After the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s collective collection was first conceived of in 2019 in an OCLC Research report, enthusiasm for making it a reality spread across the consortia. The library directors of the 15 institutions endorsed the initiative unanimously and named it the BIG Collection. But how do you realize the vision to unite the collections of the Big Ten university libraries and to achieve the primary goal of: “Any content, from anywhere, to anyone across the Big Ten…. now and into the future”? This session will explore how this work has been framed conceptually through convenings, steering committee work, and leadership efforts, and through more practical efforts that have begun through the BTAA peer groups and pilot projects.
The panelists will frame what it means to work collaboratively across institutions. They will examine how ideas take shape, how priorities are established, and how pilot projects gain support for collective action. The presenters will discuss how the consortium is working to build common central infrastructure services, implementing new tools and systems to improve our discovery-to-delivery environment, and opening scholarly research through investments in both open content and open infrastructure. Within the scope of the BIG Collection, the presenters will also explain how the BTAA is implementing training and centering diversity, equity, and inclusivity to inform our efforts and to examine and advance a common, cross-institutional culture.
After the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s collective collection was first conceived of in 2019 in an OCLC Research report, enthusiasm for making it a reality spread across the consortia. The library directors of the 15 institutions endorsed the initiative unanimously and named it the BIG Collection. But how do you realize the vision to unite the collections of the Big Ten university libraries and to achieve the primary goal of: “Any content, from anywhere, to anyone across the Big Ten…. now and into the future”? This session will explore how this work has been framed conceptually through convenings, steering committee work, and leadership efforts, and through more practical efforts that have begun through the BTAA peer groups and pilot projects.
The panelists will frame what it means to work collaboratively across institutions. They will examine how ideas take shape, how priorities are established, and how pilot projects gain support for collective action. The presenters will discuss how the consortium is working to build common central infrastructure services, implementing new tools and systems to improve our discovery-to-delivery environment, and opening scholarly research through investments in both open content and open infrastructure. Within the scope of the BIG Collection, the presenters will also explain how the BTAA is implementing training and centering diversity, equity, and inclusivity to inform our efforts and to examine and advance a common, cross-institutional culture.
Emily has been Director of Document Delivery at the University of Michigan for over five years. Previously she held various roles in the library, including Special Projects Librarian for Collections. She is very active in with the BTAA and has been a member of the BTAA Steering Committee since it's inception. She is currently working to improve the resource sharing across the alliance to help realize the vision of a collective collection.
Kate McCready, MLIS, is serving as the Visiting Program Officer to the Big Ten Academic Alliance Library Initiatives to advance the work of building the 'BIG Collection'. In this role, from June 2022 through May 2024, Kate will be leading the development of a vision for a multifaceted, sustainable course of action to strengthen academy-owned publishing for the BTAA. Kate provides leadership in strategy development for the acquisition, publishing, and archiving of open access scholarly content, with a specific emphasis on investigating direction and strategy for developing shared publishing infrastructure and services at scale. Kate has expertise and has developed services in areas such as library publishing, research information management systems, virtual research environments, interlibrary loan, copyright permissions services, collection development, and the management and preservation of print collections. Throughout her career, Kate has worked extensively to advocate for sustainable models for scholarly communication and information sharing.
Lee Konrad is the Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and also serves as the Director of Digital Library and Preservation Services. Konrad earned an MA in Library and Information Studies from UW-Madison and has held a variety of positions in the UW-Madison Libraries. From 2005-2010 Konrad served as Director of the Arts, Humanities and Social Science Libraries and, since 2010, has served in his current administrative role. Konrad’s professional focus has been primarily in the areas of web resource discovery, emerging library technologies, digital libraries, digital preservation, technical services and library administration. In addition to his work with the Libraries, he taught for two semesters in the School of Library and Information Studies on topics pertaining to the development of digital libraries.
