This session will define innovation as well as discuss ways to inspire and enable innovation.  A variety of examples will be shared in the areas of technology, policy and workflow.

 

Libraries and the Web are natural partners, but have yet to connect and share their power in a truly meaningful way. The Libhub Initiative aims to change that by engaging libraries to deliver the expert richness of content, context, and curation into formats that the Web can understand and share. Denver Public Library has been the pioneering institution in this initiative to translate MARC catalog data into BIBFRAME and publishing it on the Web. Learn about our partnerships, experiences, and the relationship of this initiative to resource sharing.

 

RapidILL has been at the cutting edge of library resource sharing since its inception as an unprecedented article delivery service to the Colorado State University community following a devastating flood that damaged the CSU Libraries’ collection in 1997. Thanks to the request of the original libraries,  CSU developed Rapid as a two-way resource sharing system, and has since grown to nearly 300 libraries worldwide. Rapid focuses on a low cost, very fast and highly efficient interlibrary loan service.  Tom Delaney and Mike Richins will give an overview of the Rapid system, and share details on Rapid’s recent initiatives focusing on Open Access and a dynamic returnables project.

 

The mentoring program at DU started in 2014. They try to match mentors and mentees based on interest and experience. The process is labor intensive but so worth it. They will bring us up to date on their mentoring project at DU and how to start thinking about a mentoring program in your library.

Libraries have been a hub for their communities since they began. Our customers are a subset of our community’s population which leads us to the realization that the library isn’t always about books. Denver Public Library is learning how best to serve the whole community, including community members who are homeless. Elissa Hardy with DPL will share the approaches being taken to address this special population.

OCLC Research has been working with staff from OCLC Research Library Partnership institutions to design and build a tool that, when completed and stocked with data, will function as a real-time ILL cost study.  The ILL Cost Calculator tool, which is currently being beta tested, will provide a mechanism for libraries to gather and process their own data, plus benchmarks against which to measure their own unit’s performance.

Resource sharing is the key character in the AspenCat Union Catalog tale. Because AspenCat connects over 100 small and rural libraries across Colorado, resource sharing needs and practices are central to the decisions that drive the management and development of AspenCat as a service. AspenCat’s story trumpets the necessity of resource sharing small, rural libraries, and the importance of ILL services for library users everywhere.

 

Proposed Takeaways: Resource sharing creates and serves a network of libraries with a shared purpose; Resource sharing creates access for libraries and their communities; Resource sharing creates dialog about information organization and library practices; The ILL community’s work is important to libraries in many contexts; Developing and maintaining the systems that support resource sharing is key to providing access to quality materials for libraries.

It is June 13, 1915, and Enos Mills is preparing words to commemorate the realization of his life’s greatest dream: the newly-created Rocky Mountain National Park. Mills’ abiding reverence for mountains and nature began three decades earlier when he arrived in Colorado as a boy of 14. Later, a chance encounter with legendary John Muir inspired him to wonder: could he do for the Rockies what Muir did for Yosemite? Mills would criss-cross the nation, leading a tireless campaign of speeches, letters, and lobbying. Hear the dramatic story of Enos Mills, a passionate crusader for wilderness, in this first-person narrative evoking a joyous moment in history that secured the preservation of one of Earth’s greatest treasures.