Meeting the challenges of international lending and document supply: learning from the Global Resources Program

The Global Resources Program (GRP) seeks to improve access to international research materials through cooperative structures and the use of new techn ology. GRP. a joint initiative of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has launched six proj ects to test varying models of access. The six projects are in different st ages of development and have different levels of North American and interna tional participation. All projects share common challenges and potential ba rriers. This paper reviews these challenges and barriers and suggests strat egies to overcome them. The realization that North American research librar ies are no longer able to collect comprehensively provides an opportunity f or the global interlibrary loan and document supply community to provide ac cess to and delivery of materials needed by scholars and researchers, regar dless of location of the material or the scholar.