Collaborative Collection Development: Progress, Problems, and Potential

Library planning and collection building in the research libraries of the United States have long had to deal with two contradictory forces, autonomy and interdependence. The independence and autonomy of those libraries in providing for local self-sufficiency in information needs have been tested by a gradual but growing realization that local self-sufficiency is not possible for the programs of comprehensive university libraries or other large libraries. They continue to operate independently, making their own decisions for local needs, while routinely rejecting the "myth of the self-sufficient library" and paying lip-service to cooperation and resource sharing.