Present Status of Library Cooperation, Networking, and Resource Sharing in Bangladesh: Web-Based Library Cooperation for Access to World-Wide Information
Rezaul Islam, Mirza Mohd. · Library philosophy and practice · 2012
Introduction Libraries have been cooperating and collaborating on collection building for many years. The main objective of library cooperation and resource sharing is to maximize the availability of and access to information and services at a minimum cost. Library cooperation, networking and resource sharing are synonymous with cooperation and collaborative activities of library and information centre (Mannan, 1998). Resource Sharing is typically composed of two activities. The first is collaborative collection development, whereby subject specializations are intended to be distributed among libraries within a clearly defined geographic region, so that individual libraries need not attempt to collect resources in all fields; but can concentrate on a particular field. The second form of resource sharing is through various document delivery mechanisms. Inter-library loan might suitably fall into this category (Grycz, 1997). No library is able to satisfy all the needs of information resources. Most libraries did not, do not and will not have all the information resources that their patrons need (Hwa-Wei Lee). Needs of information resources can be met through the mechanism of library cooperation of sharing of resources. The appreciation of the need for cooperation leads to the formation of library consortium. To materialize the concept, first of all several libraries are required to come together for the mutual benefit of the respective user in the form of library cooperation. Secondly, libraries linked together with the help of communication system in terms of networking and finally they come together to acquire traditional and e-resources under the umbrella of library consortium (Chatterjee, 2007). It is observed that libraries and their partners traditionally work together for Selfish but positive reasons, to leverage shrinking budgets, to learn from each other; to build better tools together and most importantly, to serve their common users better by taking advantage of one another's collections (Borek, 2006). Consortium is used to form to fulfill the following major objectives: a. To facilitate collective acquisition and sharing of traditional and e-resources; b. To cooperate in processing of information resources; c. To access and download the required resources remotely by the users of the participating libraries; d. To help develop a country-wide acquisition policy to avoid unnecessary and wasteful duplication in purchase; e. To develop a more sophisticated search engine enabling simultaneous search of multiple databases; f. To establish an electronic journal centre to serve as a permanent archive for electronic journals; g. To provide extensive facilities to use full text databases and electronic journals; h. To develop digital resources jointly and to provide access to such materials to the members of the consortium; and i. To establish reciprocal borrowing agreements among the participating libraries to share resources etc. Library Cooperation and Consortia in Bangladesh Libraries of Bangladesh in the field of science and technology are suffering from scarcity of scientific publications. In order to enhance the availability of research publication, especially of scientific research in the country, Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS) took initiative to collect electronic resources through the programme for Enhancement of Research Information (PERI), a programme of International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP). In response to the initiative, several universities and research organizations came forward for subscription to the same. Thus the consortium based subscription to the electronic resources was started in the year 2007. This initiative took the form of a formal and first consortium in Bangladesh with the name of Bangladesh-INASP-PERI Consortium (BIPC). …