2016 Charleston Library Conference

The University System of Maryland & Affiliated Institutions (USMAI) Library Consortium was established in the early 1980s with resource sharing as its founding principle. Electronic resources were incorporated into this mission in the late 1990s and were managed primarily in a buyer's club arrangement until the last three years when the USMAI began to intentionally increase shared collection development activities and develop a new management structure. The number of centrally-funded e-resources shared by all libraries in the consortium has increased, licensing terms and inventory is under investigation, and data assessment policies and practices are under review. E-Resources management within and throughout the consortium has evolved from being the primary responsibility of a single librarian to the work of a committee with assistance from a third party consortial procurement agent and potentially a consortial licensing and data collection and assessment contractor. The USMAI is holistically developing a new foundation for the management of e-resources for an era of shared collection development by incorporating all of these elements and built upon a framework of shared governance - all without procurement authority at the consortial level or a specified budget for new e-resources. This has led to the generation of new management approaches to consortial ERM not previously discussed in the literature through an incubator approach. The establishment of shared governance will be presented from two viewpoints: Subgroup/committee members' perspectives on USMAI history, procurement realities, budgeting, framework development, and where we are today, and consortial administration's perspectives on the future of ERM for the USMAI.