Library Consortium: a Tool for Resource-sharing Among University Libraries in Sri Lanka

The work looks into the need and importance of resource-sharing services in the consortial arrangement among fifteen university libraries in Sri Lanka, which are dependent on the UGC's financial allocation. The research explores how far these libraries are subject to the danger of depletion of their resources, finds ways in which the libraries share the resources, scrutinizes what makes them being unable to build a consortium for resource-sharing, and finally it proposes a diagrammatic model for resource-sharing with the aid of a consortium. The paper explore the need of, barriers to and avenues for resource-sharing among university libraries in Sri Lanka. The survey results revealed that the university libraries are encountering financial shortages to build their collections and to renew the subscriptions to electronic databases. In addition, these libraries are facing issues like human resource shortages, and lack of physical resources in terms of space and information technology, along with ever-growing demand from the users. Having seen the absence of well-defined cooperative setup, the research proposes a model for these libraries and their branch entities.