When Bibliofile's editor reminded me that it was time to submit my regular article, I asked him if there was any theme to this issue that I should write about. He replied, "Here are the articles we've asked for: ILL...copyright issues...[the] Lincoln Collection anniversary, and the Art Slide database...Couldn't you relate all of these to each other?" Actually, however, as I thought about his question, I realized that all these subjects can be related: collectively, they represent the wide scope of library collections; the range of activities necessary to make those collections accessible to the public; and the issues librarians face as they work to bring the basic philosophy of the research library into the 21st Century.

Interlibrary loan (ILL), the subject of Beth Coogan's article, is one of the oldest forms of cooperation between libraries, and an early acknowledgment of the fact that no one library could be expected to meet every need of every user. The evolution of this service from its origins at the turn of the century to the present serves as a microcosm of changes in collection development and access philosophy over the same time period. It began at a time when the goal of every library had been to meet the needs of most users through what it could place on its shelves; thus, ILL was seen as a fall-back for what the library didn't own, not as another primary form of access. Access to the service was limited--undergraduates, for example, could not use it--and it was not unusual for a request to take six weeks or more to fill. Today, ILL (along with full-text access and documentary delivery) is seen as a critical element in getting faculty and students what they need, in as rapid a fashion as possible, and as an acceptable alternative to the purchase of titles which are on the periphery of Brown's collection development policy. We are also moving toward an agreement with the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) which will enable users to borrow books directly from our partner libraries, without going through interlibrary loan at all. Faculty and students will search a "virtual" catalog of BLC's holdings, locate a desired title, and push a button to have it delivered to Brown.

Fred Lynden's article on copyright issues reminds us that, however rosy our picture of the online library of the future, much depends on our ability to work out thorny issues involving intellectual property. Powerful commercial forces are at work to eliminate or undermine the "Fair Use" provisions which we have come to take for granted in U. S. Copyright law, and to restrict drastically the right of the individual to make use of scholarly information in electronic form. Librarians and scholars alike must pay close attention to copyright issues because they are likely to have a continuing, and not necessarily benign, impact on our daily work.

The Library's McLellan Lincoln Collection, judged to be one of the world's five best, on the life and times of Abraham Lincoln came to the University in 1923, as a gift from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., '97. Our celebration of its anniversary, the subject of Mary-Jo Kline's article, highlights our enduring debt to alumni/ae in the building of our collections; their distinguished contribution to the nation (the gift was given in honor of John Hay, Class of 1858); and, perhaps most importantly, the crucial role of libraries in collecting, preserving, and organizing the raw material of scholarship. The Lincoln collection reminds us, as well, that however useful digitization is in making historic documents more widely accessible, the electronic surrogate is not the equivalent of the original: who could deny the power of examining a document in Lincoln's hand?

Brown's Art Slide Library has played a leading role nationally in the creation of new software for cataloging visual materials. Nori Duncan's article reminds us that libraries are more than repositories for print. Significant segments of our community depend on visual or sound material, which requires special housing, processing, equipment, and staff support. One of the most challenging aspects of running a research library is recognizing, and supporting, the distinctive needs of each discipline. While we sometimes think of the library as a building full of books, it is, as often, the scores for a musician, the slides for an art historian, the videotapes for a student of twentieth century history or an original manuscript for a biographer. Furthermore, as Ms. Duncan points out, print is not the only means of transmitting scholarly information about our world: the "slides and photos accumulated through several decades of teaching offer a rich documentation of visual culture worldwide."

We in the Brown University Library take pride not only in our collections, but in the many initiatives our staff members take to insure that those collections are well-used. This issue of Bibliofile is a fine illustration of the synergy between collections, staff, and users, which is the true strength of the research library.

Merrily E. Taylor
Joukowsky Family University Librarian