Australian Roundtable on Access to Overseas Monographs

Australian Roundtable on Access to Overseas Monographs

Access to monographs published overseas is recognised as a major issue for Australian scholars and researchers and is relevant to recent debate about Australian library collecting policies.

The purpose of the National Round Table on Access to Overseas Monographs through Australian Libraries, held at the National Library of Australia on 28 August 1998, was to achieve a consensus on objectives and strategies to address this issue.

The Round Table provides a forum that brings together a range of key interest groups, both in and outside the Australian library sector. Research users, as well as senior librarians from the university, state and special research library sectors, will be represented.

A range of background information has been prepared for Round Table participants on overseas monograph holdings in Australia, interlending issues from the perspective of borrowing and lending libraries and user perceptions. The papers are based on research undertaken by the National Library of Australia, the National Academies Forum and the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL).

While attendance at the Round Table was by invitation, the issues addressed are of wide interest to the Australian library community, research scholars and other library users. Information on the Round Table, including programme, background papers and draft recommendations,is available on the Web at http://www.nla.gov.au/niac/rtable.html