Thirteen percent have no access at this time, including two Canadian libraries who use Stats Canada. Only two institutions provide all of the listed public services, one of which is fee based. Eight institutions indicated that none of these services are available. Forty-six percent of institutions provide access to patrons from all three locations. Access to CD-ROMs requires a password or other proof of affiliation with the institution.
Access varies according to individual database licensing agreements.
The broad interpretation of electronic resource sharing by participants is reflected in the responses to the questionnaire. Thus, reliability of the data is less than optimal. It is clear that there is a continuing effort to share electronic databases, based on the number of institutions who have begun to share in the past three years and the number of groups reported. The technology to share tape-loaded databases has been in place for some time, and the most commonly shared resource appears to be indexes in this format. Generally, costs of subscriptions and telecommunications are borne by individual institutions, while one institution maintains the database.