ABSTRACT
The National Science Foundation, the Office of Education, the Council on Library Resources, and a number of foundations provided millions of dollars for development of library automation activities. Once plans for library automation are firm and the institution is ready to begin implementation, the major problem is apt to be funding. Traditionally there have been three primary sources for such funds: grants from the federal government or private foundations; reallocation of existing funds; and additional appropriations from the library's normal source of funds, whether that be institutional, state appropriations, bond issues, or city and county budgets. The council has developed what it calls the Bibliographic Services Development Program, which has as its principal goal the linking of the several networks that grew up during the 1970s. As far as granting agencies are concerned, then, the trend is clear: from individual library projects to networks and from networks to a supernetwork.
