A WORLD PICTURE OF INTERLENDING 1975–85: A REVIEW OF REVIEWS

The reviews of interlending and document supply appearing regularly in this journal are themselves reviewed to give a world picture of interlending in the years 1975 to 1985. National and international lending have increased. National and international systems have been planned and performance improved in some countries. Others have seen little progress. Union catalogues and subject specialist collections have their part to play, but the greatest development has been in networks, particularly OCLC. Interlending is still beset by questions of the costs of services, of charging and copyright. Developments in new technology have still to make much impact on document supply, although various projects in this area are already in hand.