MANAGING ACCESS TO A DISTRIBUTED LIBRARY RESOURCE - REPORT FROM THE 5TH MODELS WORKSHOP

Recommendations for increased resource sharing between libraries have been emerging from a range of sources in recent years. However, the ma jority of local library management systems currently in use do not int er-operate, so re sources are fragmented and there is no unified acces s. The situation is complicated by organisational and business issues. This was the basis for the fifth MODELS (Moving to Distributed Enviro nment for Library Services) workshop, which explored more effective ma nagement of access and resource sharing, and the development of a supp orting systems framework. The focus was on public library developments and cross-sectoral cooperation. The paper develops some of the key is sues, together with discussion of the emerging MODELS Information Arch itecture.