Adapted from "Responsibilities of ILCSO Library Liaisons," Approved by the ILCSO Board of Directors, May 17, 2001

The chief executive officer (e.g., dean, director, university librarian) of each CARLI/I-Share member institution's library is expected to appoint an individual from the institution's library staff to serve as the institution's I-Share Liaison. Efforts should be made to select a Liaison who has a broad view of the CARLI services used by the institution and who is able to disseminate information effectively to library colleagues, and from the library to CARLI committees and staff. It is important that each I-Share library's Liaison position be filled at all times and that the CARLI Office be promptly notified if the Liaison role is assigned to another individual. I-Share Liaisons do not meet formally as a group, but all CARLI committee and task force meetings are open and I-Share Liaisons are welcome and encouraged to participate. A more detailed summary of a library's ongoing responsibilities as a CARLI member institution may be found in the document Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) Membership Agreement.

While the particular assignments of I-Share Liaisons will vary over time, the ongoing responsibilities of the position fall into two primary categories: 1) Maintaining a communication channel between their institutions and the CARLI Office and Organization; and 2) Maintaining institutional accountability for I-Share system operational matters.

1. Maintaining a communication channel between the Liaison's institution and the CARLI Office and Organization.

Communication responsibilities of I-Share Liaisons fall into three areas: A) Receiving communications from the CARLI Office; B) Redistributing, within their institutions, communications received from the CARLI Office, and C) Voicing their institutions' ideas and concerns to the CARLI Office, I-Share Users' Group (IUG) and other consortial member institutions.

A. Receiving communications from the CARLI Office.
The I-Share Liaison will serve as the primary contact person in the library for operational information from the CARLI Office. While CARLI Office staff make efforts to assure the widest dissemination of information and materials related to the consortium and its online services, some materials, due to their format, cost, or restrictions imposed by their producers, cannot be distributed electronically or copied in bulk. In these cases, the I-Share Liaisons will be the primary recipients and are responsible for coordinating any redistribution of these materials within their institutions. Documentation and files of information received by the Liaison should be made readily available to library staff and the Liaison's files should be maintained and, in the event that the Liaison assignment changes, turned over to the institution's new I-Share Liaison.

Communication with CARLI Office staff and among CARLI libraries is facilitated by subscribing to the various e-mail lists maintained by the CARLI Office. As these lists are used to convey important notices related to the use and availability of CARLI online services, it is important that each I-Share library have at least one staff member subscribed to each of the lists named below at all times. Liaisons will be subscribed automatically to all of the following lists to ensure that they (and thereby their libraries) receive all CARLI announcements:

i-shareliaisons@carli.illinois.edu	—Announcements sent to Liaisons
i-share@carli.illinois.edu	—Broadcast announcements to the I-Share community
announce@carli.illinois.edu	—Broadcast announcements to the CARLI community
ResShare-ig@carli.illinois.edu	—News and discussions of interest to access services staff
PubServ-ig@carli.illinois.edu	—News and discussions of interest to public services staff
TechServ-ig@carli.illinois.edu	—News and discussions of interest to technical services staff

B. Redistributing CARLI information within their institutions.
Within each institution's library, the Liaison should be aware of which staff use the various CARLI services on a regular basis. I-Share components include I-Share's public access catalog; circulation system and services related to patron file maintenance, notice production and interlibrary loan; database maintenance tools and OCLC cataloging interfaces. Liaisons are encouraged to read messages posted to CARLI e-mail lists and to forward them to their colleagues who would be interested in, or affected by the subject matter. Subscription to most lists is open and Liaisons should encourage staff at their institutions' libraries to subscribe to lists related to their areas of specialty. More information on the CARLI lists and how to subscribe can be found at http://www.carli.illinois.edu/email-lists.html.

In addition to disseminating announcements about CARLI/I-Share systems, Liaisons should make a practice of sharing information about CARLI and IUG activities, initiatives, and concerns; reviewing CARLI and IUG activities with their library administrators; and publicizing IUG programs and encouraging staff attendance. I-Share Liaisons should strive to make sure that their colleagues are aware of changes being made to CARLI/I-Share services and that they participate in any pre-installation testing that the CARLI Office may request. Also, I-Share Liaisons may be called on to make sure that their institution has reviewed and responded to an information query from the CARLI Office such as a request for local profile or configuration information required to implement a new I-Share service.

C. Serving as a voice for their institutions within CARLI.
I-Share Liaisons should serve as a proactive voice for their institutions in the CARLI Organization. I-Share Liaisons should bring their questions and concerns about CARLI services and activities to the attention of the CARLI Office staff (support@carli.illinois.edu) and/or to the I-Share Users' Group, the IUG. For more information about the IUG see http://www.carli.illinois.edu/comms/iug.html.

Liaisons should also encourage their colleagues to communicate directly with their elected or appointed counterparts on the IUG and its Teams. Liaisons can also play an active role in CARLI by recruiting capable and interested colleagues for membership on the IUG and many other committees within CARLI.

2. Maintaining institutional accountability for I-Share system operational matters.

To assure the integrity of CARLI's online services, the CARLI Office must require that some matters related to the local management of CARLI services be handled by contact people who have been granted that authority by their institutions' library management. Examples include: requesting changes to staff logins or authorization privileges, and submitting programming work requests. These types of service requests must be submitted by designated contacts. In most I-Share institutions, the Liaison will be such a designated contact. For some of these roles, such as login security, member institutions should assign more than one person to be a designated contact to assure adequate coverage. The chief executive officer of each member institution's library should make sure that there are always individuals on the library staff who are charged with the following responsibilities:

A. Programming Work Requests.
Requests for "on-demand" statistical reports against a Voyager database, or special Voyager database maintenance projects should be submitted by the I-Share Liaison or chief executive officer via Work Request Online. For more information, see http: //www.carli.illinois.edu/mem-serv/wro.html. The Liaison should track the library's pending work requests, and when notified that the work request has been completed, see that the work is tested and/or verified.

B. Login Security.
Each institution needs to have at least one login security contact. The I-Share Liaison will typically be one of these contacts. This person is responsible for reporting problems with I-Share system logins, requesting new logins, requesting that logins for former staff be disabled, and seeing that the library has ongoing and adequate access to the SFTP directories used to transmit data from CARLI to member libraries. For more information see http://www.carli.illinois.edu/mem-prod/I-Share/secure/execute/SSHSecureShell.pdf.

C. Problem Reporting Procedures.
The I-Share Liaison should see that their library establishes and maintains procedures for reporting system and connectivity problems to CARLI and local network support staff.

D. CARLI Directory Updates.
The CARLI Office is developing a database of CARLI libraries. Each library is profiled with key data for the I-Share community. If there are changes in personnel, telephone numbers, or other information, the Liaison is expected notify the CARLI Office of these changes in a timely fashion.