There is no statute on the books today which prescribes policies or guidelines for the individual Federal agencies to follow with respect to the use of the private sector in the dissemination of the information they produce. Nor is there a focal point of executive responsibility in government to which private organizations or government agencies can turn for policy clarification. The Commission believes that such policy guidelines are needed. Copyright As mentioned in Chapter I, copyright continues to be an unsolved problem for both the producers and the consumers of copyrighted information. For the past several years, attempts have been made to narrow the area of disagreement in an effort to find a legally sound and equitable solution. This search continues today. In 1974, a new round of discussions among representatives of authors, publishers, and librarians was initiated under the auspices of the Commission and the Office of the Register of Copyrights in the Library of Congress. The object was to consider the proposed revisions of the copyright law as they affect libraries, authors, and publishers. In February 1975, the Supreme Court heard and handed down a split 4-4 decision in the Williams and Wilkins case. The result affirmed a lower court conclusion that the photocopying practices of the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health Library did not constitute an infringement of the copyright law. No written opinions were rendered by the Supreme Court. The statutory basis of contemporary copyright practice dates from 1909, and the law has not undergone major revision since that time. Rapid technological advances, first in the photocopying area, and later, in computers, communications, and micrographics, have combined to create economic and legal uncertainties about the future process of information exchange. The Commission has encouraged the private sector and the library community to find some basis for an equitable solution to the problems created by these developments. Congressional committees in both the House and Senate have also recommended negotiations so that the interested parties themselves can formulate guidelines for library photocopying. Chapter IV The Trend Toward Cooperative Action Present Networking Activities Today's libraries generally have insufficient resources to meet the needs of the times. The major problems facing them were discussed in Chapter II. Briefly, they were: the increased cost of acquiring library materials and the difficulty of recruiting and compensating skilled the growth of knowledge, with the consequent de- the varying levels of resources and funding abilities the cost of storing infrequently-used materials that the requirement to serve constituencies that are not These problems are not new, but they have become more serious over the years and have, in the last few years, reached critical proportions. No one library can afford the cost of acquiring and servicing all the books, journals, microforms, computer data bases, videotapes, audiovisual materials, and other information necessary to satisfy both the highly-sophisticated user and the average person yearning for knowledge to meet today's challenges. Libraries have long realized that service to their patrons can be markedly improved through "resource sharing" practices which allow any one library to augment its holdings by gaining access, through interlibrary loans, to the holdings of neighboring libraries. Many years ago, this kind of activity was called "library cooperation." The union catalog, a file listing holdings of cooperating libraries, has been one of several devices used by libraries to facilitate the sharing of resources. During recent years, encouraged by Federal and state leadership and funding, and by the prospect of providing better service, libraries across the country began to develop new kinds of organizational relationships to increase the sharing of resources. In some cases, such organizations have been formed with the major part of their support coming from the participating institutions, supplemented by grants from the public sector. These cooperative programs are now variously referred to as "library systems," "library consortia," or "library networks." Some consist merely of informal, mutual agreements to share materials. A large number are bound by formal contracts and use conventional communication means, such as the telephone and the teletype; the number of those that utilize computers and telecommunications is growing rapidly. A number of Federal institutions, like the National Library of Medicine, have become major centers for the design and development of computerized communication services for particular constituencies. They have moved ahead to form local and regional networking arrangements which conjoin several institutions in a formal organizational pattern. Equally extensive information retrieval (IR) service networks embracing several hundred terminal sites have been established in the private sector by several commercial firms. Such networking arrangements not only give each participant access to data created in other centers, but they also provide the means for initiating other cooperative services. Typical of existing library networks are those formed by the libraries of the metropolitan cities. Because the great bulk of American's library resources are located in metropolitan areas, and because many of these areas cross state boundaries, some metropolitan cities have initiated cooperative library network programs independently. Some have been aided by support directly from the states concerned, but others were started as a result of receiving planning grants directly from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Since not all networks may originate as part of a statewide program, the National Program should include provisions for channeling funding to multistate groups which do not fit the state pattern and which are capable of providing broad cooperative pro grams. Intrastate networks are being planned, or are in operation, in California, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Washington, Wisconsin, and in other states. In the middle 1960's, a library network was formed which crossed state lines: The New England Library Information Network (NELINET). Operating as a program of the New England Board of Higher Education, the six state universities agreed to develop library network services. Other multistate groups such as the Southwest Library Interstate Cooperative Endeavor (SLICE) and the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET) have formed to carry out prescribed functions together. Many states are already involved in multistate library activities. Each multistate group is in a different level of development and funding, but all share a common set of goals: to provide those library and information services which can be delivered more effectively by a relatively large-scale regional approach than by either state or Federal agencies. Recent recommendations in a report undertaken for the Commission suggest that by building upon multistate regional resources and existing organizations, many of the nation's bibliographic resources can be conserved and, at the same time, reach out through modern network technology to a greater number of citizens than is now the case using relatively primitive, isolated, and disjointed technology. Many of the emerging regional groups, as well as some states, realize the benefits and responsibilities inherent in network supported interdependency, and this is fostering a new approach to library and information service. In addition to multistate library organizations and networks, there are still other activities that use commercial communication networks to facilitate the distribution and communication of bibliographic data to libraries in any state. The most active of these is the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC), a nonprofit institution, which today serves over 600 library |