Submitted by Joe Toth
On Monday, April 13, 2009, LIS will host a meeting of the NExpress library consortium, members of which are Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury, Northeastern, Vassar, Wellesley, and Williams. This first-ever conference, billed as the NExpress Plenary Meeting, will consist of two rosters of concurrent sessions in which library personnel in units such as cataloging, circulation, and systems meet to discuss topics of importance, and a short opening or closing assembly. We’ve begun planning agendas for unit meetings by convening a group of Midd designates whose chore is to contact NExpress counterparts to solicit subjects. I’ll offer updates as we proceed.This event is significant because it might further forms of collaboration that cause member libraries to save money on material resources; to investigate combining or centralizing work processes now separate and redundant; and to speculate about and perhaps plan for enlarging NExpress’ membership and capacities.