2015 Charleston Library Conference

Consortial and demand driven programs are becoming well established in academic libraries for many resources. However, as the use of streaming video snowballs in academia, could these two purchasing models be effectively extended to this medium?

In mid-2014, a pilot project spearheaded by the NY 3Rs Association and with participation from 8 New York State public and private academic libraries was launched to seek an answer this exact question. The colleges – all of varying sizes and profiles – collaborated to design and launch the first ever consortial demand driven pilot for streaming video in the world with Kanopy, a video streaming vendor with an unique Patron-Driven-Acquisition program for online video.

At the core of the pilot were a number of very important questions: (1) could we effectively coordinate collaborative decision-making with such a diverse profile of colleges involved?; (2) how could we best manage issues of fairness when dealing when such varying institutions and when size and budget may have no correlation to usage?; (3) how might the use of film across campuses differ from the use of ebooks and other resources in a group context; and (4) would the usage profile across the campus lead to better overall economics and outcomes than if each of had “gone solo”?

The project yielded many successes and challenges, fascinating cross-campus comparisons, and illuminating insights that will play a significant role in informing the structure and design of consortial programs into the future. Attendees will hear how statistics, teaching faculty input, and the profile and administrative structure of the participating libraries guided the design and decision-making under the program, as well as the key outcomes of the project.