ABSTRACT
Today’s collection manager faces unprecedented challenge and opportunity in meeting the needs of library users. A number of factors are forcing sometimes radical shifts in collections budgets and strategies, while the emergence of truly effective network technology offers opportunity for substantive cooperative collection management. Why should collection managers embrace collaboration as a tool for effective management of collections? And how are local needs balanced against the collective needs of a consortium or other cooperative group? The answers to these questions might best be found by first reviewing the factors that are forcing change. These factors include:
Changes in societal attitudes towards higher education;
Increasing budget and service pressures;
Copyright, licensing, and intellectual property issues;
Preservation and the creation of permanent archives of information;
All of these leading to changes in collection building.
