Katherine Skinner
Director of Programs
Invest in Open Infrastructure
Jill Morris
Executive Director
Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation
Kirsten Leonard
Executive Director
Private Academic Library Network of Indiana
In an era when academic libraries face existential threats, from federal funding cuts to vendor consolidation to capacity crises, who steps up to provide stability? Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI)’s recent research study, Open Resilience: Building Infrastructure Together (ORBIT), reveals that library consortia are stepping up as critical bulwarks against resource scarcity and service disruption among their members. Interviews with consortial leaders highlight both the urgent challenges they face—vendor consolidation, shrinking institutional capacity, and political and financial pressures—and the opportunities they see for bold collective action. IOI’s research points to library consortia emerging as critical architects of resilience, evolving their missions and reshaping the open infrastructure landscape in the process. The briefing will introduce the study’s major findings, including five approaches to open infrastructure support (hosting, building, sponsoring, training, cultivating) that library consortia are exploring and implementing to ensure that critical library services thrive in an increasingly restrictive environment. It will also provide recommendations for consortia to engage in collective action to further amplify their impact.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17193778
https://investinopen.org
