Inspire; The First Step in the Virtual Networked Library

Abstract

In January 1998 the citizens of Indiana became the first Americans to have universal, free public access to a large suite of commercial databases. They are able to peruse this million dollar resource from any computer connected to the Internet--that is, computers in homes, classrooms, businessed and libraries. Users of this system can search databases in general periodicals, health information, newspapers and other information resources and print out the full text. Clearly, this project--titled Inspire--is a valuable resource for the citizens of Indiana, particularly the users of our libraries. Inspire is the fruit of years of library networking and, more recently, cooperative activities by librarians from all types of libraries. Indiana's librarians have every right to be proud of this remarkable achievement. The purpose of this article is to give a brief background of this project, its scope and progress, and its effect on libraries in the future.