarians North West. Merseyside Public Libraries Partnership Libraries North West North West Museums, Libraries and Archives Council New Regional Agency for the North West UK Libraries Plus Network of Hope NoWAL

97

LJMU Associate College Network SCONUL CURL Research Libraries Group.

5.4.11 Conclusion

The main successes of this project relate to increasing both access to and awareness of resources available to learners in the city. An added benefit has been the mutual understanding which has developed among staff from the different sectors. This has helped in the setting of common goals and being sensitive to the needs of various partners. Different management and financial structures in HE and local authorities have been the main barriers to collaboration, but tangible evidence of the benefits of collaboration and external recognition can help to overcome these.

98

5.5 MKLCLN – Milton Keynes Learning City Libraries Network

5.5.1 Background

The Milton Keynes Learning City Libraries Network (MKLCLN) was officially launched on 15th May 2001 and grew from an existing collaboration, the Beds and Bucks Information network (BBi). The focus of the BBi is relatively broad in a geographical sense and it was felt that a collaborative network was required to address the needs of the people of Milton Keynes specifically, hence the formation of the MKLCLN.

The remit of the MKLCLN is to “allow and encourage the use of all the major libraries in the Milton Keynes area by everyone who lives, works or studies in Milton Keynes”. The collaboration includes the following partners:

Buckingham University

Cranfield University

De Montfort University

Milton Keynes College

Milton Keynes General and NHS Trust

Milton Keynes Public Libraries

The Open University

Although the HE institutions recruit internationally, it was generally recognised by the partners that the main user base resided within the boundaries of Milton Keynes, the exception being the Open University which has an international clientele. In terms of numbers of institutional users, estimations ranged from 1,000 to 210,000.

The collaboration’s publicity material indicates that users:

…can consult the libraries’ collections of books, journal and other materials, ask the enquiry services for help, look at the libraries’ web pages and library catalogues, use word processing facilities and access the Internet.

To date, the MKLCLN has been self-funding and has called upon partner expertise to produce publicity material and design and maintain the network website (http://www.mklclibraries.org).

Milton Keynes was a founder member of the Learning City Network in 1995. In April 1998, the Milton Keynes and North Buckinghamshire Lifelong Learning Partnership was formed and is now recognised as forming part of the “MOB” area, covering Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. The primary task of this partnership is:

99

to develop, after consultation, a Lifelong Learning Strategy for the area, which will provide a focus for all members of the community on the part they can play in developing a lifelong learning culture through a targeted action plan.

The wider agenda of lifelong learning, along with the council aims are recognised by several of the project partners, and these, combined with a desire to provide a service for the people of Milton Keynes, are reflected in the partners’ reasons for becoming involved in the network:

There have been other collaborations in Milton Keynes and they were looking to explore more collaborative agreements. My team and I have always been happy to be involved in collaborative partnerships as long as they are not detrimental to our existing client base.

It became an offshoot of BBi: there was no collaboration in Milton Keynes so we thought it would be nice to set something up. It would include others from outside the education area.

Milton Keynes council believes in working in partnership. It was an innovative idea to provide a service that was universal. The public would benefit by wider access. It was a good thing to do and met the council’s aims.

5.5.2 Aims of the project

Prior to the official launch of the MKLCLN, meetings were convened to discuss the format and aims of the project. Professor Andrew McDonald, Director of Library Services, University of Sunderland, addressed the BBi in April 1999 relating the experiences of the Sunderland Learning City project. Several of the Libraries Access Sunderland Scheme (LASH) initiatives and benefits were adopted for the MKLCLN collaboration. The influence of ALLIN, the Northamptonshire cross-sectoral collaboration, was also noted by a number of the partners.

The collaboration aims to allow and encourage use of all the major libraries in the Milton Keynes area by everyone who lives works and studies in the city. The MKLCLN is specifically aimed at those who:

live or work in Milton Keynes

study full-time or part-time

need to update skills

have a particular hobby or interest

enjoy learning and finding out

have a project to do

read for pleasure (Milton Keynes Council, 2001).

100

The above aims complement those of the Milton Keynes Lifelong Learning Partnership:

The Partnership wishes to develop a learning community within Milton Keynes where individuals, communities, institutions and businesses work together to ensure a skilled workforce, a socially inclusive city, and the personal fulfilment of the population.

When asked to describe how the stated aims of the network linked with the aims of their own institutions, a division was apparent amongst the partners. Some felt that the aims of both were indistinguishable, whilst others noted fundamental differences:

They matched like-to-like. It was something tangible which attracted me; it wasn’t just ‘nice talk’.

The library has a strategy of partnership and collaboration and of trying to get the best for our users… These tie in with the aims of the MK Learning City Project.

They don’t as such – we serve our own students, but members of the public could access us; the aims are not exactly parallel.

I suppose they don’t in many ways. The idea of the network is to promote lifelong learning, which is large in the Milton Keynes area. We don’t really have that same commitment… We don’t have the lifelong learning mission within the community.

To be perfectly honest, there isn’t an awful lot of synergy, which is why we had reservations...We wanted to contribute because we didn’t want to sit outside the system.

5.5.3 Roles of partners

The MKLCLN is a relatively new collaboration and presently operates on an informal, democratic basis which is recognised by the project partners. Many saw this as a positive feature of the initiative.

There are no laid down policies or rules, we share amongst us. If expertise exists it will be called upon and supported financially. People are good at sharing tasks.

However, other partners pointed out the problems this could cause:

This is the flip side of being democratic. There probably aren’t defined roles. We need to mature into a proper collaborative group.

Little change is evident in the roles of the individual partners since the launching of the project and it is generally recognised that the fluid method of operation is adequate for the collaboration at the present time. Formal contact between the

101

partners takes place via meetings, which are held approximately three times a year. In addition, informal contact takes place via other collaborative projects such as the BBi and Lifelong Learning initiative and a mailing list has also been established.

5.5.4 Successes

The majority of partners admitted that they were not aware of any formal evaluation tools in place to measure take-up of the project by users. Several partners did feel that it was an area that needed to be addressed, particularly if the project was to move forward and build upon the foundations laid:

We need to formalise this. We do exchange views on how the service is been used. We keep a lot of statistics internally. Performance indicators in information provision is quite difficult. We need to put a framework around it.

It hasn’t been measured formally. Each partner reports on usage at meetings. It’s difficult to identify if users are visiting as a result of the collaboration.

The partners held slightly different views on successful aspects of the project. Some felt that the collaboration’s very existence was a measure of success:

Most successful – the fact that something concrete has been done i.e., people have access to library services across Milton Keynes. It’s a very visible, quantifiable benefit.

Whilst others noted that professional development; increased opportunities for learners; and the raised profile of the institutions involved were notable achievements:

It’s flagged up a group; shown that public, FE, HE and health libraries are working together and there would be interest in widening the network. That it exists in itself is a benefit; networking is useful for information and knowledge sharing. As far as the South East strategy goes, it puts us on a par with other areas. It also gives us access to collaborative funding opportunities.

Closer networking between organisations and raising awareness about what is out there and what we do are successes. People don’t see beyond the counter in some instances. It’s useful for staff and learners, it de-mystifies information resources.

That we’re all talking together, and that there is a willingness to explore the possibilities of what we could do. It will be an evolutionary thing. We’ve opened the door to look at collaborative working. For me, it involves looking outside the box. Sharing best practice and experience. It’s small steps at the moment, but to get this far is a huge achievement.

