MnPALS Consortium Members Vision Statement Mission Statement Governance and Policies Deans/Directors/Coordinators Executive Committee User Groups User Council Task Forces Funding Calendar

Consortium of MnPALS Libraries

The Consortium of MnPALS Libraries is composed of all of the libraries of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, as well as private college and university libraries, state government libraries, public libraries, school libraries and special libraries. Geographically, the consortium is represented in all areas of the state from Marshall to International Falls and from Winona to Moorhead. Consortium membership provides a forum for discussion of library issues and a central site to coordinate collaborative efforts. Libraries have found that many things become possible as a member of the consortium that wouldn’t be otherwise. The Consortium of MnPALS Libraries is a prime example of libraries cooperating and collaborating to best meet the needs of their patrons.

The wide disparity of libraries in the consortium brings both benefits and challenges. Libraries are able to learn from each other through user groups, task forces, training sessions, and other venues. The consortium allows for collaboration and access to a wide variety of resources, some very unique. Most often, the members recognize and value the differences between the libraries, and support efforts to meet the varying needs among the different types and different sizes of libraries.

MnPALS uses the Aleph system from Ex Libris, which runs on servers at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Functions of the automated library system include the automation of activities such as circulation, acquisitions, cataloging, and interlibrary loan, in addition to providing a web search engine for materials owned by the libraries. The automated library system allows for resource sharing among the consortium libraries and between the consortium libraries and libraries across the state and country.

The MnPALS system is one of the server sites on the MnLINK Gateway, providing access to the libraries' collections for all citizens of the state of Minnesota. The Gateway is a federated search and ILL system, running ZPortal and VDX from OCLC PICA (formerly Fretwell Downing). The MnPALS libraries use ZPortal to search other servers in the state and the ELM databases, but rather than using VDX for ILL, they use the ILL module in MnPALS.

Some facts about the consortium:

More than 6,000,000 bibliographic records are contained in the MnPALS database, of which over 3,000,000 are unique.
There were over 5,000,000 web OPAC events recorded in 2006 by users of this unique public/private partnership.
We serve 154 libraries housed at 96 campuses and institutions on the automated library system.
The database for the automated library system includes over 9 million items.
The system serves about 350,000 patrons.