Shared Sphere
Sharing Resource Sharing Resources
Building Bridges /—/ Connecting Community
“Librarianship is the art and science of the acquisition, preservation, organization, and retrieval of written and audiovisual records with the aim of assuring a maximum of information access for the human community…
Human progress necessitates a democratization of information that libraries help bring about. How could one imagine the creation of an authentically just society without full and open access to information?… In being a service documentation and research, libraries can surely be considered as ‘the great potential of society.'”
“It is interesting, given all this, that ILL is mentioned only in passing in the library literature on scholarly communication, if at all. Perhaps this is because librarians would rather invest in building their own library collections and services, or because they harbor an unconscious desire to maintain the historical conceit that local libraries can completely meet their researchers’ needs…
The bottom line is that if ILL disappeared tomorrow, a great deal of research would become more difficult, time-consuming, and costly. Some might not be undertaken at all simply because of the lack of access to sought-after information.”
“In such fractious and slippery times what better place to be than amidst the community of generosity and mutual aid that is the resource sharing collective – a global group of practitioners (professional and erstwhile amateur) dedicated to providing information, in all its forms, where it is most needed…
Sharing not merely with the rich and privileged who have the wherewithal to purchase, but also with the underserved, at-risk and in-need. Aiding not just their own co-workers and local patrons, but justly aiding colleagues and their patrons beyond borders and around the world.”