National Library initiatives: the UK Higher Education experience

Librarians, library system suppliers and libraries have proved remarkably reluctant to accept the reality of end-user access and continue to devise systems in which librarians act as intermediaries as of right. This attempt to channel information through the library uniquely is doomed to failure and we would do well to recognise that. In the UK the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Councils (hereafter "we") is attempting to devise national structures for end-user access in higher education based on this premise. In describing those structures I hope that you will get some view of the underlying principles which are taking us forward to create the Distributed National Electronic Collection, which is being funded as part of our running budget but also through additional funds for the so-called Follett programme.