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Partners

Water Research Library Partnerships and Governance

The Minnesota Water Research Digital Library (MnWRL) was created with funding from the Clean Water Fund as an inter-agency collaborative effort between the various State of Minnesota agencies, boards and departments charged with responsibilities for the waters of the state. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) manages the maintenance and growth of the MnWRL. MDA also coordinates with partner organizations, to contribute to collections within the Library and to conduct ongoing outreach and promotion activities. 

Learn more below and Contact Us if your organization is interested in contributing to the library in any way.

Diagram showing the various possible relationships between the library and its partners.

 

Management Team

The Management Team consists of staff from MDA’s Energy and Environment Section. The Management Team’s primary mission is to help ensure that the Library meets users’ needs. Toward that end, in addition to setting Library policies, the team also assists with outreach, prioritizes potential enhancements, and identifies Library funding needs and opportunities.

Curators

Organizations partnering with the Library as curators act as caretakers for one or more Publication Series within the Library. They help identify articles to be added and serve as gatekeepers to keep the Library focused on relevant research. They may also improve existing entries – for example, by providing additional keywords, supplying links to datasets, or drafting citations and abstracts for works that lack them.

Affiliate Websites

Affiliate websites can partner with the Library by agreeing to host certain articles or publication series on their websites. Rather than storing duplicates, the Library provides users with links to these websites where they can access full-text publications at no charge. (This can be especially useful if an organization plans to regularly revise a publication and does not want older versions available online.) Conversely, the Library may agree to host certain full-text articles or publication series on behalf of another organization that provides a link on its website to the article in the Library. Whatever the specific arrangements, the Library develops agreements with affiliate website organizations to clarify both parties’ roles and responsibilities.