Resource sharing in the electronic era: potentials and paradoxes - Networked Scholarly Publishing

Library Trends, Spring, 1995 by Gay N. Dannelly

Many examples of resource sharing, emphasizing particularly the movement of materials and, in some cases, people, have shown the importance of such agreements. The University of California system, with a shared catalog, Melvyl; a shared large purchase program; and shared regional storage facilities is one of the largest and most successful. The addition of bibliographic databases and commercial electronic journal archives to the university system also represents many of the programmatic directions taken by other more recent consortial arrangements.

One of the largest multitype library networks is ILLINET, linking public, academic, and some special libraries in a system that allows patrons to directly request specific monographic titles to be delivered to their home library from any other participating library in the system. One of the most interesting results of this program is the net borrower status of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As expected, the university is also one of the ma or lenders, but the large amount of borrowing done by its students and faculty is clearly indicative of the need for multiple copies of specific titles, the usefulness of the most unexpected collections, and the verification that all libraries may contribute to the scholarly process no matter what their collections hold.

The more recent development of OhioLINK is another example of the growing state and regional developments of shared networks. OhioLINK includes all the state-supported universities, municipal colleges and technical institutions, the State Library of Ohio, and a growing number of private colleges. It provides for patron-initiated circulation of monographs, and serial article delivery is presently being tested. Early circulation statistics reflect the circulation pattern of Illinois: the largest lender is also the largest borrower. More than twenty-five licensed databases were available through the network at the end of 1994. The system is also designed to provide collection management information not only by title and classification, but by types of users. Such information may provide some of the earliest analysis of use of materials by patrons in a decentralized system.

There are many other examples of state or regional networks that have been in place for many years or are in planning or implementation phases. It seems likely that such developments will increase and overlap leading to a variety of complications in commitments to various consortia and to local users who benefit from the shared environment, but who may also find it frustrating when materials they desire are in use elsewhere in the state or region.

As libraries are expanding their resource-sharing activities in response to academic needs, the role and nature of higher education is changing as the character of the national population shifts; as technology brings new requirements and opportunities to the educational, commercial, and social sectors of society; and as budgetary forces require "doing more with less." Rapid and efficient access to information has become an economic imperative, and technology is the driving force. Changes in the expectations of higher education, both within and outside of academia, are forcing rapid developments in both the content and form of the educational setting. Hayes (1986) has noted that a major development in the campus is that: "It's going to become a major communications center. That's where the real revolution is occurring-communications and information" (p. 71).