(a) 

(b)

• Consortia borrowing schemes for researchers are beneficial and manageable.
•  Borrowing schemes have the potential to underpin, and to be mutually reinforced by, other forms of regional and national collaboration, such as co-operative collection development, collection development, collection mapping and collaborative resource discover activities.
• Libraries could usefully extend the promotion of borrowing schemes to encourage greater take-up on the part of researchers.
• The case for the extension of these schemes to other regions and on a national basis is supported.
• Greater inter-regional communications would help in developing good practice with standardisation where appropriate, and in encouraging other co-operative initiatives to help develop the national research infrastructure.
• Users at all levels would benefit from the development of an electronic web-based tool that would help navigate between various access and borrowing schemes.

The development of access and borrowing schemes in the regional academic library consortia has been a very positive consequence of the trend towards regionalism. Schemes have developed largely in isolation from each other and in response to individual regional and historical circumstances.

Yet the value of the schemes in relation to national strategic initiatives should not be underestimated even given the advance of electronic access to resources. Borrowing provides an added value service to researchers especially in those subject areas where the need to consult monographs is important.

Access and borrowing schemes are, therefore, and increasingly will be an essential component and building block underpinning:

• The work of the Research Support Libraries Group
• Developments towards the Distributed National Collection, regional co-operative collection developments and deep resource sharing.
• Developments towards a UK national union catalogue (for researchers)
• The successful outcome and justification for retrospective catalogue conversion as proposed by the Full Disclosure exercise.
• Further regional and national collaborative initiatives in learning and in research.

Despite all this there is almost always concern and tension in advancing borrowing schemes. Libraries and library staff who have typically had to bear funding cuts can feel they are unable to absorb the extra work in receiving more visitors from other HEIs. Others might feel that their collections are already under strain. Yet researchers are all individuals or working in very small groups and are unlikely to be in competition for the same resources or make excessive demands since their time is scarce. We also need to promote the use of the research collections in universities as part of the distributed regional and national resource. It was appropriate, therefore, that an evaluative study should take place to review both strategic issues and the practical aspects of implementing borrowing schemes.

The aims of this RSLP-funded project were three-fold:

• To monitor all aspects of the pilot M25 Consortium borrowing scheme which was introduced in September 2000, with a view to encouraging full participation in a permanent scheme by all member libraries.
• To carry out a comparative evaluative study of borrowing schemes developed by eight other regional academic library consortia.
• To write a report for RSLP on the findings of the study, with an eye to advising RSLP on the feasibility/workability of such schemes in support of researchers elsewhere in the UK.

The M25 Consortium¹ was formed in 1993 with the aim of fostering co-operation amongst its member libraries to improve services to users. It currently consists of thirty-nine members. This RSLP funded project, led by the Consortium, was carried out in support of two of the Consortium's goals: namely those of improving access and collaboration. Access is understood to describe the delivery of defined services to our users with optimal access to our scholarly resources; collaboration and partnership is defined as the development of mutually beneficial cross-sectoral, cross-domain, and other alliances and relationships.

The M25 study was essentially an evaluative exercise, intended both to monitor take-up and to encourage participation. The original idea was to use the monitoring exercise to encourage the early development of the M25 scheme, facilitating the transfer of good practice and communicating ideas and progress through a system of Consortium member contacts. This was a satisfying exercise, which achieved its expected outcomes and established a model of borrowing that has now been formally adopted by the Consortium.

The parallel exercise comprised an assessment of eight regional schemes offering some kind of co-operative borrowing facilities within the Higher Education community. The chosen schemes represented institutions from all parts of England, Wales and Scotland

The project was broken down into the following elements or work-packages:

WP1 Interviews with M25 librarians

WP2 Monitor ongoing promotion of M25 scheme

WP3 Analysis of usage data for M25 scheme

WP4 Survey of regional consortia by questionnaire and follow-up

WP5 Interim report for M25 Consortium

WP6 Interim report for regional consortia

WP7 Final report for RSLP

The Project Director was Elizabeth Davison of the London Institute and a member of the M25 Consortium's Steering Group. The detailed work was carried out by Maria Hiscoe, a consultant with extensive experience of higher education libraries. The ready co-operation of the other regional library consortia has been much appreciated

The detailed work of the study is to be found in the attached sections on (1) background information to the project, (2) the M25 Consortium borrowing scheme and (3) the other regional academic consortia schemes. As outlined above, borrowing schemes can play an essential and important role in underpinning a range of strategic initiatives to support research. Indeed, the regional consortia part of the project began with a brief to identify good practice and ended with a celebration of diversity across the country, reflecting the ability of consortia to respond to geographical, political and financial requirements. It was possible to identify good practice as many schemes had reached similar conclusions but no single "perfect system" was identified as local conditions encouraged different approaches, both to services and to administration systems. In this diversity, however, there were seen to be two common threads: the general support for widening services and the difficulties encountered in administration and management. From the project viewpoint this grew into a concern to develop a holistic, user-centred approach, which would benefit regional as well as national developments in improving library services for researchers. Other key findings and recommendations are as follows:

(a)

The RSLP is recommended (a) to take steps to encourage all the regions to develop borrowing schemes as an interim measure and (b) to work with SCONUL towards the development of a national borrowing scheme for researchers.

(b)

Those who manage regional schemes are recommended to consider promotional aspects and to encourage individual participating libraries to publicise the schemes more extensively in order to stimulate a wider take-up of the arrangements that are in place.

(c)

We, therefore, recommend that the regional library consortia be encouraged to develop closer communication links amongst each other with a view to exchanging experience and good practice which would be beneficial not only for implementing access and borrowing schemes but also in other areas of mutual interest too. Moves towards standardisation in practices and in the collection of statistics should be encouraged.

(d)

A recommendation arising from this study that a web-based navigational tool be developed has already been accepted by the M25 Consortium and the RSLP. Subject to the successful outcome of a feasibility study being carried out by the M25 Consortium, a small development project will commence in early 2002 the results of which will be made available to other regions.

This study has produced a number of key findings relevant to strategic initiatives for the support of research. The M25 Consortium's borrowing scheme has migrated from a pilot to a full service. Much detail is given in the sections about the M25 scheme and those of the other regions participating in the study and this will be of relevance to other regions, who it is hoped, will implement similar schemes pending the development of a national scheme. Librarians should have confidence that these schemes are manageable and provide an important service in underpinning the co-operative efforts that are being made to support research at both regional and national levels.

¹See http://www.M25lib.ac.uk/

Section 1 

Section 2

2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7

Section 3

3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5

Executive summary

Project overview, key findings and recommendations 

M25 Pilot Borrowing Scheme: detailed findings

M25 Pilot Scheme: final report 
M25: Agreed action arising from the Pilot Scheme  
M25: Questionnaire 
M25: Membership  
M25 Interim report February 2001  
M25 Interim report May 2001  
M25 Interim report Draft recommendations 

The Regional Consortia Borrowing Schemes : detailed findings

A Review of the Regional Consortia Borrowing Schemes  
Regional Consortia Borrowing Schemes:Conclusions drawn from survey
Regional Consortia Borrowing Schemes: Questionnaire  
Regional Consortia Borrowing Schemes: Membership 
Regional Consortia Borrowing Schemes: Interim report