CAUL Member Prospectus

CAUL Member Prospectus

Last update: November 2023

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The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) is the peak leadership organisation for university libraries in Australia and New Zealand. The Council members are the University Librarians or equivalent of the 39 institutions that have representation on Universities Australia and the 8 University Librarians of the institutions with representation on Universities New Zealand (UNZ), who make up the Council of New Zealand University Librarians (CONZUL), a committee of UNZ.  

This Prospectus sets out the framework for value generation by CAUL and details the benefits of membership and CAUL’s expectations of members. Through an annual “Year in Review”, CAUL reports on specific achievements that demonstrates actual value to members for the preceding year and with a particular focus on outcomes of services, engagement, advocacy and strategic programs pertinent to that year. 

CAUL makes a significant contribution to higher education strategy, policy and outcomes through a commitment to a shared purpose: To transform how people experience knowledge – how it can be discovered, used and shared. CAUL’s vision is that society is transformed through the power of research, teaching and learning. University libraries are essential knowledge and information infrastructures that enable student achievement and research excellence. 

CAUL has a national and international perspective on issues relevant to university libraries and at its heart, the mission of CAUL is to enhance the value and capacity of ANZ university libraries. CAUL provides a supportive, collegial forum for members to enquire, inform, discuss, share, collaborate and learn as they operate and manage the university libraries of Australia and New Zealand. 

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The value and benefits that CAUL provides to members stem from the achievement of eight goals that CAUL pursues on behalf of members:

• Position university libraries as essential infrastructure for teaching, learning and research in their institutions.
• Advance open and equitable access to knowledge, information and data.
• Be a recognised authority on the purpose, value and impact of university libraries in higher education and research.
• Foster cooperative activity between university libraries in Australia and internationally for the benefit of their students, teachers and researchers.
• Represent the interests of its members to government, the community and other stakeholders;
• Promote members’ views and values in national and international discourse on relevant issues and public policy developments.
• Facilitate the sharing of best practice, information and innovation among its members.
• Foster leadership and professional growth of current and future leaders in university libraries.

 The value that CAUL generates for its members broadly falls into four categories:

A. Sector-level services

B. Knowledge, sharing and collaboration

C. Strategic program outcomes

D. Engagement, advocacy and public policy outcomes

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A. Sector-level Services

The sector-level services that CAUL provides to members on an ongoing basis are:

• Analytics Service
• Content Procurement Service
• Professional Learning Service
• ULANZ Borrowing Scheme

Analytics Service

The CAUL Analytics Service focuses on collecting and presenting data from university libraries in Australia and New Zealand. The data is used for cross-institutional benchmarking, decision-making, evaluation, facilitating the demonstration of value and impact, and advocacy within and across institutions. It also enables the provision of sector-level aggregate data for the profiling of ANZ academic libraries. 

Services provided include: 

• Annual CAUL statistics collection service
• Provision of CAUL statistics interactive platform 
• Sector-wide trends analysis and reports 
• Sector-wide surveys and reports 

Content Procurement Services

CAUL’s Content Procurement Services centre around the operations of the CAUL Consortium providing skilled negotiation for sector-wide agreements for the procurement of scholarly content and services, including open access publishing. 

The efforts of the CAUL Consortium are focused on improved value for money, through economies of scale and greater leverage in the scholarly content marketplace, enabling influence on the development of products and platforms and the transition to open access. The Consortium negotiates agreements aligned with strategic initiatives on behalf of member institutions to secure optimal acquisition of scholarly content, using the best possible pricing models, with the most favourable terms for members, and to deliver significant benefits of cost avoidance, thus ultimately saving Consortium Members both time and money. The Content Procurement Service provides centralised vendor invoicing and management of open access agreements for all Consortium members. 

Although the CAUL Consortium is the primary the vehicle through which the CAUL Content Procurement Service operates, the Consortium may also be used as appropriate, from time to time, for the procurement of non-content services/products. This includes products providing access to content or analysis of content; any products/services that meet the needs of Consortium members and for which consortial procurement will produce a better outcome for members. The Consortium also facilitates financial support for services that provide infrastructure to Consortium members for open access to scholarly content. 

