Resource sharing digital libraries: a case study of Taiwan's InfoSpring Digital Library Project

Abstract

The InfoSpring Digital Library Project conducted by National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) is a project to establish mirror sites in Taiwan for well-known reference databases and full-text electronic journals. The role of NCTU in this project is to provide the hardware (including servers and storage space) and network infrastructure, system maintenance and data update. By means of resource sharing, universities and industries in Taiwan can access the databases loaded in the InfoSpring Digital Library under certain subscription agreements. Realizing the importance of resource sharing, libraries in Taiwan have organized a consortium to decide which databases to be hosted in Taiwan and negotiate competitive prices with information providers. This paper presents the motivation, current status, experiences, and future directions of the InfoSpring Project and introduces the Taiwanese library consortium which it services. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.