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This paper sets out several challenges for libraries and collection development librarians as they seek to remain relevant in a rapidly changing environment. These include changes in ease of information access, increasing interest in unmediated access, ubiquity of similar (even identical collections), and the need to develop unique collections that meet local needs and interests and to develop and promote tools that enhance the use of these collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a personal overview of the development of collection development and management as a specialization within the practice of librarianship. It gives particular attention to the activities among academic librarians and in academic libraries in the 1960s and 1970s that led to the creation of special interest groups within the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]