Professional Learning Service

CAUL provides specific, contextualised professional development opportunities, events, activities, and communities of practice that are focused on developing skills and practice for university librarians and information professionals. These include: 

• Online training events
• Seminars, forums and community days 
• Presentations at Council meetings 
• Participation in the CAUDIT Leadership Institute 
• Open Educational Resources Professional Development Program 
• Learning from Bold Minds in Leadership Webinar Series 

CAUL also recognises professional achievement through the annual CAUL Awards. 

ULANZ Borrowing Scheme

ULANZ is a Library borrowing scheme that allows staff and students of Australian and New Zealand universities to borrow in person from any other participating university library. The scheme is a cooperative arrangement between CAUL and CONZUL and benefits members in terms of enabling student achievement.

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B. Knowledge, Sharing and Collaboration

CAUL members benefit from sharing knowledge and fostering collaboration through communities of practice, communication and collaborations that focus on leading and innovative models and resources for the advancement of university libraries.

Council Meetings

The biannual council meetings, one online, one in person, provide a unique opportunity for members to network with colleagues, contribute professionally, and hear from leading national and international speakers on a range of topics critical to the industry and sector. There is also ample opportunity to become involved in the thematic programs and key projects facilitated by CAUL. 

This is supplemented by the ongoing sharing of information and collegial exchange via the CAUL Members’ email list. 

Communities of Practice

• Australian Scholarly Communications Community of Practice
• Deputy University Librarians Network 
• Digital Dexterity Community of Practice 
• Library Learning and Teaching Leaders Community of Practice 
• Library User Experience Community of Practice 
• Library Value & Impact Community of Practice 
• Transformative Agreements Implementation Community of Practice 
• Content Community 
• Statistics Community 

CAUL Newsletter

The CAUL Newsletter keeps members informed of the strategic activities of CAUL as well as those of other sector-related organisations including a wide range of professional development and other events. The monthly Newsletter plays a key role in promoting CAUL and its work more generally, with an open subscriber base. Jobs in the academic library sector are also promoted here. 

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C. Strategic Enabling Programs

CAUL reviews its strategic priorities and goals annually and determines strategic themes and associated programs with appropriate initiatives and projects to achieve the goals.

The aim of the strategic programs is to advance solutions for critical challenges facing university libraries as articulated in the CAUL Strategy 2023 - 2025 (pdf).

For 2023-2025 the strategic enabling programs are:

• Open Access
• Open Educational Resources
• From Decolonisation to Indigenisation*

* From Decolonisation to Indigenisation is a working title for the program. 

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D. Engagement, Advocacy and Public policy outcomes

Benefits of Council Membership:

As detailed above, CAUL provides a range of services and benefits for Council Members and specific achievements demonstrating value are reported annually. Membership of CAUL automatically implies participation in the CAUL Consortium as detailed below. 

Categories of Council Membership:

• Full Council Membership: Australian universities
• Associate Council Membership: New Zealand universities

Full membership of CAUL is open to the University Librarian or equivalent of each university that is a member of Universities Australia (UA). Associate membership of CAUL is open to the University Librarian or equivalent of each university that is a member of Universities New Zealand (UNZ), and as such, a member of the Council of New Zealand University Librarians (CONZUL), a committee of UNZ.

Expectations of Council Members:

To ensure that CAUL functions optimally in the best interests of all members, Council Members are expected to:

• Attend the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the incorporated association or assign a proxy to attend
• Attend biannual Council Meetings in March and September each year or assign a delegate to attend
• Actively contribute to and participate in strategic programs and events
• Share and collaborate with fellow members for the betterment of the academic library sector
• Maintain confidentiality of corporate information about CAUL’s finances, governance and risk management obtained after logging in to the CAUL website. This includes meeting papers and reports marked “Confidential”
• Participate in the annual collection of sector-wide statistics
• Pay CAUL invoices for annual membership fees, consortium levies, ALACC levies and events within the specified timeframe on invoices

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CAUL Consortium Participation