Virtual Polytechnic Library: From “Home-Grown” Document Delivery Concept to aNational Collaborative Platform for Resource Sharing

Abstract

The Czech Virtual Polytechnic Library (VPK) began in 2000 as the “virtual resource sharing alliance” by the leading Czech STM libraries as their response to the rapidly changing landscape of STM publishing and acquisitions, resource sharing, access policies, and technologies. VPK utilizes the INVIK document delivery management system developed in 1997 by a team of developers from the then-State Technical Library (now NTK), with NTK as its logistical “service center.” After its launch, the VPK alliance soon grew to also include non-STM libraries and became the Czech Republic’s most efficient and reliable national interlibrary resource sharing platform. VPK’s technological infrastructure and the logistical service center at NTK have adapted in an agile manner to changes in scholarly publishing over the past fifteen years and to the demands and needs of its participating members, who contribute data and resources to the sharing system. The VPK platform is now being considered as a resource sharing platform for the Central Portal for Czech Libraries (CPL), which would serve (starting in 2020) public libraries in addition to academic institutions and which would have more robust end-user functionality. The presenters will discuss this unique collaboration solution, which shows how a “home-grown/grassroots” initiative—developed and managed by its participating members in direct response to their changing needs and circumstances through time—can prove to be an inspirational, flexible and viable solution, even at the national level.