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Our University Library and another university library in our province several
years ago now applied for and received funding to jointly develop collections
in environmental design.  I had a fairly large amount of money to spend over
about 5 years on monographs that were to complement not duplicate the other
library's collection.  I too saw the need to have some titles in our collection
which duplicated the other library's collection.  I did buy the titles that
were in the "must have" category.  My rationale was that  a library (especially
the size of our two institutions together) would normally carry more than one
copy of these core titles and it only made sense that in a distributed
situation that copies would be housed at each location.  Hope this helps your
case.  Marilyn
--
Marilyn Nasserden
Fine Arts, Music, and Environmental Design Librarian
University of Calgary Library
Phone: (403) 220-3795
Office: MLT 918
E-mail: <a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9910%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7bit7BIT%26P%3D41500%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>

<a href="/scripts/wa.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind9910%26L%3DARLIS-L%26E%3D7bit7BIT%26P%3D41500%26B%3D--%26T%3Dtext%252FplainTEXT%252FPLAIN%3B%2520charset%3DUS-ASCII%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a> wrote:

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>
> Hello again,
>
> This seems to be my week for posting questions to the list...
>
> I was wondering about some of the acquisitions policies of those of you
> who are involved in consortiums. We have always observed loan policies
> for the other institutions in our consortium, but now we are being asked
> not to duplicate, or at least consider that, titles that the other colleges
> already own. Of course, I can see some advantage to this, but also see some
> more problematic issues emerging, such as the strength of our individual
> collection, the ability to use materials for reserve or long term research
> loans, and the serious loss of that serendipitous element of research that
> is so related to picking something off the shelf that just happens to be
> next to the item you found in the catalog.
>
> So, what do you think? Perhaps this subject is broad enough in appeal that
> you might just reply to the list.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Anne