PalSol-Inet
I’m accustomed to hearing about mergers and acquisitions in the corporate world. Microsoft bids for Yahoo. Thomson buys Reuters. Reed Elsevier plans to acquire ChoicePoint. But when I heard about two boards in merger talks and involved in due diligence, I didn’t really expect it to be Palinet and Solinet. These library cooperatives have been around for decades. In fact, when I was in library school, I interned at PRLC, which was later merged into Palinet. The merger of Palinet and Solinet would create a membership organization of more than 3000 institutions. Benefits, according to the press release, which can be found on both consortia’s web sites, include a stronger library community, expanded education curriculum, more consortial savings opportunities, technology leadership, and increased capacity for innovation. If this goes through, which seems likely, will other consortia join in? Will we end up with a national consortium? Interesting.