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Library director outlines River Share consortium role, member departures and costs
Summary
Director Jeff Collins told trustees River Share provides shared ILS services (Polaris), interlibrary loan platforms (SILO, ShareIt) and e-content pooling, but some Illinois libraries are leaving mainly for cost reasons; Collins said the vendor follows ISO/IEC 27001 and ShareIt costs about $1,500 annually with postage budgeted up to $10,000.
Library Director Jeff Collins gave trustees a detailed overview of River Share Libraries on June 16, describing its history, governance, services and current financial pressures facing the consortium.
Collins framed River Share as a long‑running regional resource‑sharing consortium that operates an integrated library system (Polaris, provided by Innovative Interfaces/III), supports reciprocal borrowing among member libraries and offers shared digital platforms such as OverDrive/Libby for e‑books and audiobooks. He said River Share operates under Iowa Code Chapter 28E and that membership fees are calculated from factors including circulation, registered cardholders and items borrowed.
Collins noted several Illinois libraries have exited the consortium in recent years “primarily due to cost concerns,” while Davenport has maintained reciprocal agreements with several Illinois partners. He described ShareIt — a cloud‑based interlibrary loan platform connecting roughly 17–20 states — as costing about $1,500 annually, and said the library budgets up to $10,000 a year for postage associated with statewide and multistate loans.
On data security and records ownership, Collins said the consortium’s vendor complies with ISO/IEC 27001 standards and that River Share owns the bibliographic records while member libraries retain patron and item records and serve as local custodians in case of data breach response.
Trustees asked whether River Share materially reduces acquisition costs by enabling more borrowing rather than local purchases; Collins responded that shared access does reduce acquisition and processing costs and allows patrons to obtain items that libraries otherwise would not keep on shelves.
Collins said River Share delivers cost savings and shared expertise but acknowledged limits in scale compared with larger systems such as RAILS in Illinois, which contributed to other libraries’ departures.
