Christopher Cipkin Assistant Director: Library Academic Engagement University of Birmingham ARLG Working Together: Partnership and Collaboration May 2018

1. Collaboration in HE
Christopher Cipkin
Assistant Director: Library Academic Engagement
University of Birmingham
c.cipkin@bham.ac.uk

2. Overview
 How do our parent institutions collaborate?
 How does the HE sector support
collaboration?
 How do HE libraries collaborate in this
context?
 What is the future direction of collaboration?
 Some questions for reflection and
conclusions.

3. How do our parent organisations
partner and collaborate?
What are the challenges and opportunities for
your library service?
‘changes in research and learning behaviors and expectations are more important for the academic library than any library
technology changes per se. Similarly, how networking reshapes library organization, collaboration, and scope will have more
impact in the medium term than any particular local technology adoption.’
Dempsey, L., 2012. Libraries and the informational future: Some notes. Information services & use, 32(32), pp. 203–14. Available
at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/ISU-2012-0670 [Accessed 17 April, 2018]

4. Education
 Recruitment partnerships
 ‘Collaborative provision’
 Employability

5. Research
 Across disciplines
 Across institutions
 Across sectors - industry, 3rd sector, cultural
bodies etc

6. Examples of how the sector
supports collaboration
 International collaborative alliances, eg
Erasmus, Universitas 21 / Worldwide
Universities Network
 National – UUK
 Mission groups
 Tri- and Bi-lateral agreements
 JISC https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects

7. How do HE libraries collaborate
in this context?
 International
 National
 Regional
 Internal

8. International / National
 LIBER
 SCONUL and RLUK

9. Richard Parsons, University of Dundee A Toolkit for Library Collaboration (SCONUL Collaboration Strategy
Group, 2016) Available at:
https://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/1611%20Toolkit_for_Library_Collaboration.pdf.

10. International / National
 LIBER
 SCONUL and RLUK
 Functional collaborations – eg Digital
Preservation Coalition, Relationship
Management Group, Association for Learning
Development in HE.

11. Regional
 NoWAL, Mercian, WHELF, M25 …

12. Internal – within and without the
library
 Joint service delivery – one-stop shops,
outreach
 Across library teams
 With the academy (students and staff)

13. Where is collaboration going
Stephen Pinfield, Andrew Cox & Sophie Rutter,
Mapping the Future of Academic Libraries:
(SCONUL, 2017)

14.  Libraries can build on existing strong consortial and partnership networks. Such
partnerships can be used to address major challenges such as the preservation
of non-print materials ... Multi-professional collaborations within the library and
partnerships beyond it are also seen as crucial. However, one of the key
challenges that becomes apparent here is that there needs to be a balance
struck between collaboration and competition with other professional groups – a
kind of ‘coopetition’.
 Libraries in HE have a particular strength they can build on: their well-
established tradition of partnership-working and consortial bargaining. It is likely
in the future that such regional and national arrangements will have to be further
strengthened and international collaborations extended.
 Investigate the possibilities of developing collaborations to create meaningful
online scholarly venues to complement library … Yet it would be challenging for
libraries to do this alone and would require extensive international collaborations
in order to work.
 Consider the balance between collaboration and competition with other
institutional professional services departments as well as external providers in
relation to new and existing services.

15. Questions for reflection
 Do you know which collaborations and
partnerships your institution is involved in?
 What are the challenges / opportunities for
your service / your role?
 What collaborations do you feel CILIP/ARLG
could usefully engage in to support you
professionally, and the sector more
generally?

16. Conclusions
 Collaboration’s vital to our profession and
services, even in a more competitive context.
 Fostering collaboration will remain a key skill.
 We need to understand the collaborations the
HE sector and our institutions are involved in
– internationally, nationally, regionally, locally.
 These pose challenges, but also rich
opportunities for our services.
 CPD opportunities at all levels.