The Italian library network: SBN — Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale

The aim of this article is to provide a brief introduction and description of SBN (Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale), the Italian national network which has been working as a full‐scale union catalogue and shared cataloguing system since June 1992 and now connects 104 libraries. The gradual development of SBN over the past 10 years is described as well as its structure and architecture and its future possible developments.