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The OCLC CJK Users Group has prepared a list of electronic datafiles for potential loading on to OCLC. The lists of resources are useful in Chinese, Japanese and Korean studies.

China's rise as a major player in world affairs has contributed significantly to the global interest in the study of Chinese language, society, and culture. Its emerging importance has also increased the need for China‐related library materials and information provision to China scholars and the general public in recent years. This paper seeks to trace the historical transformation and renewed interest in China studies and the growing demand placed on Asian or East Asian libraries that support China studies in the USA.

The paper is a general review of the issues and challenges facing libraries in the West, which serve Chinese scholars, with the increasing demand for China‐related library materials and information resources, as well as for delivery of such information resources.

The paper identifies the issues and challenges facing libraries in the West that serve China scholars. The importance of collection building in China studies, the role of Chinese studies librarians, professional support for East Asian studies librarians in North America, and the changing outlook of academic libraries is highlighted.

In a world that is increasingly more global, Asian or East Asian libraries must gain better understanding if the issues and best practices to effectively provide information service through collaboration and resource sharing with partners in Asia to achieve true global collections.

The paper presents possible measures that can be undertaken to bridge the difference between the East and West. Specifically, the paper addresses concerns libraries outside China encounter and proposes suggestions regarding resource sharing, balancing a Chinese collection in a networked environment, financial challenges, continuing education, and bibliographic control.

To be or not to be electronic William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, a widely acclaimed, modern spelling publication from Oxford University Press is now available on floppy diskette. All structural information is encoded so that it can be interpreted by the Oxford Concordance Program, a widely used text analysis program. It is aimed specifically at the microcomputer implementation, Micro‐OCP, which is available from Oxford Electronic Publishing. With Micro‐OCP and the Complete Works it is now possible to compile word lists, indexes, and concordances of any of Shakespeare's works with ease.

Amigos Bibliographical Council of Dallas has announced that its members only subscription service offering microcomputer training and support has been an overwhelming success and has successfully attracted over 50 members. The Micro Program includes a full schedule of microcomputer software classes designed specifically for the library audience. For information about participating, contact Rob Carlson, Micro Computer Liaison Officer at 11300 North Central Expressway, Suite 321, Dallas, TX 75243, (214) 759–6131.

Unicode is a standard for a universal character set for all of the scripts of the world’s languages It is one of the fundamental technological building blocks for international exchange of textual information, via computers. It is particularly important to libraries that house collections in many languages and written in various scripts. Ohio State University Libraries houses collections written in many non‐Latin scripts including Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Cyrillic. Providing patrons with access to these materials has become much easier with the incorporation of Unicode into library systems and software. This article describes what needs to be in place on personal computers and in the library system in order to take advantage of Unicode as well as providing some guidelines to troubleshoot problems when they occur.

Reports the minutes of the winter meeting of the OCLC Users Councils, January 23‐25, 1995, which focussed on “The NII, the Internet, and OCLC: The Next Generation”. Speakers talked about Freenets, the effects of current federal legislation on the development of a national information infrastructure (NII) for an information highway, and how librarians need to influence public policy making to remain key players in the development of the National Internet Infrastructure.

On 2 January, 1984 the American Library Association will inaugurate Alanet, a new electronic mail and information service. Subscriptions will be available to all ALA organisation members.

OCLC has issued its 1992–93 annual report, the twenty‐sixth for the non‐profit organization.

Details the last OCLC Users′ Council meeting which had the theme “Cooperation and competition: OCLC and libraries′ strategies for the next generation”. Reports include: the delegate algorithm task force report; OCLC reference services; OCLC cataloging and resource sharing; the Users′ Council executive committee report on telecommunications; access to OCLC services – trends pricing and the future. Concludes with a summary of the question/answer and old business sessions.