In an increasingly connected world, academic libraries are stepping up to meet the needs of students who are in constant connection with the digital world and turn to the internet for nearly everything. In efforts to remain relevant and engage with this generation of patrons, we need to develop new resources and services to meet them where they are. Working together can help us get there.
In fall 2017, a charter group of eight academic libraries began working with MOBIUS and OverDrive to create a shared collection of thousands of audio and ebooks. The experience has been overwhelmingly positive, both for us and our patrons. Alongside the advantages of shared pricing and maintenance, the consortial arrangement allows us to benefit from one another’s knowledge and experience. In this panel session, librarians from participating libraries and MOBIUS will chronicle the process from the outset and discuss collection development decisions, MARC records management, and questions about access, as well as the challenges and successes we’ve met along the way. We’ll also highlight some of the reasons for creating the collection, how the collection is managed, and the circulation numbers we’ve seen thus far.