Reasons for the successful aspects of the project were not easy to qualify. Partners tended to agree that the project was in its first stage of development

102

and had achieved the goals initially set. Deciding upon the next phase of development and moving the project on were viewed as being more problematic.

5.5.5 Benefits of collaboration

Benefits resulting from the collaboration have occurred on a number of levels.

Benefits for the partner institutions and their staff

A mixed response was evident when partners were asked specifically how the project had benefited staff; some indicated that impact had been negligible whilst others commented that staff had undergone a learning experience, which had broadened horizons and raised awareness. The development of contacts within other partner libraries was, however, highlighted as a positive:

…raising awareness…it’s good for them to see outside the box and also to professionally meet and exchange information with others.

It’s been a useful learning experience… to have an understanding of innovative cross-sectoral work. It’s enabled them to look outwardly and identify common themes and aims. In terms of politics it’s been beneficial in getting to know some other institutions. To a certain extent it’s about people contacts.

An awareness of the current political agenda was evident, with some partners noting that it was good for them to be seen working in collaboration as this dovetailed with institutional and governmental initiatives. In other instances, collaboration was viewed as the way forward and a necessary development:

Collaboration is a necessity. It has a lot of spin offs. It’s on government agendas to be crude. It’s a nonsense not to have collaboration if other organisations are within a six-mile radius. You must take in other partners.

It gives you more weight and fits in with the current political agenda…There is support for ideas and discussion; the joining in of other partners; the weight of enthusiasm and energy and the resources.

Finally, there was recognition by partners that strength is gained in numbers and that a collaborative effort had resulted in achievements that would have been impossible to attain singularly. The economic benefits of a collaborative approach were particularly noted:

With a collaborative approach, it’s good value for money, everyone has contributed equally.

We have been able to achieve more than any one individual organisation could have achieved on their own.

Well, it’s strategic and political to present ourselves as a cohesive body to the learning community. It’s always better to have a group than one member struggling alone.

103

Benefits for learners

Increasing access for learners in the Milton Keynes area was a tangible result identified by a number of project partners. Others, however, were unsure of this aspect of the collaboration, due in part to the lack of formal measurement of take-up by users. In some instances, it was felt that institutional policies had impacted on the partner’s ability to fully deliver the service expected by users. 5.5.6 Problems experienced

Unsuccessful aspects of the collaboration are difficult to identify and those raised by partners were fairly minor and addressed the future development of the collaboration, rather than ineffective elements of the project to date. Few partners confessed to initial reservations, those who did expressing concerns relating to the requirements of the home institution and its users and doubts in relation to the amount of time and energy that would be expended as a project partner.

Occasionally, speaking objectively, we all must look to our masters and what they want – there may be conflicts between individual libraries and parent institutions. Time and resources are barriers difficult to overcome.

The matching of institutional and project aims was mentioned by a number of partners. It was generally felt that, to date, there had been no clash of interest, either with home institutions or amongst the project partners themselves. However, in the light of the project’s development this was identified as an area that may cause concern in the future:

The main barriers are individual organisations having conflicting priorities or lack of time or commitment – people agreeing in principle then not doing it. I’m not sure this has happened with the Milton Keynes project. There has been no conflict of interest, its been relatively easy to do, painless and with benefits for everyone. The danger is that it might not continue. To overcome barriers you have to have a combination of individual diplomacy, and keep getting back to the initial reasons for doing it.

The above point was developed by another project partner who identified that benefits to the individual organisations undertaking the collaborative effort must be identified initially. This was combined with the observation that, in some instances, project partners are asked to devote time and energy to initiatives that “are on the periphery of their main vision”.

Unsurprisingly, funding and the effective use of funds were identified as problematic areas. To date, the MKLCLN has been self-supporting and the funding question has not caused undue concern. However, as the project moves into its next phase, with the preparation and submission of bids for funding, development and even continuation of the partnership may revolve around the issue of fiscal management.

104

Finance could be one. We’re looking, as a partnership, for external funding. With budget constraints, continuing on the same level would be difficult, or progressing. It must be an on-going thing.

The current position of the collaboration was identified by a small number of partners as an area for concern, although it was generally recognised that the network was in its early stages and had achieved its initial aims. Maintaining the impetus of the project, along with the next phase of development, were viewed as important steps:

We need to look at marketing, where we are, and where we’re going to. Have we hit the targets? How do we continue raising awareness – maintaining awareness?

Having set up we’ve drifted slightly and not capitalised on our success to date. This is probably due to individual organisational pressures.

Although opening access to learners in the Milton Keynes area is one of the key aims of the MKLCLN, the partners are generally unsure as to the actual effects of the project on the learning community. As previously noted, this is not helped by the lack of formal measurement instruments, an omission that is acknowledged by the project partners.

5.5.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas

It was generally recognised that other political agendas may impact on future collaborative efforts. It was evident that partners were mindful of both internal and external political machinations, noting, in some instances, that a collaborative arrangement was a good move given the present political climate:

politically it’s advantageous to be seen in collaborative ventures.

The broader political picture (local and national) means that collaborative working is seen as a Good Thing and therefore it is easy to justify activity on this basis.

In terms of social inclusion, some project partners feel that the collaboration has potential to impact in this area, due to the links that have been developed and the amount of access that these will afford to users. However, at this point, the exact impact is difficult to gauge. Other partners, however, feel that the collaboration has achieved little in this area.

Reaction to impact on the lifelong learning initiative is more positive although, once again, it is acknowledged that there are no formal statistics or measurements to provide evidence of impact. There is an understanding amongst the partners that this issue is high on governmental and library agendas.

105

The partners were, in general, vague about the concept of joined-up services, although it was noted by a number of partners that the network was attempting to achieve a seamless access point for users. Those who did chose to comment further, viewed the theory with a certain amount of scepticism:

The reality is that ‘Joined-up’ services are very, very rare in practice. There is a lot of puff but not many examples of people doing it.

Local government reorganisation appears to have had little effect on the collaboration, although one partner noted that the last reorganisation had, in fact, simplified procedures:

The last one was 1997, which created Milton Keynes council, which is a unitary authority. The re-organisation has meant that local government services are more coherent in principle. It’s easier for other institutions to relate to one body rather than a borough and a county council. It’s simplified it for the partners.

Many partners, however, noted regionalism as an area that may have a considerable impact, particularly in terms of securing funding and the focus of the home institutions. Milton Keynes was identified as an unusual geographic location, sharing boundaries with a number of other designated regions. A number of partners identified this as a factor that may impact on future cross-sectoral collaborations.

The partners held conflicting views regarding the issues of accountability and best value. Some stated that these had little bearing on the collaboration to date, whilst others felt that the above issues were aimed at more formalised collaborations:

It comes back to how we are evaluating what we’re doing. I’m not sure that we have any terms of reference that we’re working to. We are a relatively informal network. We’re not thinking about value for money services, that’s geared towards more formal organisations.

Some partners noted that they were accountable to their institutions but that the project fitted in with the overall agenda, and there was no conflict of interest. In terms of value for money, the collaboration had, to date, been successful:

…what we offer to learners is free and the costs to us so far are small. Accountability – to our own organisations we have been accountable and best value for their agenda.

