"The idea that libraries should, in some way, find means to work cooperatively to provide people with access to books in nearby libraries is a deeply rooted concept in librarianship."1 Since the ideas of library cooperation are so deeply entrenched in the philosophy of librarianship, library cooperation is seen as an important aspect of professionalism and a sign of goodwill. And in today's economic situation library cooperation must be considered as part of the popular access versus ownership discussions.

Library cooperation is considered to mean an intent to share resources, knowledge, bibliographic data, services and even computer facilities to provide some or all aspects of library service. Since libraries have always had as a philosophic base the provision of information, first through books and later through electronic means, the concept of cooperation among libraries is by no means a fresh and new idea. Cooperation in libraries is an extension of cooperation as one of the fundamental motivations of human society.

Throughout the history of libraries cooperation has been recognized as an important element in their development because it was a means by which libraries could meet the needs and demands of their users when the resources of individual libraries were inadequate. In more recent years library cooperation has been viewed as a legitimate and functional way to meet the increasing complexity of the user's needs.

Since library cooperation is primarily considered to be the exchange of library resources, it must also be viewed in terms of the financial support need to acquire the materials which libraries might otherwise obtain through cooperation. Consequently, library cooperation has always been closely tied to the economic resources available to the individual libraries. Libraries simply do not have the economic resources to permit them to be self-sufficient in supplying all the needs of their readers. Another factor, which also has economic implications for libraries, that has encouraged library cooperation has been the ever increasing amount of material to be acquired. And even if the economic resources were available to acquire all the materials published, libraries could not provide the necessary cataloging and storage to support such unlimited acquisitions. Library cooperation is seen as the only way that modern libraries can provide the materials to supply the informational needs of their users.

2. LIBRARY COOPERATION: ACTIVITIES

Library cooperation is usually characterized in terms of the activities which can be achieved through cooperative agreements as well as the types of institutions which can best carry them out and benefit from them. One of the earliest types of library cooperation, although not identified by the specific name of cooperation, was the exchange of lists of different libraries' holdings. This rapidly led to the preparation of lists of the holdings of several libraries.

The publication of union lists of holdings of several libraries, descriptions of the resources of libraries, the maintenance of union catalogs, and national bibliographies has been the most common means of providing a convenient bibliographic record. These types of bibliographic records have increased in recent years as the technology has developed to permit rapid access to and the provision of bibliographic information through the use of computers and automation. The development of the MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) format as a standard has enabled and facilitated the exchange of bibliographic records among libraries and among countries. The existence of bibliographic databases and bibliographic utilities such as OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) have enabled the easy access to bibliographic information as well as information on library holdings.

3. IMPLICATIONS FOR VIETNAM BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASES

If a database or a catalog of a library's holdings facilitates library cooperation then libraries in developing countries like Vietnam will want to create bibliographic databases. A library's bibliographic database or its catalog in machine readable form can be used by the local user to identify what items the library owns and it can also be shared to assist other libraries in locating an item for a remote user. The construction of this database can take place in several phases. The first phase is to create a database of the materials held by one library. This database must be created using a standard format. This format exists today as UNIMARC on the international level and as the national format of each country such as USMARC, UKMARC and AUSMARC. In developing countries the software which comes the closest to replicating this standard is the CDS/ISIS software. The CDS/ISIS software includes many of the fields in the MARC formats. In addition, there has been software written to enable it to be converted to UNIMARC and thus loaded into automation systems programmed to use MARC databases.

In Vietnam many libraries are already creating a local database of their holdings using the CDS/ISIS software to catalog the materials being added to their collections. Several libraries are also doing retrospective conversion of their holdings. And the provincial libraries are contributing their holdings to union catalogs at the National Library of Vietnam in Hanoi and the General Sciences Library of Ho Chi Minh City. These libraries have move to the next phase which is the creation of a database including the holdings of several libraries. These databases can be used to share bibliographic information so each library does not have to spend the staff time to catalog the same materials and they can also be used to identify where an item is located to facilitate interlibrary lending.

Because the library holdings in Vietnam are still generally small, libraries can take advantage of this to share bibliographic information in a variety of ways. Libraries do not have to be linked in a network in order to share bibliographic information. They could set up a system by which each of the libraries in a group or cluster agree to enter their materials in a database using the CDS/ISIS software and then each month they could send their records on a disk to a central site where they are merged to create a central database. The records in the database could then be returned to the libraries by a disk. Or the central database could be distributed annually or semi-annually on a CD-ROM. It is not costly to create a CD-ROM and many of the libraries have CD-ROM players or CD-ROM drives in their computers. These libraries are creating a shared machine readable database that can be used as the nucleus to develop and implement a fully automated bibliographic network.

Lists of library holdings and national bibliographies promoted another very early type of library cooperation - interlibrary lending. Sharing resources by lending books from one library to another is probably the oldest organized, and certainly the easiest, method of library cooperation since a single loan requires only a borrower, a willing lender, and a means of transmission.

If you are going to have interlibrary lending there must be some way that the library and the user can identify where the information is located. The bibliographic databases that have been developed of the holdings of several libraries can be used to identify the location of an item. Another very basic way of identifying where an item is located is to call the library and ask if they own the item and if it is available. That is feasible for one item but not for many items. The second way would be to search a library's local catalog or database. This is feasible only if the user is at that library or the catalog has the capacity to be searched remotely. The third way of identifying the location of an item would be to search a shared database or a union catalog of the holdings of several libraries. The user would either have to be in one of the library's or the catalog would have to be able to be search remotely. But, at each level, the ease of use and the access to information increases.

The location of an item is not the only issue that must be dealt with in interlibrary lending. Once the location of the item is known the library must be willing to lend the item to another library for the use of that library's patron. If all of the items in the library are non-circulating or if the library does not lend library to library then interlibrary lending will not be able to function.

DOCUMENT DELIVERY

Another very basic method of connecting a user with the material they need is to send the user to the material. If the material can not be sent from one library to another for the use of a patron then the patron can be sent to the material. At least, the user gains access to the information that they are seeking.

The ultimate success of an interlibrary loan plan is not dependent on technology but the willingness of the individuals directing the libraries to cooperate. Much of the success of interlibrary lending is based on the desire of librarians to get needed materials into the hands of their users. It is a human element not the technological element which will determine the success of an interlibrary lending plan. If cooperation is not a normal part of a country's culture then it might be necessary to motivate cooperation with an economic incentive. Many interlibrary lending networks have been formed because of the financial incentive to cooperate. The financial incentive might be the funding of the computer equipment to access the centralized database or the funding to develop an integrated library system.

AUTOMATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Automation and information technology can speed up the access to information but they will not change the steps. Bibliographic networks and interlibrary lending systems must first be planned and the cooperation of the libraries involved must be obtained. Then the system can be developed and implemented. The success of the system will not depend on having the most sophisticated technology but it will depend on the librarians being willing to make a resource sharing plan operate and function well.

A pitfall to be avoided in planning for bibliographic networks and interlibrary loan systems is the belief that the use of automation and communications technology will enable developing countries to skip over a stage of development and move straight from their present inadequate library systems to an effective and bibliographic and document access system.2 New technology should be used as and where appropriate, but it cannot provide instant solutions to longstanding problems. Intermediate solutions to the problems of document access and supply will be necessary long before there is a prospect of direct online access to even a majority of recent documents.