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Partnerships and Alliances

CAVAL's partnerships with ARL and SOLINET

Since 2003 CAVAL has enjoyed collaborative partnerships with the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and SOLINET (the largest public and academic Library consortium organisation based in Atlanta, USA), in order to pursue various programs for the benefit of libraries across Australasia.

Kate Nevins as the Executive Director of SOLINET expressed her "enthusiasm and commitment to your Board and membership" believing that the partnership would be fruitful for all concerned. Kate identified a number of areas for development. These include virtual reference resources, access to e-resources and consortium deals, work in preservation programs as well as distance education curricula.

Duane Webster, the Executive Director of ARL is well known to many Australian librarians through his development of Library Management and Leadership programs. Duane identified three areas for development. Firstly, ARL would want to work with CAVAL to make available ARL's interactive website as a useful service for comparing one's own institution with other selected libraries across a variety of statistical and descriptive indicators. These can then be employed in a wide variety of ways to illustrate trends and patterns.

Secondly, LibQUAL+ is a suite of services that libraries use to solicit, track, understand, and act upon user' opinions of service quality. The program's centerpiece is a rigorously tested Web-based survey bundled with training that helps libraries assess and improve library services, change organizational culture, and market the library. Over 500 libraries have participated in LibQUAL+ and we are currently testing surveys that can be used successfully in different cultures (i.e. Canada, Great Britain, Holland, France, and Germany).

Both this tool and the statistics tool can be used to enable Australian academic and public libraries to benchmark with each other and with self-selected libraries overseas.

Thirdly, CAVAL and ARL would exchange educational programs which were found to be suitable in each others environments.

Duane said: "ARL is interested in working more closely with CAVAL to make available useful and affordable services and resources that help libraries improve their performance and prepare for an uncertain future."