Abstract
Although cooperative activities among libraries have a rather long history, the idea of networks really began with library automation. Nationwide networking crept up on libraries, eager to share the resources they could not afford singly or even in small groups. Nevertheless, technology made sharing on a smaller scale more feasible, and coincidentally other forces made it seem more attractive to pull away from large centers of computing. We have entered a phase of mixed networking strategies. Before long we have to decide for each of the library's sharable functions, at what level—local, consortial, substate, state, multistate, or national—cooperation should take place. Eventual linking via the Open Systems Interface Reference Model is predicted.