Partnerships
Collaborating with PALNI
PALNI often collaborates with other nonprofits to achieve a project, product or service more effectively in terms of quality and cost savings. These partnerships allow each organization to thrive by sharing expertise, infrastructure, and funding equally.
PALNI also works closely with other groups, be it outside non-profits or vendors, to accomplish our mission via pay-for-service or product contacts. Those working relationships are listed below under Other Groups and Vendors.
Institutional Repository Development and Implementations
PALNI and the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation (PALCI) have partnered to develop Hyku for Consortia, an affordable, open-source, and collaborative institutional repository solution based on Samvera's Hyku software.
Funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Hyku for Consortia was developed with input from a community of users comprising the Hyku Commons. Pilot participants included libraries from partnering consortia VIVA and LOUIS, with development support from Software Services by Scientist.com.
Institutional Repositories (IRs) perform a valuable function by creating open access to campus scholarship, and by doing so demonstrating library value and the value of the institution as a whole.
This project supports PALNI’s collaborative and community approach on four levels:
- Sharing scholarship and digital content from our institutions with the world.
- Developing open-source, community-owned tools.
- Collaborating to host and maintain tools in shared server space.
- Sharing expertise in metadata, mapping, user experience design, workflow design, and collections across consortia participants.
Currently, only 15% of PALNI institutions have an IR systems due to operating at maximum capacity for other library services.
Collaborating with PALCI allows both consortia to share resources and expertise, and develop a product meeting multiple priorities for IR and digital collection management.
Partnership for Shared Book Collections
In addition to PALNI, the following shared print programs are members of the Partnership for Shared Book Collections:
- Academic Libraries of Indiana (ALI)
- Center for Research Libraries (CRL)
- Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries
- ConnectNY
- Eastern Academic Scholars’ Trust (EAST)
- HathiTrust Digital Library
- Keep @ Downsview
- Maine Shared Collections Cooperative
- Michigan Shared Print Initiative (MI-SPI)
- Minnesota Cooperative Collection Management Program
- Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP)
- Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC)
- University of California Libraries (UC Libraries)
- Virtual Libraries of Virginia (VIVA)
- Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC)
View the Partnership for Shared Book Collections online.
Academic and research libraries have been collaborating for some time to preserve and protect the print scholarly record as space and budgetary constraints threaten libraries’ ability to provide access locally.
The Partnership for Shared Book Collections was formed as an outcome of two Shared Print Monograph Summit meetings sponsored by EAST and funded through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The Partnership, which is a federation of the existing shared print monograph programs in North America, looks to coordinate collaboration across these programs to support cost-effective retention of and access to print book collections. The ultimate goal is to ensure the long-term preservation, accessibility, and integrity of these scholarly print resources.
The Partnership is an agreement between shared print program members, rather than individual
institutions. The member programs have already committed to retain over 40 million books (and growing!) primarily in academic and research libraries across the United States and Canada and make these materials available for scholarship, research, and teaching through interlibrary loan and other forms of resource sharing.
By having multiple shared print programs partnering together, even more print resources are available and preserved than ever before.
Each print program contributes a Program Coordinator to collectively manage the initiative.
Other financial commitments may include support for shared print open retention data registry and supporting participation in at least one face-to-face meeting per year of shared print program member representatives.
Through the power of many, come benefits for all as we work together to connect shared print programs in North America.
Academic Libraries of Indiana (ALI)
The Academic Libraries of Indiana (ALI) represent all academic libraries in accredited, non-profit institutions of higher education in Indiana.
Its 72 members include major research libraries, law and medical libraries, theological school libraries, and undergraduate libraries. View ALI members.
ALI's mission is to build and foster community and collaboration among academic libraries in Indiana.
All PALNI libraries are part of ALI but the two organizations are separate. We work with ALI for licensing resources for our institutions, and also collaborate on projects such as scholarly communication, information literacy, resource sharing, and shared print.
While similar in nature, ALI and PALNI are two separate organizations.
ALI consists of private and public academic libraries, including large research institutions in Indiana.
