Most people, if they think of resource sharing at all, think of it as interlibrary loan, that function of a library in which materials not owned by one library are borrowed from another to lend to a patron. Resource sharing is much broader however. The resource sharing practices of libraries during the last century have developed the largest bibliographic database in the world for providing both information about resources and access through interlibrary loan to those resources. Librarians' skills with the organization of information, how people look for and use information combined with their technical knowledge of computers and systems have made them increasingly important for work with the providers and publishers of electronic information. While some librarians negotiate deals with vendors to purchase products, others take on the role of helping vendors design usable web search interfaces.
Librarians also help vendors organize the information in their databases in a logical fashion.
You're probably wondering about now why I haven't mentioned distant learners once in this article. I have a final point to make about librarians and access to information. Librarians have an intrinsic belief that information should be equitably available to everyone, regardless of race, wealth, education and all other common designators of human worth. Philosophically, a distant learner is no different from any other learner who may need library services. Librarians are certainly aware of the political and technical barriers.