ABSTRACT
Libraries are discovering opportunities to improve services, enhance collections, and meet the needs of changing clientele through partnerships. The Hanford Technical Library (HTL) (2002) and the Max E. Benitz Memorial Library (Benitz Library) (2002) share space in the Consolidated Libraries, a single facility on the Washington State University (WSU) Tri-Cities (2002) branch campus, and have successfully partnered to serve different clientele at a combined reference desk since June 1997. This unusual partnership allows both libraries to provide additional hours of reference service, access to greater library resources for each clientele, and facilitates access to the Consolidated Libraries, an important regional information resource for citizens of the Tri-Cities of Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco and the surrounding Columbia Basin region of southeastern Washington State. Searching the literature reveals that partnerships in which different types of libraries share building space are not entirely unknown but remain uncommon. This partnership of a
medium-sized, federally funded technical library and a relatively small university branch-campus library provides great benefit to clients and the community, and at the same time, presents some management and human relations challenges.
