Libraries and Library Consortia in Poland

1. Libraries and Library Consortia in Poland Presentation prepared for the 5-th E-ICOLC Denmark 22-25 October 2003

2. Few data – Public Libraries • The number of public libraries about 8850. • Out of these, 2697 are libraries and 6152 are their branches. • The unquestionable majority of public libraries (over 5,5 thousand) is situated in the country. • Public libraries book collection reaches 133,7 million volumes (since 1990 it has decreased by 3 million volumes). • About 7,5 million people borrow each year about 140 million books and consult about 19 million in the reading rooms.

3. Few data – Academic Libraries • 1225 academic libraries (including 989 university ones). • 9 460 employees. • Their collections about 58 million volumes of books, about 16 million volumes of periodicals and about 26 million units of special collections. • Academic libraries recorded over 2,1 million readers and over 17 million loans annually (average).

4. Library Consortia–Nasty Reality • No „library consortium” in Polish law • Lack of the tradition of cooperation • The word „consortium” has been appropriated by publishers who organised groups of libraries to purchase their products

5. Nasty Reality – yet.... • Libraries form consortia in order to realise many collective goals: through various associations, agreements create consortia de facto, though not de iure • Examples:VTLS group, HUG utilising software (ILL) coming from the same producer.

6. Examples – cont. • share the hardware (computer systems) and/or software (Krakow, Poznan, Lodz) which results in collective management and administration of these resources • NUKAT – Polish Union Catalogue • Polish Virtual Library – common access to electronic journals

7. Examples – cont. • The only one that has legal entity • Established in 1996 by academic and research libraries in Poznan • 10 universities + 2 public libraries that have a status of research library

8. Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries Mission Create and maintain a structure that will provide access to information for research, academic and educational environment of our town.

9. Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries Vision • Organize remote access to metadata about all resources kept in member libraries • Provide access to the most important electronic journals • Organize remote access to full-text monographs and textbooks • Organize remote access to cultural heritage of our region

10. Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries Actions • Organizing tenders (purchases of software and hardware, access to e-journals) • Installing hardware and implementing software • Servicing and maintaining systems • Organizing trainings • Publishing manuals • Organizing marketing, promotionand fundraising

11. Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries where are we now? • 69000 patrons, more than 500 PCs • Country coordinator of eifl project • 52 libraries cooperating within „Coalition for Library with horizon” -Virtual cataloque KaRo –became the most popular tool for Polish librarians • Digital Library www.wbc.poznan.pl • and more...

12. Thank you! Jan Andrzej Nikisch Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries www.pfsl.poznan.pl nikisch@pfsl.poznan.pl