An Unlikely Collaboration: How Academic and Special Libraries Can Help Each Other Survive

This column uses the occasion of James Matarazzo and Toby Pearlstein receiving the 2016 John Cotton Dana Award from the Special Libraries Association to reflect on their unique partnership, which has lasted decades and resulted in a wealth of research results and tools for corporate librarians. Despite the tools available to them to measure and demonstrate their value, however, special libraries continue to face closures, downsizing, and increasing pressure to do more with less. Today, special libraries are not alone in feeling this pressure, as even the academic libraries that have been so central to campus life find their place questioned. As Matarazzo and Pearlstein formed the unlikely yet lasting partnership of scholar and practitioner, perhaps academic libraries and non-academic special libraries can join forces to effectively leverage their collective experience and knowledge in demonstrating their worth to stakeholders.