106

The expansion of higher education and distance learning was identified by some partners as an area that was likely to have a huge impact, particularly in terms of increased user demand, and that collaborative efforts would be essential in order to address this situation:

…we are looking at how we can provide a more MK-centric HE service and the role of libraries in that will be crucial, particularly as what we will end up with will be (hopefully) modern and more likely to include a range of flexible ways of working.

This is obviously hugely important and why the government is attempting to get us working together, trying to get a seamless flow. We have a huge role to play here, this won’t go away.

5.5.8 The impact of ICT

The impact of ICT on collaborative working raised some interesting responses from the project partners. Most noted that ICT facilitated easier communication and it was established that the majority of project partners had institutional websites. However, it was also noted that ICT might pose future problems for the collaboration, particularly in respect of resource sharing; the licensing issue was identified as a potential stumbling block in this regard. Interestingly, one partner noted that statistics might have been easier to keep if ICT had not been so advanced and users had to travel to physical locations to access resources, rather than visit electronically.

5.5.9 The future

There is a tacit agreement amongst the partners that the collaboration will ultimately widen participation by virtue of advertising available facilities to potential users, thereby raising awareness. There is also the possibility that schools will be invited to join the collaborative effort. If this initiative does come to fruition, learners will have information resources available within the network for each stage of academic progression.

Each partner interviewed indicated that they would continue to be associated with the collaboration (although the representative from De Montfort University confirmed that their association with the network would terminate shortly due to the institution’s plans to re-locate). However, future direction, development and funding hold the key to the continuation of the network, facts which did not escape the partners:

Its got to take a step forward, either a project or some collaborative work. More partners could possibly join in, school libraries or the lifelong learning partnership…It’s now easier to get people involved in collaborative activity. We’re keeping an eye out for funding opportunities and to develop joint expertise for the benefit of the community.

107

I see it developing and doing more cross-sectoral things, building on what we have. We might increase the number of partners…Funding – the fact that you have existing partners makes opportunities possible.

We want to look at funding bids to develop and linking in with other organisations e.g., schools. We want to develop people’s information skills. We need to do more on ‘joined-up’ thinking and access to catalogues etc. There is a huge amount of development we can do. We need to define our next areas of development.

There is a realisation amongst the partners that the first stage of the project has now been completed and that it is necessary to determine aims for stage two and work towards these goals. To this end, opportunities for funding are being examined and bids prepared and tendered. The possibility of widening the network to incorporate further partners is also being investigated.

The partners also realise that, to date, they have been operating as an informal, democratic collective, calling upon in-house expertise and funding to achieve tasks. A more formalised collaborative body might be required for the next phase of the project, particularly if the partners are successful in funding bids.

5.5.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects

The various partners confirmed their involvement in a number of other collaborations, many of which were unique to their operational sector. Unsurprisingly, six of the seven partners belong to the cross-sectoral BBi, which was one of the few cross-sectoral groups identified by the project partners.

5.5.11 Conclusion

This is a fairly new project, having commenced in 2000. So far, an informal, democratic approach has proved adequate to achieve the limited aims of the first stage of the project. However, there is a lack of clarity about how the MKLCN should develop in the future; a number of partners would like to see it expand and to obtain external funding. However, if this occurs, more formal arrangements may be required.

108

5.6 RIDING Project

5.6.1 Background

RIDING is a consortium of higher education libraries and one public library, which aims to provide improved access to resources in Yorkshire, Humberside and the North East. The RIDING Gateway on the internet enables users to simultaneously search the catalogues of the member institutions. RIDING Plus is a reciprocal access and borrowing scheme for researchers who are given a card by their member institution to gain access to other libraries. This replaced the Yorkshire Co-operative Scheme and was originally called RIDING Access before the name change in September 2001.

The RIDING project developed out of the Yorkshire and Humberside Universities Association and took advantage of phase three of the JISC Electronic Libraries Programme funding that was available for technical developments and collaboration. The JISC funding was used for a three-year project from January 1998 to July 2001 and RIDING was then established as a service funded by subscriptions from the partners, with the continuing support of the Yorkshire and Humberside Universities Association (http://www.yhua.ac.uk).

The project originally had 12 partners and was led by the University of SheffieldThese were nine university libraries, the British Library Document Supply Centre, Leeds Public Library and Information Services and Fretwell-Downing Informatics Limited. University of Hull took over as co-ordinator of the service at the end of the initial project. The British Library Document Supply Centre has recently withdrawn from the scheme and five North East universities are now also involved as well as the Open University.

The current members of the consortium are:

University of Bradford

University of Durham

University of Huddersfield

University of Hull

University of Leeds

Leeds Metropolitan University

Leeds Library & Information Service

Open University

University of Lincolnshire & Humberside

University of Newcastle

109

University of Northumbria

University of Sheffield

Sheffield Hallam University

University of Sunderland

University of Teesside

Trinity and All Saints College

University of York

York St John College

The partner institutions vary in size and number of users and serve a range of geographical areas in Yorkshire and the North East. However, the nature of the partners’ core business means that they also have a national and international focus. One library said, “it’s as wide as they want”, while another said that they had had users from Australia so therefore “could say the world”.

Many of the partners were involved in the project from the start through the Yorkshire and Humberside Universities Association, whilst others were invited to join. The Open University only joined the consortium in September 2002 and asked to join so that its students in the region (it has a regional office in Leeds) could make better use of local libraries.

5.6.2 Aims of project The original project aimed to demonstrate on a large scale the use of Z39.50 to create a distributed union catalogue as well as to show that cross-sectoral collaboration can enhance access to resources. It also considered issues of access or research and development.

The service is now targeted primarily at researchers and aims to provide them with a reciprocal access scheme supported by a virtual union catalogue of resources in the region.

The aims of the service are well matched with those of the partner organisations in terms of increasing awareness of resources and enabling users to find out about and have access to a wider range of resources. Some partners’ library strategies also aim to increase collaborative working and co-operation. The increased access to resources helps to facilitate the public library’s policies on lifelong learning and social inclusion.

5.6.3 Roles of the various partners

The University of Hull was appointed as co-ordinator of RIDING at the end of the initial three-year project and the co-ordinator is responsible for keeping the

110

service up and running and liaising with the partner institutions. The scheme has minimal operational impact for the partner institutions who provide and process the cross-access forms. Each of the partners has a liaison officer and their main role is to provide statistics on cross access. Technical support for the service is provided by Fretwell Downing.

The majority of partners feel that their role is clearly defined and that this is helped by the appointment of a liaison officer. One partner said that it worked on basic goodwill, however, another expressed concern about the lack of formal agreements about the role of the partners and what is required of them and felt that this could leave room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation. The lack of a set procedure, for example, could lead to potential problems with the addition of new members as this can be agreed at meetings but also informally via email.

The roles of the partners have been constant apart from Hull moving from partner to co-ordinator. At a senior management level, RIDING is discussed as part of the Yorkshire Universities LIS Directors Group quarterly meetings (http://www.sconul.ac.uk/Meetings/YHUA.pdf). It was decided to integrate the RIDING Steering group into YULIS because the membership was very similar. On an operational level, there is informal contact by email between the liaison officers and the co-ordinator and a mailing list. The RIDING co-ordinator also convenes a meeting of the liaison officers once a year to review usage and statistics. One of the partners added that there is also contact through other collaborations which different partners are involved in.

5.6.4 Successes

An evaluation of the service was conducted by the Information Management Research Institute, University of Northumbria in November 2001 after the initial three-year project (Jackson, 2001). Partners now keep statistics on cross access and there is a counter on the website, but no targets have been set.

