Home | Co-operation and Partnerships (Summary)
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SUMMARY

SCOPE
The management of co-operative agreements, consortia and partnership with other government, local government and business organisations. 

POLICY ISSUES
In some countries a culture of partnership has become an important part of government policy. The need to consider public needs in a more ‘holistic’ context, supported by many governments and the EU, increasingly means that public libraries need to work together with other local authority departments, agencies and local and regional offices of central government as well as with their cultural partners such as museums and archives. 

The advent of networked services and the nature of digital content in cyberspace is a further powerful force in the dissolution of organisational barriers and the need for public libraries to take an open and innovative approach to co-operation and partnership. 

GOOD PRACTICE GUIDELINES
Various types of co-operation and partnership are effective in delivering different types of objective including:

• Strategic partnerships at national, regional or local levels. At regional level, they may be formed in order to establish a development agency for museum, library and archive organizations. 

• Partnerships between public libraries and other libraries.

• Partnerships with the voluntary sector.

• Partnerships with industry.

Types of partnership 
There are a number of types and purposes for partnerships:

• regional or location-based, where organisations in a locality agree to co-operate; 

• subject-based where groups of organisations specialising in a particular subject, regardless of location, agree to work together;

• activity-based e.g. for service delivery, preservation, training, IT development and purchasing.

FUTURE AGENDA
The effect of the development of digital technology is to make libraries and other institutions less and less insular and more mutually dependent. The future of partnerships is closely linked to the future of funding. New models such as regional Cultural Service Centres may emerge to provide innovative applications, solutions and services for local cultural institutions.

The legal and regulatory framework for partnerships and co-operation within which libraries and other cultural organisations operate needs to develop to take account of the fact that local authority services such as public libraries are no longer as self-sufficient as they were and are now participants in a worldwide network which involves the public, private and voluntary sectors

Home | Co-operation and Partnerships (Summary)
Full Text: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4