Examples, goals, possibilities and limitations of international cooperation

Abstract

"International cooperation" has become one of the key issues in the library environment. The benefits of cooperation are important both for the library community and for its users. National boundaries loose their importance, especially in the field of digital publications. National libraries are responsible for the archiving of national publications. The cooperation between national libraries becomes extremely attractive in the field of electronic publications, such as online dissertations. Being in a multilingual country with federalist structures the Swiss National Library has experiences with the possibilities and limitations of cooperation. The strategic partnership with "Die Deutsche Bibliothek" and the "Österreichische Nationalbibliothek" in the field of the deposit of digital publications and the presentation of the state of the art at the Swiss National Library will serve as examples for this presentation.