Pacific Rim Digital Library Alliance Formed

Min-Chih Chou, East Asia Library

The University of Washington Libraries recently joined the newly formed Pacific Rim Digital Library Alliance. Eleven other major research libraries in the Pacific Rim complete the membership of the Alliance including:

Academia Sinica, Taipei

Australian National University Library, Canberra

El Colegio de Mexico Library, Mexico City

Keio University Library, Tokyo

National University of Singapore Library

Peking University Library

University of British Columbia Library, Vancouver

University of California, Berkeley Libraries

University of California, San Diego Libraries

University of Hong Kong Libraries

Zhongshan University Library, Guangzhou, China

The purpose of the Alliance is to facilitate access to research materials through various digital networks and to improve access to Alliance members' collections--all of which are vast in size and have individual strengths. Demand by scholars for material from and about the Pacific Rim region has increased significantly over the past few years. A cooperative digital library alliance will facilitate access, in a cost-effective and efficient way, to the library resources in the entire Pacific Rim region to help meet this demand. The twelve libraries will not only make their own library resources available, but may individually make arrangements with non-member institutions to obtain access to materials not in the member libraries. The Alliance will also support some other library functions such as the sharing of electronic and print material, exchange of personnel, and cooperative collection development.

The University of California, San Diego, Libraries will serve as the first coordinator of the Alliance. The first project of the Alliance is to digitize and preserve materials related to the exploration of the Pacific.