This book is a description of a three-year project to develop and sustain a network of very diverse people who could mutually contribute to each other's resource needs through ideas and resource exchange. People from schools, colleges, and universities, and public and private agencies joined together to form the Essex Network for two major purposes: to exchange resources on a barter-economy basis for their mutual benefit and to form a psychological sense of community. Although the authors provide examples of how a network operates, they focus primarily on the rationale behind the Essex network, those who started it, the problems encountered, the importance of such activities as network meetings, and the significance of the network in the lives of its members. Also included is a review of the literature on networks. As a contribution to the theory and practice of resource networks, this book has important implications for public policy and programming. The Essex network demonstrates that there are ways of dealing with limited human and natural resources and with the need for people to have a feeling of community. (Author/RM)