Consortium of National Information Resource Sharing

   The consortium is a coordinator for the information resource sharing at the national, provincial and local levels. The National Library of China acts as a national convener and liaison office in the consortium, the provincial libraries function as the convener and liaison office in their respective provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities under the direct supervision of the State Council. So do the city and district libraries in their respective areas.
The responsibilities of the consortium include:

• Establish a resource sharing system,
• Develop the union cataloging on the regional basis,
• Jointly develop various kinds of resource databases,
• Standardize the inter-library loan service,
• Establish the national and regional information reference network,
• Use of web resources each other,
• Strengthen communication and conduct training.

   Efforts will be made to strengthen the consortium for the purpose of incorporating gradually all networks into one single national network for the benefit of all libraries.