While the inclusion of all types of academic libraries is beneficial when negotiating vendor deals and licensing, the needs of PALNI’s smaller schools tend to get lost in the mix.
Because PALNI is solely focused on private academic institutions, we’re better able to meet their needs outside of licensing. Both organizations work together to best support their membership.
OhioNet
A membership-driven organization, OhioNet provides innovative technology solutions, products, training and consulting.
OhioNET assists members in acquiring, implementing and using technology solutions to manage operations and resources to meet end user needs.
Through its partnership with PALNI, OhioNet provides Ezproxy server hosting and complete support.
They handle the upgrades, security certificates, configuration files, and more.
Their responsiveness is unmatched and PALNI schools rarely have to wait more than a day or two to see changes made to their custom configurations.
Most PALNI schools are run by a small staff who already wear many hats and roles.
Having OhioNet take care of configuring and maintaining the Ezproxy server outside of the local library not only frees up their time and expertise to higher priorities, but it saves the library space and hardware maintenance.
OhioNet helps to keep the digital doors open to resources while the libraries focus on keeping the physical access open to library resources. A win-win partnership.
Other Groups and Vendors
CrossRef and Datacite are nonprofit Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Registration Agencies that overlap in terms of missions and communities—the two organizations collaborate on numerous initiatives that aim to provide foundational infrastructure for research outputs.
- CrossRef makes research outputs easy to find, cite, link, assess, and reuse with the purpose of making scholarly communication better. They do so by rallying their community of users, tagging and sharing metadata, running an open infrastructure, advancing technology, and making tools and services—all to help put research in context.
- DataCite’s mission is to be the world’s leading provider of persistent identifiers for research. Through their portfolio of services, they provide the means to create, find, cite, connect, and use research. DataCite seeks to create value and develop community-driven, innovative, open, integrated, usable, and sustainable services for research.
PALNI benefits greatly from connecting with the Indiana State Library (ISL).
ISL provides statewide access to INSPIRE resources, offers many professional development opportunities, and partially subsidizes the state-wide lending courier InfoExpress.
A number of the PALNI libraries are also participating in the SRCS (Statewide Remote Circulation Service), a resource sharing tool linking over 200 library catalogs in a single interface.
Learn more about the Indiana State Library.
The Midwest Collaborative for Library Services (MCLS) was formed to facilitate sharing of resources among libraries, to enhance the availability of information resources to patrons, and to encourage libraries to institute cost-effective procedures that are made possible through interlibrary cooperation.
MCLS is fully funded by its libraries and receives no direct federal or state support.
"In these times of rapid change, increased automation, and technological innovation, Indiana and Michigan libraries need a partner they can trust for reliable information on new products and services and for top-notch support. Libraries need a partner to turn to when negotiating with vendors, a partner who will advocate for the good of Indiana and Michigan libraries. MCLS is that partner." — MCLS website
All PALNI libraries benefit from the partnership with MCLS for group purchasing, affordable professional development training opportunities, strategic planning consultants, and much more.
PALNI became a voting member of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) in 2023. Through this membership, PALNI plays an integral role in advancing standards-based library infrastructure and innovation through collaboration with cultural, scientific, scholarly and professional communities.
Learn more about NISO.
The Open Education Network (OEN) promotes access, affordability, and student success through the use of open educational resources (OER).
OEN members consist of a growing network of higher education institutions and systems that support the library and the adoption of open textbooks. The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly licensed textbooks to be used by anyone.
PALNI benefits as a member of OEN through efforts to pool expertise, promote best practices, and share resources. Having this community of support has enabled the PALSave Affordable Learning initiative to thrive within the PALNI libraries.
PALNI contracts for all supported libraries to have a state-of-the-art, web-based library management system through OCLC. The group discount reflects a savings of nearly $1 million.
Using the system, librarians are able to manage collections while users can easily find resources within their own library, within PALNI, and worldwide.
PALNI also benefits from an active OCLC community of libraries and other consortia using OCLC products and development.