I. Introduction This agreement creates a framework for regional level cooperation to foster collaboration among the library systems of the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin. The statement of principles intends to encourage the development of specific cooperative agreements in the areas of collections, services, and the digital library. The combined collections of our library systems offer an extraordinary intellectual resource of major research value not only to our students and faculty but to the scholarly community in general. We hope to further enhance the excellence of this resource by encouraging in-depth collecting and improving document delivery. This agreement recognizes how important it is for each library to maintain duplicate collections of core bibliographic resources to satisfy the broader study and teaching needs of our patrons. If additional resources are needed, we are committed to make budgetary adjustments to ensure success of this agreement. II. Collections We will ask the collection specialists and bibliographers at the three libraries to explore the possibility of developing shared purchase agreements for their respective collection areas. This can be done by concentrating our acquisitions efforts in focused areas of the collections defined by subjects, geographical regions, formats, or other relevant criteria. This cooperative collection building effort will allow our libraries to continue developing in-depth collections. Each library will maintain, as a minimum, current levels of acquisitions in the areas for which they assume responsibility. Each library will also notify other partners one year in advance, if it cannot continue this partnership due to fiscal duress or programmatic changes. The first step in this process will be to agree upon collection responsibilities for Mexico in particular, and Latin America in general, among the three libraries, with each institution taking responsibility for a given geographical and/or subject area within Mexico and for specific countries within Latin America. December 15, 1997

III. Library Services In-house use and document delivery are important components of regional cooperation. The circulating collections of each library will be available for lending to program participants, faculty, graduate students, and academic staff, either through on-site visits or through inter-library loans at no charge. Recognizing that faculty are most likely to support cooperative collection development only if it imposes minimal barriers to access to research materials, the "FASTBOOK/BAKER" service designed for faculty, graduate students and academic staff between the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University, should be expanded to include the University of Texas at Austin. We will explore the use of technology to further improve document delivery, making the process as seamless as possible to our readers and work towards providing a virtual union catalog for all three institutions. Each library will fund and deliver materials requested by program participants from the other institutions. We will measure and discuss "balance of trade" issues after a suitable test period, and thereafter as needed. IV. Digital Collections We will seek other institutional partners, particularly from Latin America, to join in cooperative programs and digitizing projects and engage with us to influence electronic publishing efforts in their own countries. V. Implementation The services component of this agreement will be fully implemented by the Spring 1998 semester. Bibliographers will examine possibilities of collection development cooperation in their respective areas and develop agreements as soon as feasible. We will all continue to explore opportunities for developing electronic tools and systems for the digital library. Peter Lyman, University Librarian University of California at Berkeley Michael Keller, University Librarian Stanford University Harold Billings, University Librarian University of Texas at Austin