A Study On The Development Of The Library Consortia In China

On the purpose of sharing resources and creating mutual benefits, library consortia, a cooperative organization of libraries is formed in accordance to the contract or agreement reached by all members. It is a new cooperation mode under network environment in order to sharing resources and reducing costs. Although there are some library consortia in our country only a few are successful in development. Because of starting late, the general development level of library consortia in China is still low in information exchanges and services, compared with the developed countries. Hence it is an effective way to improving library consortia development level of China with the reference to the developed countries'relevant experiences.First the article introduces the definition and character of library consortia, then summarizes the environment impacting on the development of library consortia which include the political, economic, cultural, science, technology and electronic resources. The article discusses the current situation of China's library consortia from the summary, types and the development. As CALIS and NSTL are so excellent compared with other consortia in China, the article analyses and values the successful examples and introduces their structure and experience. The paper analyzes some shortages faced in development and brings forward the suggestion for further development. By establishing the mechanism of equilibrium, the library will have more enthusiasm to participate in this activity. Using the successful experiences and integrating them into the situation of China, seek after the methods for building our library consortia. At last sets forth the main tactics in developing consortia, such as notion, standard and system establishment, system perfecting, mechanism building and paying attention to training, enhancing construction in digital library consortia and ensuring the funding of consortia etc.