The main success is that the scheme has met its aims and continued as a service. The gateway works and enables users to conduct one search of multiple catalogues to find out what is available in the region, whilst the access scheme gives researchers access and borrowing rights to a wider range of resources.

The scheme has not encountered the anticipated problem of libraries being ‘swamped’ by users from other institutions. The usage figures are increasing but the level of interest has proved to be manageable for all institutions, including the University of Leeds, which has the largest collections.

The gateway did encounter technical problems, but it has given the partners a better understanding of the problems and deficiencies of Z39.50 and the

111

difficulties that local cataloguing practices can pose for a virtual union catalogue. It is hoped that the success of the gateway may lead on to other work.

All of the partners feel that the scheme has led to increased collaboration between them and they have shown that they are willing to work together and can agree on issues such as access conditions.

The public library has been pleased with the attitude of the university libraries and informal feedback from public library users who have visited university libraries has been positive. Another partner added that the older universities had become much more liberal in their approach over the course of the project. They attributed this to leadership changes and RSLP funding.

The collaboration has also led to the development of other collaborative projects such as CASE (http://case.leeds.ac.uk), a collaborative scheme involving law libraries.

5.6.5 Benefits of collaboration

Benefits for the partners and their staff

The gateway enables document supply staff to search other catalogues in the region to find out what is available and staff can offer a wider range of increased resources to their customers. The public library has also found it useful to liaise with staff in academic libraries and increase and improve its contacts. One of the partners added that the main benefit was the renewed access rights to University of Leeds, which had withdrawn from a previous scheme. Another partner added that another benefit is the staff training and development that staff who participate in groups get.

The main benefit of collaboration has been increased contact and communication between the partners who are talking together on a regular basis. One partner said that this was especially the case across the former university binary divide, with both sides now unlikely to get together without the other. There has also been increased understanding between staff, such as of the differences between university and public libraries. It has opened them up to different perspectives and a wider approach, although one partner mentioned that there was still a competitive element between institutions.

One of the partners mentioned that through collaboration they were able to give more time to a bigger range of ideas than would be possible as a single library. One described this:

Many more heads, more ideas, more clout!

One of the partners felt that although there was a history of collaboration, RIDING had provided a focus that had been lacking. The partner added that the

112

members feel like an established entity and could easily group together and work quickly on other bids. The institutions also recognise the values of being in a partnership, such as pooling resources, and the possibility of further opportunities, including involvement in the development of a national union catalogue. Collaboration on RIDING has also led to increased collaboration on other things in YULIS such as staff development and training and information skills sub-groups.

Benefits for learners

The union catalogue means that users can search across a range of catalogues to see what resources are available elsewhere in the region, whilst the reciprocal access enables researchers to gain access to a much wider range of library and research materials. This is important for Open University students as it will enable them to become more a part of their region. Another partner said that it was beneficial for part-time students who may live closer to another institution. The only potential limitation for users is restricted borrowing rights, with one partner saying that the circumstances under which its undergraduates can use some of the collections is tight. However, the partner added that it was not resentful and understood the reasoning behind it. Another of the partners suggested that the impact for learners had been quite minimal. 5.6.6 Problems experienced

The partners did not have any major reservations about getting involved in RIDING, although one partner suggested that it was the older universities who were more likely to have reservations as they felt they had more to lose in terms of sharing resources. One partner expressed their keenness to get involved and another said that they had a long tradition of collaboration and had been part of reciprocal borrowing and access schemes since the late seventies. However, there was some initial tension about how much partners should be involved and how much the BLDSC should change its procedures for the project.

One of the original aims of the scheme was to offer a document supply service, but this was abandoned because of technical and operational problems. One of the partners stated that the BLDSC was involved in the scheme and therefore it was wrong to try and cut them out of the equation and another added that ILL staff were reluctant to use anything other than the BLDSC service for document supply. Another partner said that ILL was not a sensible aim and that, “frankly the BL does it better”.

An attempt to purchase co-operatively was also unsuccessful, with one partner suggesting that this was possibly because publishers were unhappy about fewer subscriptions.

113

The RIDING Gateway has been affected by technical problems with one partner stating that it is not technically perfect and that not all the deficiencies of Z39.50 with local cataloguing practices have been solved. Interoperability between systems has been a problem. One ongoing problem is the lack of an electronic link to YHMAN (Yorkshire and Humberside Metropolitan Area Network), whilst firewall problems have also until recently prevented the integration of the public library into the gateway. There was also a problem with collection level description as there was no acknowledged schema and therefore depth of descriptions varied.

A barrier to the collaboration has been the size of the region and the travel required to attend meetings. One partner indicated that there had been a reluctance to travel, meaning that meetings were not always fully attended.

An initial barrier was the substantial cultural differences between the different universities. This has largely been overcome by a change of leadership at one of the universities.

One of the partners expressed concern about a lack of publicity for the scheme. Each institution is supposed to do its own promotion but the partner felt that it would benefit from another publicity drive and a collaborative relaunch.

Public library users get a letter that is valid for three months instead of the access card and the public library was concerned that this may make them look like the poor relation. However, it added that it understood why university libraries wanted to be cautious and check that the users are bona fide and have no outstanding fines.

5.6.7 The impact of social inclusion and other political agendas

The scheme did not aim to address social inclusion or target those who were reluctant to engage in learning, although the inclusion of a public library does help to address these issues. The public library suggested that social inclusion may be one of the reasons why it was invited to join and added that social inclusion and lifelong learning are main aims in its Annual Library Plan. One of the university partners said that social inclusion had had more impact in terms of collaboration with FE colleges.

Partners were unsure about the impact of other issues such as local government reorganisation and the expansion of higher education. There seemed to be confusion over regionalism with one partner suggesting that RIDING was established before it became an issue and another saying that this was the original focus of the project badged under the Yorkshire and Humberside Universities Association. Another partner said that regionalism was now coming

114

more to the fore and that this was motivating them to work more collaboratively, such as with local businesses.The partners recognised the importance of joined up services and best value in terms of sharing resources. In terms of other political agendas, one partner suggested that increased contacts could mean that other bids are slightly easier to put together and another indicated that there is a new agenda of supporting research libraries and sharing resources.

5.6.8 The impact of ICT

ICT has been a vital part of the project as it was based around Z39.50. ICT will also enable future potential developments such as a national union catalogue and digitisation. However, access to ICT resources in member institutions was normally among those services excluded from the reciprocal access schemes.

5.6.9 The future

RIDING has funding, by subscription, for two years and so partners will have to make a decision about its future in April 2003.

Some of the partners acknowledged that a lot of RIDING has now been superseded because of changes in technology and access policies. Many new library systems have their own cross-searching facilities and it will therefore become a fairly standard facility as libraries upgrade. They suggested that it is time to consider what the RIDING Gateway offers and consider other collaborative opportunities such as the sharing of information skills materials. They also recognised that what RIDING and other schemes such as CAIRNS and M25 have achieved has made the new developments a possibility. One partner said,

You can’t get from A to Z without the letters in between.

The Riding Plus reciprocal access scheme is likely to be replaced by a national development, SCONUL Research X, which is planned for next year.

Membership of the scheme has already expanded to include the Open University and five North East universities. One partner did not think that it would expand to include more members, whilst another thought that its membership would increase and that it may also join with other ventures in the region. Another was also unsure about the pace of development and how far the scheme would develop.

