Developing a mission for the national education network: The challenge of seamless access

The National Library of Education (NLE) recently created the National Education Network (NEN). This article explores the potential mission of the NEN in light of the emerging global learning infrastructure made possible by the Internet. Given the NEN membership of Internet-based collection holders of educational resources, the article develops a five-part framework for exploring the nature of education information provision in a networked digital environment. It examines a number of government sponsored and private sector initiatives that stand as exemplars of the elements of the framework. Once defined, the framework provides the mechanism for framing a policy-based mission for the NEN in which it advocates for education information collections, educates its constituents in terms of the emerging education object economy, and promotes collective dissemination of information regarding the digital learning infrastructure.