PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For information contact:
Bart Harloe (St. Lawrence University), @ 315-229-5454
Loretta Ebert (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), @ 518-276-8305


CONNECTNY ADDS NEW MEMBERS; AWARDED MELLON GRANT

ConnectNY is pleased to announce that Union College and Siena College have joined 
this growing consortium of independent college and university libraries as Charter members. 
Both Siena and Union have activated their ConnectNY union catalogs so that students 
and faculty are now taking advantage of this new system for sharing resources in 
New York. In addition, The ConnectNY Council has recently approved the applications 
of the United States Military Academy Library at West Point and the Bard College 
Library. Their collections will be added to the system in the Spring of 2005.  
ConnectNY represents the collaboration of libraries within New York State dedicated 
to sharing research materials as efficiently and quickly as possible for faculty, staff, 
and students at the participating institutions.  The founding members are:  
Rochester Institute of Technology, St. Lawrence University, Colgate University, Vassar 
College, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The ConnectNY union catalog is powered by the Innovative Interfaces INN-Reach software, 
acquired by the consortium in 2004.  A library patron can initiate an online, 
direct-borrowing request from his or her respective member library, with the expectation 
that requested items will be delivered within about 48 hours. ConnectNY uses the 
LAND delivery service, a Nylink statewide delivery system. The consortial arrangement 
substantially increases the number of titles available to member library users and 
also reduces the unit cost of resource sharing among participating institutions.  
The merged collections currently listed in the INN-Reach union catalog contain over 
3 million items--all available for searching and circulation. Students and faculty 
of ConnectNY institutions have enthusiastically embraced the new service.  
Borrowing and lending traffic has reached nearly 25,000 items annually.

In addition to the obvious benefits of direct, online borrowing and rapid 
turn-around of exchanged items, the ConnectNY model (like similar consortia 
such as OhioLink, the Orbis Cascade Alliance, and Prospector) also makes 
possible true cooperative collection development and resource sharing.  
The ConnectNY members will be exploring not only cooperative purchasing of 
expensive resources, but also complementary development of their monographic 
collections.  The comprehensive and constantly updated INN-Reach union catalog 
makes these, and other, resource sharing arrangements entirely practical and 
cost-effective.

“Our system has not only become larger with the addition of the two new members 
but also faster and more cost effective because of the new INN-Reach system,” 
says Bart Harloe of ConnectNY. INN-Reach typically gets materials to students 
within 48 hours—much faster than traditional interlibrary loan systems. 
ConnectNY has initiated a model shared by other INN-Reach systems that makes 
true cooperative collection development possible. “Our overlap studies indicate 
that we are already doing a basic kind of cooperation driven by the fact that 
over 70% of the collections in the catalog are unique.” The ConnectNY project 
will be exploring not only cooperative purchasing of expensive resources, but 
also complementary development of their monographic collections.  

ConnectNY began as cooperative project with the assistance of a planning grant 
from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2003. The consortium subsequently 
received $250,000 from the foundation to support the implementation of the new 
union catalog in New York State. “The Andrew Mellon Foundation is pleased 
to be able to support the development of this new collaborative effort for 
this group of academic libraries in New York State,” stated Senior Advisor 
for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Susan Perry. “We believe that it will 
allow their students and faculty to share resources in an efficient and 
cost-effective manner and that, in the longer run, can serve as one model 
for resource sharing in New York State.”


Colgate University                      Renesselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rochester Institute of Technology       St. Lawrence University
Siena College                  Union College                  Vassar College 


-30-

Back To News Releases
Back to St. Lawrence Homepage