Collaborations: Success, Risks, Issues, Concerns

-Collaborations are created with the intentions of eliminating existing problems within cultural institutions and to affect society in a postive way.
-Yet, several issues have arisen as a result of the formation of partnerships.
-Many of these problems are subjective and pertain to particular communities, local governments, specific organizations...

Technology
-The utilization of any form of technology always carries a debate.
-For example, there is a great amount of controversy about electronic resources. -There are many individuals who benefit from these capabilities, but there are an equal amount of people who think that virtual libraries and museums are stopping patrons from visiting the actual institutions.
-Are jobs being lost because of technology? If so, is this truly a good thing?

The Museum and/or Library as Place
-Many people are beginning to think that both of these institutions are becoming more of a place to socialize, than a place to learn.
-The terms "infotainment" and "edutainment" have been introduced as ways of explaining what is taking place within the walls of museums and libraries.
-Patrons are not always coming into a museum or library to read books or view exhibits anymore.
-There are a lot more activities that are taking place.
-For example, there may be performances by musicians, dancers, or comedians. -Sometimes movies are shown or there are even wine tastings.
-An example of "infotainment"/"edutainment" is the Gusto at the Gallery which takes place every Friday at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
-To learn more about the program go to
http://www.albrightknox.org/gusto.html.
-Here you will also find a detailed schedual of upcomming activites, as well as, ones that have taken place in the past.

Sponsors
-Sponsors always help out with money and marketing, but can they also be a downfall?
-Some people think that when you allow sponsorship that you are also giving up the institutuion's control.
-In other words, the sponsor is allowed to make more of the decsions on such things as the mission and vision of the institutuion.

Blockbusters
-At first, most people would probably agree that blockbuster exhibits are great because they increase attendence to the institutuion and they generate a great amount of revenue.
-Yet, for the most part, they do not reflect the community or the institution's collection.
-The increase in funds from addmission costs may be keeping the doors of the museum or library open, but is it really emphasizing the permanent collections? -Does a museum or library sacrifice its integrity by deemphasizing its mission or vision by having blockbuster exhibits?

Success & Risk Factors
-In 2001,Nancy Allen and Liz Bishoff presented a paper at the 10th annual ACRL National Conference entitled Academic Library/Museum Collaboration: I'm OK, You're OK.
-In this paper, they presented some important factors that they believe can lead to a successful or problematic collaboration.

-The success factors are:
*communication
*policy & operational issues
*organizational culture
*commitment
*technology
*conflict resolution
*incentives
*advisory committee

-The risk factors are:
*knowledge-base
*project complexity
*internal project resistance
*organizational culture
*interpretation vs. identification
-To learn more about these factors or to read the lecture that was presented, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlevents/allen.pdf.

Elements of Successful Partnerships
-The CPB and IMLS published a workbook entitled Models for Collaboration.
-In this wonderful source is a section on Elements of Successful Partnerships.
-It is a detailed discussion on what are several key components to a prosperous collaboration.

-Some of the elements that are discussed are:
*a shared vision
*flexibility
*complementary strengths
*agreed-upon boundaries
*commitment & compromise
*ways of celebrating achievement & promoting success
-To learn more about these successful elements or to read the workbook, go to http://www.benton.org/publibrary/partners/pips.pdf.