Summit & Fulfillment Days Return to In-Person Format for 2024

Summit & Fulfillment Days 2024 are underway!  The Resource Sharing & Fulfillment community is returning to in-person events for the first time since the pandemic. The standard single-day event was changed to four regional meetings, keeping member travel costs and gathering sizes smaller. Alliance member staff from circulation, reserves, resource sharing, and other public services had the opportunity to meet in Vancouver, Olympia, Richland, or Eugene. In-person Summit & Fulfillment Days are dedicated to learning from each other, networking, and rebuilding bonds.

With three of the four regional events completed, around 80 member staff have attended S&F Days to learn about:

• Local collections such as Library of Things, Board Games, and Graphic Novels
• Courier shipping guidelines and reporting functions
• Fulfillment configuration cleanup
• Summit visiting patron policies
• And more!

Our final event will be August 22 in Eugene, and we look forward to seeing our friends from the south side of the Alliance!  Initial evaluations have been positive and many of our member staff are finally meeting each other for the first time!

Alliance launches Primo Central Management service

At the July 2024 Council meeting, the Systems program announced a three-year pilot of a Primo Central Management service. This service will provide standardized Primo instances and technical support to Alliance members who opt in. Standardized instances offer limited customizations for institutional branding. Current consultation and onboarding provided by central staff to all members will remain unchanged, regardless of participation. For full details, see the Primo Central Management Service page.

The pilot will begin during the migration to the Primo Next Discovery Experience (NDE), which is estimated to go into production in mid-2025. The Alliance will ask for opt-in commitments after the March 2025 Council meeting. Contact the Systems Program Manager, Tamara Marnell (tmarnell@orbiscascade.org), to discuss whether this service is a good fit for your organization.

The Accessibility Standing Group (ASG) recently developed the Cognitive Diversity and Neuroinclusion toolkit, which provides practical tips and strategies for serving patrons and employees with different expressions of neurodiversity. This resource is a starting point to enhance support, rather than an exhaustive or rigid list. Suggestions may not be appropriate for everyone, nor should they take precedence over stated needs. Instead, these ideas offer guidance for how to develop support approaches and gather feedback for improvement.

The ASG focused on strategies that can address a range of expressions of neurodiversity, as these benefit everyone. Recommendations are organized around functional areas: instructional practices, interactions and collaboration, management and workplace, online environments, and physical environments. The ASG attempted to privilege voices and perspectives from the neurodivergent community and highlight their contributions in the project bibliography. The group hopes these ideas will assist Alliance members in building more neuroinclusive libraries, and they welcome feedback through an online form.