Book Review: Shared Collections: Collaborative Stewardship

Abstract

Librarians are natural collaborators. As professionals we enjoy working with colleagues within the same institution and beyond. This is particularly fitting when it comes to collection development. Academic libraries strive to support the research needs of our users by providing access to a wide range of materials. In a world of shrinking budgets and limited staff, we turn to collaboration as a way to continue to deliver excellent services to our patrons. Collaborative partnerships between regional institutions or across state lines allow individual organizations to reallocate their resources and better serve the local needs. If you are ready to begin the planning stages of a collaborative collection development project, this book is a great starting point. Shared Collections: Collaborative Stewardship is a gathering of essays that discusses an array of cooperative collection development projects in a variety of institutions. It covers everything you need to know from how to create a partnership of shared collections (chapter 2) to specific examples of current projects covering everything from serials (chapter 4), monographs (chapters 6 and 8) and digital collections (chapter 7).