How Is That Going to Work? Part II—Acquisitions Challenges and Opportunities in a Shared ILS

Building on a presentation given at the 2013 Charleston Conference, this article continues the discussion about acquisitions policies, workflows, and consortial collaboration in a next‐generation shared ILS. The Orbis Cascade Alliance is a consortium of 37 public and private academic institutions in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. In January 2013, the Alliance began a two‐year process of migrating all 37 institutions (in 4 cohorts, with a new cohort going live every 6 months) to Ex Libris’s Alma and Primo in order to realize efficiencies and increase collaboration within the consortium. The authors, who represent institutions in the first and third cohorts, offer perspectives on new consortial structures stemming from changing workflows, policy issues to consider from a consortial viewpoint, challenges and opportunities for the new system, partnering with vendors, and ongoing considerations for large‐scale cooperative collection development and assessment.