Issues for Australian libraries: An introduction

Australia is the size of the continental USA but with only 19 million inhabitants. Although it has benefited greatly from Internet connections, Australia's declining dollar in recent years, and the double digit publishing inflation, have replaced the "tyranny of distance" with the "tyranny of purchase". Libraries have had to cooperate to gain efficiencies in the system. Australia lacks resource co-ordination at a national level, but several important initiatives are under way.