Communities of Interest

History

In September 2017, the OhioLINK Library Advisory Council voted to accept the recommendations of the Reframing OhioLINK Committees Task Force in re-organizaing the groups that work on behalf of OhioLINK.  This new structure includes a type of group called a "Community of Interest" (COI).

What is a COI?

From the Reforming OhioLINK Committees Task Force recommendations: "It is in OhioLINK’s interest to encourage communication among member library and related staff beyond strict engagement with OhioLINK services and resources. These are non-decision making groups, intended for discussion around best practices, innovations, problems and solutions for common issues and situations on multiple libraries, while not being uniform across all members.

However, formal OhioLINK central staff and platform support is limited. We recommend that OhioLINK limit itself to no more than ten COIs at any given time, and that activity and interest level be assessed annually to determine the value of OhioLINK support. There is no intent to limit self-organized groups that arise organically and use mechanisms such as Google Groups, Skype, or other communication and collaborative platforms available either over the internet or via individual institutions – only to limit the number that OhioLINK central will officially support."

Current COI groups

OhioLINK Staff Involvement

OhioLINK Central staff will provide logistics support in the following ways:

  1. Assist in room scheduling for in-person meetings at either the State Library or at 1224 Kinnear
  2. Provide listserv access and administrative support for special interest listservs; provide admin support for community on the Ostaff site.

  3. Promote events via OhioLINK update and social media.

Application Process

COI Groups requesting OhioLINK support should have at a minimum:

  1. A leader that serves as the COI point person for organizing activities and communications, and who will be the designated point person with OhioLINK for whatever support is available.
  2. Ten interested persons from multiple OhioLINK institutions.
  3. COIs will include a statement of purpose and goals which will be reviewed annually.

Questions?  Email OhioLINK Support.

Ready to apply?  Use the online webform to get started.