NICOP » Who we are and what we do

NICOP stands for the Northwest Interlibrary Cooperative of Pennsylvania. We are a consortium of 28 libraries from the 7 county region that includes Clarion, Crawford, Erie, Forest, Mercer, Venango, and Warren counties. Altogether, NICOP’s libraries serve a population of about 600,000 people.

Who belongs to NICOP?
Membership is open to all types of libraries within Northwestern Pennsylvania. Our members include public, academic, school, medical, business, and special libraries.

What does NICOP do?
NICOP’s helps the region’s libraries work together to improve their services. NICOP’s by-laws state the official mission is to “strengthen library resources and services in the region through a program of mutually supporting acquisitions, resource sharing, greater communication and increased services.” By each library sharing its knowledge and materials with other libraries in the region, we can offer more to our users than if our libraries had to depend only on their individual resources.

Acquisitions:
Acquisitions is one of a library’s largest costs. Making good purchasing decisions is critical to developing a collection truly useful to our users. Recently, the Pennsylvania State Library has been very interested in helping Pennsylvania librarians improve their collection management skills. NICOP has supported these efforts by sponsoring workshops on collection development policy writing and encouraging use of the WLN Conspectus software.

Resource sharing:
Interlibrary loan is perhaps the most common type of resource sharing. NICOP members give top priority to fellow member’s requests for materials. NICOP has also made locating magazines and journals easier. We sponsored a grant which enabled NICOP member libraries to list their serial holdings on OCLC’s Pennsylvania Union List of Serials (PaULS). A paper copy of this union list was distributed to the membership.

Communication:
NICOP’s widely diverse membership provides the region with a pool of specialized knowledge and resources. To facilitate access to people and resources, NICOP distributes an annual directory listing basic information about all our member libraries. Our meetings provide a forum for sharing information. Twice a year, in conjunction with our regular meeting, we offer workshops to help members improve their skills and hear about new ideas. Recent workshops have presented information ranging from how to get on the information highway to an understanding of the 200 hundred-year-old history of our region’s libraries. NICOP also helps bring specialized workshops to the region. Lord Corporation’s library regularly sponsors computer search workshops. In conjunction with the Erie County Historical Society, NICOP has sponsored a series of workshops on preservation and disaster preparedness. NICOP represents the region’s libraries interests on the Council of Pennsylvania Library Networks. The Council advises the State Library on the concerns of our regions libraries and helps to carry out state outreach projects.

Increased services:
In general, NICOP supplements and enhances the cooperative efforts initiated by our libraries. But there are some areas where NICOP has been able to initiate services that individual libraries would not be able to manage on their own. Perhaps the most notable is in the area of preservation and disaster preparedness planning. In the fall of 1993, a NICOP task force published the Northwest Pennsylvania Libraries Disaster Preparedness Resource Directory. The Directory provides information on companies with services and supplies useful for disaster prevention and recovery. The Resource Directory has already been used by the Pittsburgh Regional Library Center as a model in its statewide workshop series on disaster preparedness. In addition, the New Jersey state library has requested a copy to use as an example in their disaster planning efforts.