Paper from ChinaThe consortium of university research libraries: An experiment in resource sharing in the United Kingdom

In 1982 the librarians of the seven largest university research libraries in the United Kingdom agreed to form a consortium, CURL, in order to share machine readable data. Grants were received from a research foundation and the University Grants Committee, and the establishment of the Joint Academic Network (JANET) enabled computer links to be quickly set up. A Systems Manager, Shirley Perry, was appointed and a database was loaded onto the Manchester Computer Centre Amdahl 5890. Each library provides data on magnetic tapes, and CURL subscribes to British Library and Library of Congress tapes. Access is available by ISBN, LC number, or acronym keys. Libraries can take records by online downloading, receiving tapes, or file transfer to local computers. Next stages will be retrospective conversion and input at ordering stage.