LITHUANIAN RESEARCH LIBRARY CONSORTIUM

IN A NUTSHELL

Aušra Vaškevičienė

Lithuanian Research Library Consortium

www.lmba.lt

11-11-2015, Riga

Outline

• Library Cooperation in Lithuania• Establishment of the Lithuanian Research

Library Consortium (LMBA)• The main activities of the LMBA

Lithuanian Librarians Association (LBD)

Lithuanian Academic

Library Association

(LABA)

Consortium of Lithuanian

Academic Libraries Information

Infrastructure for Science and

Studies Maintenance and

Expansion Lithuanian Research

Library Consortium

(LMBA)

Lithuanian County Public Library

Association

Lithuanian Municipal

Public Library

Association

Lithuanian Colleague

Library Association

Established – 4th December 2001

• Big debate – who can be members (only academic and reserch libraries, or the National Library and county public libraries also)

• 23 libraries – founders, currently – 55 members

The statement in the Statute: “… 10.3. subscribe to online databases for the members

of the Consortium and other libraries; …

The office of the LMBA

Management of the LMBA

• The General Stakeholders meeting is the supreme management body

• The Council – 7 members• President • Head of administration

• Number of employees – 7 (1 full time)

LMBA paid staff• President (only from October 2015) • Accountant (from 2002)• Head of Consortium administration (from 2004)• Database administrator (from 2007)• Public procurement specialist (from 2005)• Lawyer (only for EU projects, 2009–2015)• English language translator (from 2009)• IT support for office (from 2009)

Income sources

• Membership fees and allocated contribution– joining fees – 76 €,

– annual membership fees – fixed part 171 € (~ 128 € until 2010) + variable part for services

• Projects’ funds• The accession contributions made by the

members

The main activities of the LMBA• Subscription to electronic databases for

Consortium members and other libraries (2015: 37 agreements for 47 databases, 7 e-books)

• Advocacy (OA, IP, etc.) and fundraising (EU funding, Ministries‘ grants, etc.)

• Knowledge sharing• Enhancement of professional competencies of

librarians• Participation in the EU and other programmes

and projects• Co-operation with other organizations

Communication

• http://www.lmba.lt • Closed member‘s forum• 2 annual meetings• E-mails to individual libraries or their groups• Skype, telephone• Visits to individual libraries• Reporting activities to members, funders and

politicians

International cooperation

Why it is important to have the consortium?

• LMBA became strategic partner in scholarly communication

• Stakeholders trust us, we work together• Researchers get much more information• Librarians learned to work together, react quickly• We have much more knowledge• We are active internationally• We save a lot

Together we are the POWER