RIDING has already encouraged more collaboration in the region such as CASE (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/case/index.htm) and there are possible long-term developments with the national union catalogue and the potential of interoperability with other clumps such as CAIRNS and M25.

115

All of the partners indicated that they are keen to continue their involvement in the collaboration. One partner stated that it is a valuable partnership, whilst another added that it was at a relatively low level but useful.

5.6.10 Involvement in other collaborative projects

The partners interviewed all gave examples of involvement in other collaborative projects on things such as catalogue searching, digitisation and access.

5.6.11 Conclusion

The main benefits of this project have been an electronic gateway to partners’ catalogues; increased access to resources for researchers; and increased contact and communication between partners, which has led to greater understanding between libraries from different sectors. The RIDING project has provided a focus for collaboration in the region. There was initial reluctance by some staff, especially those who were not directly involved, to support the venture. Much of this was based on fears that services would be ‘swamped’ by users from other institutions, a worry which was not borne out in practice. There were also a number of technical difficulties. However, despite these problems, the project became a service when the original three-year JISC funding ended in 2001 and all the partners are keen to continue their involvement.

116

6. Conclusions

A number of surveys conducted over the last decade have contributed to identifying the benefits of collaboration between libraries and education, and also to discussing the difficulties facing libraries from various sectors which wish to collaborate to support learners. One of the most recent is that produced by Warren (2002), who, in his study to establish a Baseline for LIS Regional Development, referred to a significant number of collaborative ventures involving public libraries and education. Although many of these paralleled the findings of this research, the variation in initiatives reported in the two surveys is one indication of the range of collaborative activity which is currently taking place.

It is important to remember that while sharing of skills and expertise is a valuable exercise in itself, its ultimate purpose needs to be the improvement of services for learners. In many cases, collaborative projects do not yet possess a sophisticated understanding of the needs and aspirations of learners and potential learners. This is an issue which needs to be urgently addressed as, without this knowledge, it is not possible for library managers to design and deliver services which are focused on learners.

The level of emphasis afforded to the needs of learners differs considerably from project to project. While the aims of some projects centre directly around learners, the majority of existing collaborative ventures aim to foster more general collaboration between libraries and education, one aspect of which may be to provide benefits for learners even if this is not their primary focus. At present, there appears to be little attempt to assess the impact of collaboration on learners, for example by collecting evidence directly from the learners themselves. Relatively few partnerships focus on the needs of different audience segments and, therefore, do not tailor services to the specific needs of various types of learners.

The development of initiatives such as INSPIRE (Information Sharing Partners in Resources for Education) which aims to improve access and referral between HE, public and national library services, suggests that collaboration between the sectors will become increasingly important, and more structured, in the future. This framework is being led by SCONUL, in partnership the SCL (Society of Chief Librarians) and the British Library in England.

The collaborative projects identified in this survey ranged widely in terms of geographical location, scale and sectors involved. Unsurprisingly, their aims and objectives were also extremely varied, although access was a common focus. Despite the diversity, it was possible to draw a number of general conclusions about the benefits of collaboration, success factors, problems and future direction.

117

6.1 Benefits of collaboration

In general terms, collaboration is valuable because it allows more to be achieved than would be possible if each institution was to work in isolation.

From the questionnaire responses, the main benefits of collaboration were identified as improved access to resources for users; sharing staff expertise; greater understanding of other institutions; opportunities for staff to participate in training; and better opportunities to apply for joint funding with an increased likelihood of success.

The case study interviews reinforced the benefits of joint staff training and development, especially for smaller libraries where opportunities might otherwise be limited. Such training can help to build confidence and provide staff with personal contacts in other institutions or a better knowledge of their collections and services. This can have a positive ‘knock-on’ effect when they are dealing with learners in their own institutions as well as enabling them to refer learners elsewhere with more purpose, knowledge and confidence. In general, networking was identified as an important benefit of collaboration for staff in all sectors. It provides opportunities to share ideas and good practice and to solve problems which face libraries working in different sectors.

In addition, collaboration can help to raise the profile of a library within its own institution; in the locality; and more widely. Evidence of tangible benefits can be good for morale and can act to encourage libraries and staff to commit more enthusiastically to collaboration.

For learners, access to a greater number of resources, including study space; more convenient access; and greater awareness of learning resources available within a locality were identified as the main benefits of collaboration. It was also suggested that independent learners and those from colleges who accessed libraries in HEIs through collaborative arrangements gained confidence in working in such an environment, which might lead them to pursue other learning opportunities in HE. However, interviewees from a number of case studies acknowledged that, at the moment, they had no formal way of measuring the success of their project, in particular, the benefits for learners. This was not seen to be a major problem unless such measures were required for funders or other bodies, but several interviewees felt that they ought to survey learners’ perceptions in the future.

6.2 Success factors

Representatives from the Regional Agencies identified good planning, management and communication; adequate funding and commitment at all levels as the most important factors which helped to secure the success of any collaborative project. Obviously a lack of any of these factors would act as a

118

barrier to success. A particular problem identified was a lack of understanding which can often exist between organisations from different sectors. Changing attitudes was seen as crucial, but difficult to achieve.

Questionnaire respondents mentioned good communication, in particular a clear definition of goals and the pooling of expertise, as being key to success. The motivation of both individuals and groups was also important. It was mentioned that demonstrable success helped to overcome many of the problems they faced, in particular with regard to lack of enthusiasm among staff and learners.

The case study interviewees emphasised the importance of personal relationships in ensuring the success of collaborative ventures. This may have been particularly important because the majority of case studies had adopted a democratic, informal structure; although partners were clear about the aims of the initiative and their particular roles, these were not necessarily formalised in written agreements. Under such a system, it was usual to rotate roles such as the Chair and for all members to be involved in decision-making. Partners commented that this made them feel that their contribution was valued regardless of their size or type of library. Practical, demonstrable benefits were seen as more crucial in ensuring success than written agreements. Another important success factor was the need to involve all staff, not just senior managers, in order to ensure that the whole library was committed to a collaborative approach.

6.3 Problems of collaboration

The most problematic aspects of collaboration referred to in the questionnaire responses were difficulties establishing cross-sectoral links; differing levels of commitment between partners; and technical issues, for example the sharing of electronic resources between partners serving different sectors. Difference in procedures and working practices between institutions presented particular problems. There were also a number of practical barriers such as lack of time, geography and lack of financial support.

Many of these themes were expanded on in the case study interviews. The level of funding available and the length of the funding period obviously had a significant impact on the work of collaborative projects. In addition to money, time was seen as essential to ensure successful collaboration; many librarians were unable to commit as much time as they might have liked. Smaller libraries face the problem of not having as many staff to participate in the different activities of a collaborative venture. In most cases, this was linked to insufficient funding. The danger of becoming involved in too many collaborative ventures, which could lead to inefficiency rather than making libraries more effective was noted by some.

119

The organisational and cultural differences between libraries were identified as significant barriers to collaboration. In particular, the size of institution and library sector (or other domain) were seen to influence the priorities and needs. It was acknowledged that partners needed to be sensitive to the differences which existed between them as well as focusing on commonality. Partners in collaborative ventures involving libraries from a number of different sectors sometimes commented that it was difficult to see the relevance of working with librarians from organisations with which, at first sight, they had little in common.

