From Tiny Acorns to Great Oaks

Abstract

Ko te manu kai I te Miro n na te ng here, Ko te manu kai I te m tauranga nona te ao. The bird who eats of the Miro tree owns the forest, The bird who eats of the Tree of Knowledge owns the world. This M ori proverb, which has been adopted by LIANZA-the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa-is in keeping with the conference's theme of Serials in the Park and an apt way to start a presentation on nationwide library cooperation in New Zealand.Interlibrary and inter-librarian cooperation is nothing new. Libraries share catalogue records, loan materials between libraries, build sharedstores, and enter consortia; librarians share information and network through listservs, associations, publications, and conferences. Serials librarians are very involved with collective purchasing and site licensing arrangements, cooperative archiving projects, and shared collection development strategies. Why come all this way to tell you about library cooperation in New Zealand? Because in New Zealand librarians have taken stock of their profession and noted the trend towards greater library cooperation; they have considered this in relation to the New Zealand context, and now they aspire to a nationwide approach to library cooperation to form a national information strategy.