Collaborative collection building of electronic resources: a business faculty/librarian partnership

The Business Library and The College of Business Administration at The Pennsylvania State University have formed a strategic partnership to analyze, evaluate, make selection decisions, and provide funding for electronic resources. This paper describes the background and rationale for the formation of this partnership and describes the issues and procedures that are followed to collaboratively build electronic collections to support business research. Benefits of this partnership include greater access to electronic resources for faculty throughout the University; an improved understanding of the breadth and needs of faculty research in business; and better knowledge of the resources that are used by various faculty, academic departments, and locations throughout the University. The partnership also provides a framework for incorporating electronic resources into the strategic planning process.