We owe much gratitude to the colleagues who assisted us and contributed to this work, and acknowledge them here in the order in which their contributions appear in this book. A brief biographical sketch for each author is found after the conclusion.
We began research for this book by surveying our consortial colleagues. We thank the 77 who did respond. We focused on the 66 US respondents. We also had 11 international consortial responses. Jeanette Smithee, Southeast Florida Information Network (SEFLIN), was kind enough to work with us to expand on her responses to create a case study of SEFLIN’s experiences after the 2008 recession, which can be found in chapter 2.
Discovery to delivery is such an integral part of consortial services in most organizations that we included chapters devoted to both discovery and delivery. Tracey Leger-Hornby, formerly of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Lori Ayre, of the Galecia Group, brought the experience and talent to make chapters 5 and 6 possible.
As we examined the consortial landscape and found sustainability to be a key issue, we felt that those directly involved in this important issue would be best equipped to write about the service projects that contributed to sustainability and member library success. We called on colleagues to prepare case studies of innovative projects to share with our readers and we are grateful for their efforts. These contributions are outlined in the overview of the case studies.
—Greg Pronevitz and Valerie Horton