Collaborating to compete: the search for new alliances

Librarians and information professionals are now facing a series of complex challenges in order to compete in an electronic networked environment where the user has an ever increasing array of choices in terms of information provision. The old certainties based on, and around, large collections of print items have dissipated over the past decade and the search is on for new ways of doing business. This paper assumes that the repositioning of service goals and management practices is essential for long term survival. The aim, therefore, is to explore the process of repositioning in a service environment where collaboration is essential in order to compete, where strategic alliances with other service industries become a necessity and where library managers have to rethink both the rationale and the mechanisms for collaboration between libraries.