Let’s cooperate. I do a thing. You do a thing. Win-win. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Over the years, I’ve had people pitch ideas for law library collaboration or cooperation. It came up again recently and I asked my now standard question: how do we pool the money to get this done? In other words, what resources that aren’t “in-kind” are you putting in to the collaboration? A partnership requires more than, as we say in the pandemic, acting separate but together in order to have coordination and accountability.

It’s a little mercenary but it falls under my management approach of only do things that have a purpose. One law library contacted me a few years back and asked if we could create a reciprocal privileges agreement. Their lawyer-subscribers could use our library and our lawyer-subscribers could use theirs.

What Are We Agreeing?

On it’s face, not a big deal. Except:

  • my lawyer-subscribers are (a) not my only researchers and (b) funding any reciprocity, so it better come with a lot of value;
  • the other law library was in a different region, so a different legal system and one that our subscribers were unlikely to be called to the bar of and, I would think, unlikely to have clients in;

Also, there’s collegiality. There was a similar resource sharing agreement among Canadian law libraries. I didn’t sign it because all it stated was things we already did for each other when we could. It wasn’t enforceable; no one could make me do something in the agreement.

And, fundamentally, I wasn’t contributing any resources to the collaboration. I would have fulfilled the terms simply by not being a jerk. Okay, so maybe that’s a bit of a concession! Similarly, the foreign law library could send its lawyer-subscribers to our law library with or without the agreement. On the off-chance that that ever occurred, we’d treat them like we do any legal professional. There’s no need for agreements when you’re not, in fact, doing anything out of the ordinary.

This is not to say that an agreement not to be jerks is a bad thing. But it’s not collaboration or cooperation. Either side can walk away at any time. If we’re to cooperate, I want your law library or organization to have skin in the game.

To Allocate Resources or Not

It’s great to do nice things and be collegial. But when you step beyond that, you’re heading into waters where you need to make resource allocations. That’s what a lot of law library director decision-making is. Somebody does A instead of B, or you install or purchase X instead of Y.

A choice to collaborate or cooperate with an external organization is a choice to dedicate resources to an external goal. If it was within your mandate, you’d already (a) have allocated resources to it or (b) decided that it wasn’t a goal worth resources.

I asked this question at a AALL session in 2019 in Washington: does anyone have examples of law libraries engaging in a collaborative activity where they pooled money? Not consortia and not a commitment of resources (we’ll shift part of a reference librarian to work on a joint project). But actual money.

The tricky issue of sharing resources – like sparing part of a reference librarian, or a technologist who can contribute code – is that it begs the question whether you need that person or resource. A funder may see that sharing as an example of excess resources. The shared goal will need to justify the allocation of that internal resource.

Consortia can be a possibility but even then there can be a mismatch in resource allocation. If it’s equitable (every consortia member covers 1 hour a week of chat virtual reference), that may eat up a larger portion of reference librarian time in a solo law library, for example, than it would in a larger library.

Cost-sharing an electronic license – or getting a discount through an affinity relationship between the consortium and a vendor – may be the closest to money pooling. I’m not sure how the licenses run, though. The vendor wants a payee, so the law libraries involved will need to drop that money in a central pot. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of separate-but-together licenses.

It’s also the easiest example where you can point to a resource allocation (license dollars, staff support, configuration of IP authentication, etc.) and say, “we would have done this anyway.” If there’s a cost savings to do something you were going to do anyway, it’s an easy win.

This may be why agreements between two organizations, without the benefit of a third (consortial center, whatever), is hard. Who holds the money? Who allocates the resources? How to maintain an arrangement that is equitable? How do you leave the arrangement?

So, What Do You Say?

In the most recent case, the answer is a “no.” Our current circumstances mean we have no staff slack and no unallocated funds. But I’m always open to partnerships so I try not to just say no, even if that’s the end result.

You can generally explain your requirements while also pressing for more detail. For example, “I don’t currently have resources to invest in a collaboration without knowing (a) what you are contributing and (b) what the end goal is.” Ideally, if they have not got concrete answers to those two items, they can go away and think about them. Sometimes a good idea needs to just be put back in the oven to get it further than half-baked.

This approach can also make it clear that you’re open to a discussion but only if the organization that seeks collaboration has more than ideas. Ideally they’ll have resources and, best, data to support the purpose. You may also have data or other information that helps decide whether this collaboration makes sense.

If collaboration and cooperation were easy, we’d do more of it. But it’s political. It involves tough resource choices for sometimes uncertain payoffs. It requires written agreements to ensure we get what we’re expecting. It’s a shame, because there are loads of examples where more collaboration and resource-pooling could make an improvement in legal information delivery.