It's a BONUS Plus!: collaborating to share library resources across Australasia

This paper discusses BONUS Plus [http://bonus.newcastle.edu.au], an international resource sharing consortium that traverses two countries, covers more than one sixth of the globe, and operates across four time zones. Eleven academic partner libraries in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland, and New Zealand share monograph resources. The primary goal of the BONUS Plus consortium is to share seamlessly material from member library collections among their clientele. Launched in October 2007, BONUS Plus provides access to more than 6 million items through a central online catalogue. Almost seventy percent of the catalogue titles are unique to one library. Individual member libraries have seen an expansion to their local collections through access to the shared material, in a climate where resources are limited and clients expect fast results.