Among the largest expenses any institution of higher education faces are those associated with maintaining a library that keeps pace with advances in the arts and sciences. Scholarly journals, where much groundbreaking research first appears, as well as an increasingly diverse array of electronic databases can be especially-even prohibitively-expensive. But what if colleges and universities in close proximity could share such resources-and thus also share the costs involved?

Now, with a grant of $840,000, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City has provided funding for just such an innovative venture, planned by a consortium of five leading Ohio liberal-arts institutions. Members of the consortium, incorporated as "The Five Colleges of Ohio," are Kenyon and Oberlin colleges, Denison and Ohio Wesleyan universities, and The College of Wooster.

"Our proposal aims to consolidate library activities using electronic and other means to achieve significant savings," said Philip H. Jordan Jr., who retires this month as president of Kenyon College, which submitted the funding request. "We are gratifi ed that the Mellon Foundation, recognizing the potential of such arrangements, has seen fit to support our efforts so generously."

Over the two-year life of the grant, the five institutions will develop specific programs and strategies to improve educational effectiveness and gain financial efficiencies by addressing cost-saving opportunities in administrative areas of their budgets . "We are looking for ways to make our dollars go further," says Jordan, "ways in which we can jointly effect economics and efficiencies in our operations."

Jordan and his fellow presidents,* who serve as the consortium's board of trustees, believe they will not only save money but also enhance the availability of scholarly resources to faculty members and students on their campuses. Plans call for merging the existing library databases at Denison, Kenyon, Ohio Wesleyan, and Wooster, allowing a library patron at any of the four sites to have access to the holdings of all four collections simultaneously. In order to facilitate the plans, the consortium will hire a systems manager to oversee operations from an office at Denison.

Consortium members also expect to acquire reference databases for sharing among the libraries, from a site at Oberlin, and to explore ways in which the libraries might share multimedia resources and image collections.

"We congratulate the leaders of these institutions for their creativity in designing this consortium," said William G. Bowen, president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. "The foundation will follow the consortium's progress with interest to determine h ow other groups of colleges might benefit from their experience."

*The founding presidents of "The Five Colleges of Ohio" are Henry J. Copeland of The College of Wooster; Michele Tolela Myers of Denison University; Philip H. Jordan Jr. of Kenyon College; Nancy S. Dye o f Oberlin College; and Thomas B. Courtice of Ohio Wesleyan University.

JULY 1995

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