There are several types of library consortia. Typically in the professional literature, there are considered to be three types: those based on geographical location, type of library, or governing framework. These types are primarily based on their membership. The literature also assigns and allows many activities to any of the three types.

However, based on my experience working in multiple consortia, the reality is that library consortia take on identities based on their activity rather than their members. As a result, these are the practical types:

Negotiating → This type exists only to serve as a collective negotiating unit. Members of this type of consortium are represented in some way—either with representatives from each member library or with an appointed board or board-like bargaining unit—to negotiate a better price on content and/or systems. With more voices, these consortia can enable vendors to reach and influence a larger audience with their products in exchange for a lower price than any individual member would pay alone. However, this relies on the negotiating skills of the representing entity and may result in either lower prices thanks to concessions from both sides or what simply looks like a lower cost because it is split among members. These consortia often consist of libraries with similar users or user needs, such as public or academic libraries, in a smaller geographical area, like a county or state.

How can you tell you’re in a negotiating consortium? Your institution gets a good price on products that it could not get alone.

Content Producing → Some consortia provide educational content, such as workshops, webinars, and meetings, that allow members to grow their skills, keep abreast of developments and trends in the field, and share information. Such consortia may employ experts to create and deliver the content or may invite external resources to propose topics and present the content. Those external resources may be Librarians required to participate in such activities for promotion or tenure, career staff interested in continued learning, or transient staff looking to advance in some way and relying on such experience to boost their competitive status as they pursue a particular career path.

How can you tell if you’re in a content-producing consortium? You have abundant opportunities for professional growth and learning offered by the consortium free of charge to individuals because the institution is a member.

Content Sharing → Consortia of this type benefit from their users being able to borrow the content owned by other members and allow others to borrow their owned content in turn. A major focus of this kind of consortium is cost savings. If one member already purchased an item and is willing to let another borrow it, then the member can spend its monies on something else so that others don’t have to.

How can you tell you’re in a content-sharing consortium? You can borrow things from a remote location, and you send things to remote locations.

Pontifical Governing → These consortia rely on a single member or a board or board-like entity for every decision, whether that is what to purchase or how to organize it. That member or entity may be charged with taking on the labor of purchasing, describing, and processing content and passing on the results of that labor to members. A benefit of this is that member libraries may realize personnel cost savings as they do not need to spend on human resources with specialized training, skills, or subject matter expertise and instead can increase staffing in other areas of need. All responsibility lies on the central entity, and member input is unnecessary, is taken under advisement for future development, or is disregarded. As a result, procedures and output may or may not align with the needs of library users, and instead, libraries must engage in more user education to help users navigate.

How can you tell you’re in a pontifical consortium? You only ever hear about decisions after they are made, whether or not they are good for your library or its users.

Cooperative Governing → Similar to pontifical governing consortia, cooperative governing consortia have a singular entity at the center. Where they differ is in the responsibility of that entity. Instead of procedural mandates decided by one, all members are able to participate in decision-making, and such decisions come about by consensus. The responsibility falls to each member to advocate for the needs of its users but also see itself within a broader landscape. Cooperative decision-making results in more variety in procedures, allowing them to remain unified at their core, but diverge slightly in standardized ways to meet the unique needs of a user population.

How can you tell you’re in a cooperative consortium? When one member cannot complete a task for the greater good, other members jump in to help; Employees from every member institution at every level of employment are allowed to participate. That may be being a member of a consortium-wide committee, getting to know about and discuss all information, influence decisions instead of just hear about them after they are made.

Combinatorial → A consortium may participate in these activities in any combination or may participate in multiple activity-based consortia to meet a combination of needs.

How can you tell you’re in a combinatorial consortium? You observe more than one of the above characteristics.

Conflating → These consortia project the identity of combinatorial in a convincing way and may have originated with the intent of being so. However, they align more with the maxim of being a “jack of all trades and master of none.” Though members may benefit from lower prices for content, it is likely more common that the prices remain the same but are dispersed in misleading ways. These consortia may provide centralized access to shared content and utilize stated labor efficiencies. Then, may distribute access to the content. But, those efficiencies may not come to fruition in reality, leaving member libraries with unyielding mistakes and avoidable inefficiencies due to pontifical governance that does not allow for cooperative improvement. Instead of combining all of the opportunities or even the best possibilities of each activity, these consortia pick and choose which aspects of each activity they wish to engage in while selling the complete package to their member libraries. In this case, only the consortium’s pontifical entity benefits.

How can you tell you’re in a conflating consortium? Any time you get to attend a virtual event put on by this type, the chat function is turned off, or your chats are deleted.

In some cases, there are consortium-like groups of libraries. For example, one academic institution with several campuses or one county with multiple locations. The governance of these may be pontifical, cooperative, or a combination o the two. They may belong to other, larger consortia to benefit from price negotiations, shared content, or educational opportunities.

There are benefits to each, except for conflating, with the best being combinatorial with cooperative governing. In that type of consortium, those of us who are subject matter experts have the opportunity to participate in the direction of the consortium, benefitting–and benefitting from–the whole. The opposite is true of a conflating consortium with pontifical governing, where the expertise of education and experience is wasted, and member libraries are essentially overpaying for overeducated, menial labor and subject to unnecessary turnover.

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