Because North Carolina's telecommunications services have been unable to provide cost-effective, statewide dial-access service to public libraries, the state library has had to identify a suitable alternative for public library network access. This article outlines the state library's efforts to provide access to the Internet and to electronic…

Presents a network design and development plan for a flexible, distributed client-server network of resource sharing libraries in Illinois. The plan's development in phases, design constraints and alternatives, migration strategy, and components are explained. Application of the model to other statewide or regional networks is suggested. (Contains…