Nylink.html



Nylink

Type	Nonprofit membership cooperative
Founded	Albany, NY, U.S. (1973)
Headquarters	Albany, NY, U.S.
Key people	David Penniman(Executive Director)
Area served	New York State
Active members	More than 3,000 libraries and cultural heritage institutions
Industry	Library services
Products	Worldcat, NetLibrary, FirstSearch, Electronic Databases, Cataloging, Training, Resource Sharing, Interlibrary Loan, eBooks, eAudiobooks, LAND
Employees	25
Website	http://nylink.org

Nylink ¹ is a non-profit totally member supported cooperative serving libraries and cultural heritage organizations of all types. Based in Albany, New York, Nylink members are located in New York state and surrounding areas. Nylink’s 300 plus member institutions include academic libraries, public libraries, library systems, corporate libraries, court and government agency libraries, gardens, museums and other cultural heritage organizations. Additionally, Nylink has more than 2,000 affiliate institutions who participate in or acquire services Nylink offers.

History

Nylink was founded in 1973 as the SUNY/OCLC Network, providing access and support to OCLC’s core services (cataloging and resource sharing) for New York State libraries. Nylink is one of fifteen regional service providers (RSPs) for OCLC, developed to provide personalized support for a suite of OCLC services ². In April 1999, the SUNY/OCLC Network changed its name to Nylink to reflect its more diverse membership and services. ³

Nylink is governed by Nylink Council, made up of representatives from all constituencies of Nylink members, elected by the membership.

Collaboration

Nylink’s mission is "Supporting Libraries through Collaboration and Innovation.” Nylink accomplishes this through working with other NYS library organizations and other regional service providers, as well as working for libraries to provide training, support, and advocacy.

• 2000: Nylink secured an IMLS grant to start Nylink's IT Fluency Institute. The Fluency Institute developed into a year-round continuing education program. Nylink’s professional development [1] where information technology is only one component, is available to staff as face-to-face classes throughout New York, and anytime and anywhere as online classes.
• 2001: Nylink was a voting member of the NISO standard Z39.85-2001, “Dublin Core Metadata Standard”. The Dublin Core metadata standard has become a mainstay in the library community to describe digital objects.
• 2006: Nylink and eleven other OCLC networks joined together to form the Network Education Exchange (NEE) [2]. Through this agreement, Nylink members can take training classes at any other OCLC network at member rates.

Nylink has partnered with the Northeast Document Conservation Center ⁴, ENY/ACRL, the Eastern New York division of the Association of College and Research Libraries ⁵, the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCT) ⁶, LITA, the Library and Information Technology Association, and many other organization to provide training for librarians and information professionals.

Nylink works with the New York State Library Association, participating on the conference program committee, NYLA sections and by supporting its annual conference as an exhibitor. ⁷

Nylink works with the New York State Higher Education Initiative (NYSHEI), ⁸recently negotiating an Elsevier ⁹ contract for NYSHEI and Nylink to provide a substantial cost saving for New York libraries.

Nylink works with New York’s 3Rs Councils (NY3R’s) ¹⁰ to support NYS libraries, collaborating on training, providing access to databases, cataloging, and resource sharing.

Resource sharing across New York

LAND [3], a statewide ground delivery service for transporting materials between participating libraries, was created and is administered by Nylink. For a flat annual rate, LAND participants can send and receive an unlimited number of items.

In January 2004, Nylink began working with SUNY Geneseo ¹¹ to support the Information Delivery Service (IDS) pilot program. The IDS Project is a cooperative resource sharing system designed to implement and evaluate a set of common transaction objectives, policies, and procedures among participating libraries that will help optimize mutual access to the information resources contained within those libraries. The foundation of the project is based upon each participating library meeting the performance standards outlined in the IDS Project contract, using the OCLC ILLiad Resource Sharing Management System and the LAND Delivery System. IDS has gained attention nationwide through the ATLAS ILLiad conferences.

In June 2007, members of New York’s library community came together in Saratoga Springs to discuss and share ideas regarding the future of resource sharing in New York State. New York Resource Sharing Summit: Moving Ahead ¹² provided a forum for librarians to come together to discuss resource sharing issues. An outcome of the summit was the creation of two working groups to look at discovery and delivery model to benefit New York's library community.

• Discovery Working Group
• Delivery Working Group

Additionally, Nylink and SUNY Geneseo staff worked together to develop modules for and implement an IDS mentoring program.

Additional services

Nylink offers databases, E-book and journals, online encyclopedias, and other electronic resources to libraries at discounted rates. Nylink serves as the administrator on behalf of libraries, working with vendors, and providing the libraries with fiscal services and support. Nylink also offers consulting services on a wide range of subject areas.

References

External links

• Nylink Blog
• Nylink Webpage
• OCLC
• De.lic.ious Links for Libraries
• IDS Project