Cooperative Collection Development: The Northern California Experience

As books and serials proliferate and their prices climb, acquisitions budgets remain static or decrease. One way to resolve the dilemma is a cooperative acquisitions program. The North Bay Cooperative Library System (NBCLS), a consortium of libraries in northern California, recently completed a two‐year project to jointly develop member libraries' book and serials collections. The goals were to stretch none‐too‐abundant funds by eliminating overlap in acquisitions and to increase the collections' bibliographic depth.