Opening interlending services to end users: the Catalogue Collectif de France

An important role is played by academic libraries in French interlibrary loan and the huge volume of heritage collections and rare holdings in public libraries have also to be considered. This paper presents the interlibrary loan strategy that the Biblioth que Nationale de France has engaged in for ten years to improve end users' access to collections. it also presents the Catalogue Collectif de France features and demonstrates how this catalogue makes available to Internet users around 14 million records of documents held by different kinds of libraries in France. In conclusion, the paper presents some of the expected consequences for end users and French libraries when free interlending services are opened via the Internet.