Editorial
The articles in this issue of Library Consortium Management: An International Journal are once again diverse and demonstrate the wide range of issues that are facing library consortia internationally:
In his article "Use levels and new models for consortial purchasing of electronic journals", Tom Sanville presents fascinating data from the OhioLINK Electronic Journals Center project. In short, having provided easy access to the full range of publishers' electronic journal collection from multiple publishers there is almost always heavier use of the journal titles and articles that previously were not available in print on that campus than of those that were available in print.
"The development of library client service programs and the role of library consortia", which I authored, presents not only the reasons why but also how libraries should develop their client (or "customer") service programs, and emphasizes critical roles that consortia can play to assist libraries to develop such programs.
"Distributed processing and Windows NT: the ideal infrastructure for library consortia", written by Michael J. Frasciello and John Richardson presents a technical discussion from the perspective of a system vendor about the importance of a consortium considering the effect of the operating system on system development.
"In plain site" is the first in a recurring column authored by Marilyn Geller and Jan Peterson to provide a host of Web sites that should be of particular interest to consortium managers. Readers who find the abstracts interesting will want to click on the URLs in the article and bookmark them for future use.
"Getting acquainted: HEAL-Link, the Greek National Academic Library Consortium" is the first instalment of a column that will be edited by David F. Kohl to introduce LCM:IJ readers with overviews about different library consortia around the world. This first column was co-authored by Claudine Dervos.
I believe readers of this Journal should find these articles to be highly engaging. As editor, I encourage you to share your thoughts and reactions about the articles in this issue on the LCM:IJdiscussion list at the MCB Web site http://www.mcb.co.uk/services/conferen/webforum/mcb-lcm-forum/index.html
I also welcome personal inquiries and article proposals and submissions, which you can address to me at ahirshon@nelinet.net
Arnold HirshonEditor
