shared function in class

The Shared keyword in the VB.NET is also known as static in C#. It means that these objects (that are declared with this keyword) are accessible by other functions and classes without having to create a new instance. For example,

public class Example {
   public static string Member = "";
}

// in the code somewhere, you can directly get the value as
Example.Member;

Public Class Example
	Public Shared Member As String = ""
End Class

The following is the VB.NET code. You can see, that the static is the equivalent for the static. This would let the member (Member in this case) to be accessible by other methods, even after the object has been cleared out (destroyed; static members remain in the memory until the program keeps running).