Introduction.

Cooperation and sharing of resources have always had an important role in libraries, particularly since the development of modern systematized libraries. Many of our basic practices, cataloging, and classification methods were developed to bring a uniform and common order to our collections of information. Cooperation is deeply ingrained in library culture. Libraries and librarians participate in an astonishing array of organizations at all levels of practice. We share resources of many kinds library materials but also metadata, computer resources, best practices, and expertise--in a rapidly growing variety of alliances and groupings. Our cooperative networks are both formal and informal; local, state, and regional; and increasingly national and international.

Library Trends last considered issues of library cooperation and resource sharing in volume 45, number B, in the winter of 1997. There have been many important developments related to this far-reaching topic…