6.4 Political agendas

While many collaborative projects are concerned with issues such as social inclusion and lifelong learning, awareness of these political agendas rarely, in themselves, provide a motivation for collaborative initiatives. While partners acknowledge the importance of these concepts in terms of achieving service goals and securing funding, the overall aims of most collaborative activity transcends such short-term political agendas. In the case studies, only issues which libraries were compelled to confront, for example accountability and best value, had a significant impact on partners. In fact, many project contacts stressed the fact that they were already addressing the issues identified before they became high on the political agenda; it is in the very nature of libraries’ work to address issues such as social inclusion, lifelong learning and widening participation. However, it was acknowledged that government agendas brought with them high level support for such initiatives and additional funding.

Regionalism, however, was one issue which was seen as having a significant impact, perhaps because the case studies were all strongly identified with a locality and some respondents were involved in regional planning.

6.5 The role of Regional Agencies

Interviews with regional representatives demonstrated that the Regional Agencies clearly have the potential to support collaboration between public and education libraries, particularly by providing strategic direction and encouraging the sharing of good practice. However, in many cases, their role has not yet been adequately developed. It is important that Regional Agencies quickly establish their position in this area, as collaborative activity is likely to increase in the next few years and libraries and education are likely to look to Regional Agencies for support.

6.6 Collaboration in the future

Interviewees from regional agencies forecast that, over the next five years, there was likely to be greater regional collaboration, particularly to address the learning and access agenda.

120

This was reinforced by the fact that the majority of the questionnaire respondents and all the case studies hoped to see their work continuing in the future. Most interviewees expressed great enthusiasm to continue as members of their particular venture. Indeed, most projects expected to see their work expand, as the projects grew geographically or incorporated libraries from other sectors or organisations such as museums or archives. Most interviewees acknowledged that this depended on funding to a great extent. The focus of this research has been on collaborative projects involving public and academic libraries. However, it is likely that, in the future, there will be greater involvement between libraries and museums and archives. From documents such as Developing the Twenty-First Century Archive: An Action Plan for United Kingdom Archives (Resource 2001a) and Renaissance in the Regions: A New Vision for England’s Museums (Resource, 2001b), it is clear that museums and archives are seeking more active involvement with learners and also ways to foster greater collaboration across the cultural heritage sector.

While the development of ICT was seen to offer enormous opportunities for collaboration, particularly in fostering communication between partners, it also presented a number of difficulties, such as licensing agreements and non-institutional learner access. Although a number of collaborative projects centre around the provision of ICT resources and services for learners, in other cases, ICT was viewed, primarily, as an administrative and promotional tool to assist partnership working. One issue that has not been adequately addressed is the possibility of providing public access to computer networks in HE and other libraries. While initiatives such as UK Computers Plus (http://www.uklibrariesplus.ac.uk/ukcp) are exploring the viability of allowing students to use the ICT facilities of other HE libraries, little is being done to provide similar facilities for members of the public. Concerns about the capacity of ICT access within HEIs to deliver resources to their own students; security issues and the inappropriate use of resources still present significant barriers to access of those resources which are not subject to licensing agreements.

At present, in terms of benefits to library users, the majority of initiatives focus on access rather than learning; there appears to be an assumption that access can be directly equated with learning and other issues such as guidance and support for learners are rarely given detailed consideration. Before collaborative initiatives which truly focus on supporting learners can be established, there is a need for institutions to develop an in-depth understanding of the needs of their learners and to consider the ways in which collaboration with other institutions can help to meet these needs more effectively. More work in this area may result in the identification of new models of collaboration which centre around learners rather than libraries. Two of the case studies indicated that such work was beginning, for example, they had established sub-groups of librarians working on information skills to explore how they could work collaboratively in this area.

121

Inspiring Learning for All: A Framework for Access and Learning in Museums, Archives and Libraries, which is currently being developed by Resource, could assist collaborative projects to demonstrate their effective in supporting learning and then to plan improvements. Section 3 of this framework deals with Building Creative Learning Partnership and suggests ways in which organisations can measure the added benefits to both users and organisations of working in partnership (Resource, 2002).

Therefore, although much has been achieved, collaboration between libraries and education is still at an early stage in terms of having major impacts on the learner. Most of the identifiable benefits so far, apart from standardising cross-sectoral access for library users, have been those for institutions and their staff. This has demonstrated how traditional attitudes can be broken down and personal relationships strengthened through initiatives which encourage libraries to work together to develop a common vision, while remaining sensitive to the needs and concerns of the individual partners involved. This, inevitably, has benefits for learners, but the good will which has been fostered must be supported by national and regional frameworks, ICT access and networking agreements and solid funding to ensure that ways can be found for libraries to support individual learners through collaboration. There is a firm basis on which to build and many examples of good practice to inform future initiatives.

122

7. Recommendations

7.1 All those involved in collaboration to support the learner should:

ensure that the development of collaboration and the aims of partnership are built around a detailed understanding of the needs of learners and potential learners.

investigate ways to measure the impact of collaboration on learners, for example, using Resource’s the Inspiring Learning framework.

identify opportunities for both sector-specific and cross-sectoral collaboration.

investigate ways in which collaboration can provide direct, as well as indirect, benefits for learners.

be aware of the different models of collaboration, in particular in terms of the degree of formality, for instance committee structure, secretariat and written agreements; these need to be suited to the aims of the collaborative initiative and the needs of member organisations.

work together to tackle long standing issues which hinder the progress of cross-sectoral collaboration, for example reciprocal borrowing; the use of electronic resources across partner institutions; greater understanding of learners’ needs.

7.2 The DCMS/DfES/Resource should:

identify and then promote those activities where libraries and education can most effectively collaborate to support learners.

provide guidance for collaborative groups on the appropriate involvement of partners from the wider library domain and across the broad cultural sector, including archives and museums, and those from other types of organisations, such as businesses.

provide support for the national infrastructure of co-operation, for example, by working closely with the Regional Agencies.

provide, or encourage others to provide, funding to support new collaborative initiatives.

provide, or encourage others to provide, follow-up funding to allow projects to develop in a new direction.

co-ordinate investigations into ways in which the technological barriers to collaboration might be overcome, and encourage their application.

123

foster and support initiatives which investigate and implement sharing of access to electronic information or learning networks between libraries.

identify the most effective ways for collaborative initiatives to measure the benefits they have for learners and commission pilot work to inform ways of measuring this.

investigate ways in which those who wish to collaborate to support learners might establish contact with other organisations eg a centralised referral service.

7.3 Regional Agencies should:

further develop their roles to support cross-sectoral and cross-domain collaboration. Examples of the types of support which might be provided include information about funding opportunities; a database of collaborative initiatives within the region to allow good practice to be shared; model agreements; staff training and development initiatives; regional conferences; and mapping collaborative ventures in the region.

help those who wish to collaborate to support learners to establish contact with other organisations eg list of contacts, networking events.

be aware of developments in national planning and initiatives taking place in other regions which may inform collaboration in their regions.

7.4 Professional bodies should:

promote the benefits of collaboration to support learners and provide practical support, for example through conferences, training and publications

7.5 Existing projects should:

have a common goal which unites the partners.

adopt a model of collaboration best suited to the aims of the collaborative initiative and the needs of member organisations.

take advantage of opportunities to share good practice, to promote their own work and demonstrate success; to encourage others to work more collaboratively; and to learn from other initiatives. Both formal and informal contact is important in this respect.

investigate ways to measure the success of projects to provide evidence of the benefits of collaboration, in particular the impacts on learners. This should not only be seen as a necessity in order to obtain funding, but as a tool for good management or for the promotion of the project to staff, learners and more widely.

