Where did the idea for a national consortium for Australia come from?
Some other countries have national licensing of some electronic products (eg New Zealand and Iceland). When the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee enquired into the Role of Libraries in the Online Environment in 2002-03, one of the recommendations was that there be national licensing of selected resources. The government did not agree that it should provide funding for such an initiative. The National Library of Australia convened a meeting in 2004 to see if there might be another way of making progress. The National Library is facilitating the process, but the Australian library community is involved through the National Licensing Forum, and without general library support the initiative will not be implemented.
