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Saint Martin's College's O'Grady Library joins the Orbis Cascade Alliance Thursday, December 18, 2003 Lacey - Can’t find what you’re looking for at the library? Students at Saint Martin’s College’s O’Grady Library are now more likely to luxuriate in choices than become frustrated by a lack of materials. Saint Martin’s has become the 28th member of the Orbis Cascade Alliance, a library consortium serving Washington and Oregon colleges and universities. The alliance’s union catalog contains more than 22 million books, sound recordings, films, videos and other materials for the use of its academic patrons. Two generous gifts, a bequest of about $25,000 from the estate of social worker Frances N. “Fran” Wilson and a matching gift from Saint Martin’s Abbey made the membership possible for the college. While Saint Martin’s is a member of two smaller consortiums, the Puget Sound Academic Independent Libraries and the Cooperating Libraries In Olympia, joining the alliance will enable its students to use the resources of all 28 Orbis Cascade member libraries as if they were a single collection, she said. “It places extraordinary resources at our students’ fingertips, both in numbers and in the depth and richness of collections available. We will soon be basically a mouse-click away from choosing a book and having it delivered,” said Dalia Hagan, director of the college’s O’Grady Library.” Hagan said students already can use the enormous alliance catalog, called Summit, to search for books and other research materials. Come late spring, they also will be able to order what they need through the alliance’s popular self-service system. The materials they select will then be delivered in about 48 hours via the alliance’s streamlined courier service system, which last year delivered more than 214,000 packages. The self-service and delivery services will be added at the same time the alliance incorporates the Saint Martin’s database of about 100,000 volumes to its online catalog. When the Saint Martin’s library records are uploaded, the college’s collection will add its own unique flavor to the Orbis Cascade database and help enrich scholarship in the Northwest, Hagan said. “From us, the Orbis Cascade Alliance will get some new materials not just in Catholic theology but also our rich Benedictine collections, along with our Northwest history materials, our collection of children’s literature and history of children’s book illustration, especially the beautiful collection of works by and about children’s author Maurice Sendak. We also have a great collection on the history of labor and laboring classes, with an emphasis on the Northwest.” Oher benefits offered to Saint Martin’s through the alliance include workshops and conferences, and cost-savings for member institutions through its purchases of a wide array of digital resources such as e-journals,e-books, commercial databases and reference tools. Other participating member institutions
are: More information about the Orbis Cascade Alliance can be found on its website, www.orbiscascade.org. FOR MORE INFORMATION: Deanna Partlow
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