124

make further use of electronic communication to allow members who have difficulty attending meetings because of time or distance constraints to participate.

where appropriate, investigate ways in which access to electronic materials might be improved, for example by introducing a system with different levels of password for external and internal users; designating public access machines available to learners from partner institutions who sign a Network Code of Conduct; or designating visitor access machines with access to the Internet and resources licensed under the JISC/PA model licence.

projects with a large number of partners over a wide geographical area might consider establishing local sub-groups to help to overcome the difficulties experienced in attending meetings and other collaborative activities due to lack of time and money.

projects with a large number of partners from different sectors may wish to establish sub-groups for libraries from closely allied sectors, which can link up as and when appropriate to work on specific issues.

consider involving users in the development of initiatives, for example through representation on committees, focus groups, questionnaires or online feedback.

7.6 Managers in organisations involved in collaborative projects should:

allow staff sufficient time to participate in collaborative projects eg attending meetings.

involve as many staff as possible (at all levels) in collaborative activity eg encourage participation in training and visits.

promote the benefits of collaboration within their organisation.

attempt to gain a better understanding of the needs of their learners and consider how collaboration can be used most effectively to meet these, for example by evaluating the impact of collaborative arrangements on learners.

be aware of the training and development needs of staff in their institution with regard to involvement in collaboration and supporting learners.

be flexible in terms of financial, ICT and other procedures and to compromise to allow collaboration with other organisations to take place.

125

develop a good understanding of the needs and concerns of other partners and be aware of how these differ depending on the size of the library, sector and other factors.

investigate what other institutional links and partnerships exist to determine if they may be potential partners for library collaboration.

126

8. References

8.1 Literature review

Apt Partnership (1995), The Apt Review: A Review of Library and Information Co-operation in the UK and Republic of Ireland, British Library R&D Report 6212, Sheffield: LINC.

Attenborough, Colin, Fuegi, David, Gianoli (2001), Learning Support in Archives, Museums & Libraries in the Eastern Region, Final Report, London: MDR Partners.

Capital Planning Information and Hatrics – the Southern Information Network (1999), Information Trading: Successful Partnerships in Library and Information Services, London: British Library.

Craven, J., and Fisher, S (1997), “The provision of library services for lifelong learners in UK academic libraries”, in P. Brophy et al (eds) (1998), Libraries Without Walls 2: The Delivery of Library Services to Distance Users, Proceedings of a conference hold on 17-20 Sept 1997, London: LA Publishing, pp. 94-108.

Department for Education and Employment/Department for Culture, Media and Sport (2001), The Government’s Response to the Report of the Library and Information Commission: Empowering the Learning Community, London: DfEE/DCMS.

Education for Change (2000), Mutual Benefit: A Map of the Co-operative Landscape, A Study Undertaken for the British Library Co-operation and Partnership Programme, London: Education for Change.

Fox, Nick (1998), “Library and Information Plans: An Enduring Concept”, LINC Issues in Focus, December [available at http://www.bl.uk/concord/linc/pdf/linc15.pdf].

Hall, Lorraine, and Curry, Sally (2000), The SAILS Project: A Working Guide to Cross Sectoral Co-operation , Supporting Lifelong Learning and Staff Development, LIC Research Report 36, London; LIC.

Higher Education Consultancy Group and CHEMS Consulting (2002), A Report to RSLP on: Barriers to Resource Sharing Among Higher Education Libraries, London: CHEMS Consulting.

Library and Information Commission (2000), Empowering the learning community, London: LIC.

127

Mackay, Mary (2001), “Collaboration and liaison: the importance of developing working partnerships in the provision of networked hybrid services to lifelong learning in rural areas”, Library Management 22 (8/9), pp 411-15.

Nankivell, C., Foster, W., Elkin, J. (2000), People Flows: Investigation of Cross-use and Development of Transferable strategies for co-operation between publicly-funded libraries. British Library Research and Innovation Report 167, London: Library and Information Commission, London.

Pilling, Stella, and Kenna, Stephanie (eds) (2002), Co-operation in Action: Collaborative Initiatives in the World of Information, London: Facet publishing.

Resource (2002), Inspiring Learning for All: A Framework for Access and Learning in Museums, Archives and Libraries [available at http://www.resource.gov.uk/documents/insplearn_v03.pdf].

Resource (2001a), Developing the Twenty-First Century Archive: An Action Plan for United Kingdom Archives [available at http://www.resource.gov.uk/documents/21centarc.pdf].

Resource (2001b), Renaissance in the Regions: A New Vision for England’s Museums [available at http://www.resource.gov.uk/documents/rennais.pdf].

Richter, K, and Nankivell, C (1999), Supporting Lifelong Learning: Academic and Public Libraries Working Together, Birmingham: UCE.

SINTO (2002), “New Copyright Law Will Cause Problems”, SINTO, July [available at http://www.shu.ac.uk/services/lc/sinto/newsletter22july02.pdf].

Stephens, K (1998), “The library experiences of postgraduate distance learning students or Alice’s other story”, in P. Brophy et al (eds) (1998), Libraries Without Walls 2: The Delivery of Library Services to Distance Users, Proceedings of a conference hold on 17-20 Sept 1997, London: LA Publishing, pp. 122-142.

Sumsion, J. (1998), “Interaction between university and public libraries: practice and policy”, Issues in Focus 14.

Warren, Geoff (2002), A Baseline for LIS Regional Development [available at http://www.bl.uk/concord/otherpubrdo.html].

Warren, Geoff (2000), Futures Together: Accessing Special Collections in West Midlands Libraries and Related Sectors, London: LIC.

Watkin, A. (1998), “The public library: the local support centre for open and distance learners”, in P. Brophy et al (eds) (1998), Libraries Without Walls 2:

128

The Delivery of Library Services to Distance Users, Proceedings of a conference hold on 17-20 Sept 1997, London: LA Publishing, pp. 94-108.

8.2 Sources for case studies

8.2.1 Canterbury Circle of Libraries

Interviews with:

Jennie Hocken, Herne Bay Library, Kent County Council

Joy Sharman, St Martin’s Hospital Library

Email responses from:

Rhiannon Cox, Knowledge Services Manager, East Kent Hospitals Trust

Angela Conyers, Director of Library Services, Canterbury Christ Church University College

Report of a meeting of Canterbury Circle of Libraries held at Canterbury Christ Church University College on 10th October 2002.

The Canterbury Circle website [http://www.lib.circle.cant.ac.uk].

8.2.2 DELTA (Derbyshire Learning and Technology Access)

Interviews with:

Robert Gent, Derbyshire Libraries and Heritage

Maurice Neville, Derbyshire Adult Education Department

Preliminary questionnaire sent to all project participants in August 2002.

A presentation on the DELTA project by R Gent on Phase 3 of the project. [available at: http://centres.ngfl.gov.uk/technology/mobile-outreach/mobileseminar/mobilelibraries/ (visited 7/10/02)]

The annual library plan, September 2001, Appendix D [available at: http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/librar/libraryplan2001.pdf (visited 7/10/02)]

The county council’s statement on implementing electronic government, July 2001 [available at: http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/yourco/iegstatement.pdf (visited 7/10/02)]

Library and Information Commission (2000), Empowering the learning community, London: LIC, p 39.

