It is clear that this is only the beginning. Six additional institutions plan to subscribe from the start of the Academic Year 2000-1 with a number of others coming along to our Training Courses to find out more. In institutions that are already signed up, we know that the level of activity will increase as arrangements to register users are refined and more teaching departments make use of the service. Hopefully this will be available to users next year. Ordnance Survey products currently available through Digimap.
All users have access to tiles in 'pool.
A year is divided into approximately three periods. In the first period, thirty per cent of the available 69,000 tiles are shared equally among subscribing institutions. In the second, the remaining tiles are shared between all subscribing institutions. In the final stage a contingency fund of 3000 tiles is shared out on a needs basis. One benefit of the process has been that it has proved a good way for Map Librarians to get to know their users.