129

8.2.3 Find it in London

Interviews with:

Jean Sykes - Project Director

Susan Baker - Project Manager

John Paschoud - Project Technical Manager

Pamela Rew – London Borough of Merton Public Library

Amanda Duffy – Westminster Public Library

Jane Kimber – Hammersmith & Fulham Archives

Audrey Stranders – Havering College of FE

Anne Youens – Harrow College of FE

Penny Pope/Suzanne Enright – University of Westminster

Find it in London project website, [http://www.fiil.org.uk].

8.2.4 The Libraries Together: Liverpool Learning Partnership (LT: LLP)

Interviews with:

Patrick Cox, Librarian, Liverpool Community College

Joyce Little, Head of Libraries and Information Services, Liverpool City Council

Maxine Melling, Director of Learning and Information Services, Liverpool John Moores University

Linda Taylor, Director of Learning Services, Liverpool Hope University College

Frances Thompson, University Librarian, University of Liverpool

8.2.5 MKLCLN – Milton Keynes Learning City Libraries Network

Interviews with:

Liz Annetts

Josephine Burt

Deborah Cooper

Joan Holah

Lorna Maguire

Diana Saulsbury

130

Nicki Whitsed

Hazel Woodward

Milton Keynes Council (2001a), Milton Keynes Learning City Libraries Network, [available at http://www.mkweb.co.uk/Community/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=6027 (Accessed 09/10/02)].

Milton Keynes Council (2001b), The Milton Keynes Lifelong Learning Partnership, [available at http://www.mkweb.co.uk/LLP/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=5399 (Accessed 09/10/02)

Yarnit, Marton (1998), Learning Towns, Learning Cities. A Learning Culture in Milton Keynes – Strategic Initiatives, {available at http://www.lifelonglearning.co.uk/learningcities/s11-milt.htm (Accessed 09/10/02)].

8.2.6 RIDING

Interviews with:

Bridget Towler – RIDING Co-ordinator (Digital Library Manager, Academic Services Libraries, University of Hull)

Jill Gravestock – RIDING Liaison Officer (IT Projects Officer, Open University)

Pat Egan – RIDING Liaison Officer (Manager, Leeds Central Library)

Elizabeth Heaps – Yorkshire Universities LIS Directors Group (incorporating RIDING) Chair, (Librarian, University of York)

Phil Sykes – RIDING Liaison Officer, (Director of Computing & Library Services, University of Huddersfield)

RIDING Gateway [http://www.riding.ac.uk].

RIDING website [http://www.shef.ac.uk/~riding].

Jackson, Maureen (2001), RIDING Report: External Evaluation Report, Newcastle: Information Management Research Institute

131

Appendix 1

Interviews with Regional Agencies

What role does x Regional Agency play in supporting cross-sectoral collaboration between libraries and education?

What forms of collaboration are you aware of in x region? E.g. service delivery, ICT, research, strategic planning, promotion, collection development, user access, training

What do you consider to be the benefits of cross-sectoral collaboration for:a. the library sectorb. the education sector?

How does/might cross-sectoral collaboration between libraries and education help to combat social exclusion, in particular rural isolation?

What factors do you believe help to ensure the success of cross-sectoral collaboration?

What are the main potential barriers to collaboration?

How might these be overcome?

What changes to envisage in the nature of cross-sectoral collaboration in the next five years?

Please could you supply further details about collaborative projects and initiatives that have been conducted in region x e.g. project reports, newsletters, contact details.

132

Appendix 2

Questionnaire for collaborative projects

The Centre for Information Research at the University of Central England has been commissioned by Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, on behalf of the DfES, to undertake research to investigate the impact of existing collaborative arrangements between libraries and education; identify good practice and examples of successful working in collaboration; and recommend ways of establishing cross-sectoral collaborative arrangements.

We would be grateful if you could contribute to this research by completing this short questionnaire and returning it to: Sarah McNicol, Centre for Information Research, Faculty of Computing, Information and English, University of Central England, Perry Barr, Birmingham, B42 2SU or Sarah.McNicol@uce.ac.uk by Friday 16th August.

All responses will be treated in confidence. Thank you for your help.

1. Title of project:

2. Details of contact person

Name:______________________________________________________

Telephone:__________________________________________________

Email:______________________________________________________

3. Please give a brief description of the aims of the project.

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

133

4. Please give details of all the partners involved in the table below.

Name of institution Type of institution eg HE library, FE library, public library

Name and phone number/email of contact person

5. Project funder(s):_____________________________________________

6. Project start date:_____________________________________________

7. Project end date:_____________________________________________

8. Does the project seek to support social inclusion? YES/NOIf so, please say how it aims to achieve this.

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

9. What areas of work does the collaboration involve? Please tick all that applyService delivery Access ICTStrategic planning Archiving ResearchCollection development Promotion TrainingOther (please specify)

_______________________________________

Please give details of partners involved and activities undertaken for each area of work identified.

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

134

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

10. Who is the target audience for each aspect of the project (eg general public, students, professionals, basic skills, children…)?

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

11. What have been the benefits of taking a collaborative approach?

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

12. What have been the main barriers or constraints to a collaborative approach?

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

13. What were the outcomes of project/what have been the outcomes so far?

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

14. Which aims have not been met (so far)? In each case, please say why you think the aim has not been met and whether you expect it to be met during the course of the project.

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

135

15. What were the most successful aspects of the project?

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

What factors do you think accounted for success in each case?

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

16. What were the least successful aspects of project?

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

What factors would you say accounted for the lack of success in each case?

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

17. Do you foresee the project continuing in the future? YES/NOIf not, why not?If so, what changes do you anticipate in the aims of the project and the collaborative arrangements?

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

18. Would you be willing to participate as a case study at a later stage of this research?

YES/NO

136

Appendix 3

Questions for project partners

Number of learners/area served by library.

Why/How did you first become in involved in x project?

Did you have any initial reservations about taking a collaborative approach?

How do the aims of x project link to the overall aims of your organisation?

What is the role of your organisation in the x project/partnership?

Has your role changed during the course of the project?

Do you think that the roles of all the partners are clearly defined?

How much/what type of contact do you have with the other partners?

What have been the main benefits of the project for:a. staffb. learners?

How has the project helped to widen participation and to include those groups who may be reluctant to engage in learning?

How has the success of the project been measured?

What have been the most successful aspects of the project?

What factors helped to account for success in each case?

What have been the least successful aspects of the project?

What factors accounted for the lack of success in each case?

What have been the main benefits of taking a collaborative approach?

What have been the main barriers/constraints to a collaborative approach?

How have/might these be overcome?

What impact has the development of ICT had on collaborative working?

137

What effects has the recent political agenda had on collaborative working? Social inclusion Lifelong learning ‘Joined-up’ services local government reorganisation regionalism accountability/best value the expansion of HE, distance learning

How do you see x project developing in the future? (partners, activities, funding)

Do you intend to continue to be involved in x project? Why (not)?

Are you involved in any other collaborative projects? Please give details eg main aims, other partners

Additional questions for main contact

Why was x project originally set up?

Did you draw on the experiences of similar projects?

How has it subsequently developed? Eg additional partners, new activities

How is x project led/managed?

Could you give more details about the size of the project (number of partners, user population/dispersal…)?

For each area of work identified, please give details of the benefits/successes, problems, when established, planned developments

Does the project receive any support from Regional Agencies or similar organisations?

Plus, follow up from questionnaire

138