A case for exchange: The experience of the University of California, Berkeley

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Abstract
The future of Berkeley's exchange program looks promising. The program offers a cost-effective means of gathering materials in many languages and from many geographic areas, and it is a powerful resource for obtaining isolated, isolated, obscure monographs not available by other means. When compared to purchasing materials, and viewed in light of Berkeley's collection development goals, it emerges as relatively inexpensive. If we are tempted by this cost-effectiveness to expand the exchange program, perhaps to combat eroding funds for collections or rising serials prices, we should pause to think twice about the relationships that make the program so successful. There seems to exist in exchange programs, as in physics, a critical point beyond which equilibrium is lost and stability and control become difficult or impossible. In exchange programs beyond a certain size, additional staf members must be hired, procedures and files become harder to keep orderly, the quality of the program deteriorates, and the speed with which materials are exchanged decreases. As subsidized and discounted publications intended for exchange become insufficient to sustain an expanded progra, costs to the materials budget rise, making purchase the cheaper option. Suppose that non-subsidized publications of the University of California, intended to be sold for profit, were to be bought at discounts and distributed extensively on exchange. This would augment the library's collections and distribute scholarly works, but it would also eventually undermine the commercial market outside the university by which these publications are profitably sustained. Ultimately these publications wouldbe weakened, and without them the exchange program would lose stability. A balance must be maintained between the needs of the library, the aims of the publications usedto support the exchange program, and the management of the program itself. When this balance is healthy, the program meets challenging collection development goals, helps unit scholarly communities by distributing research findings where these would not otherwise be received, and occasionally rewards the exchange staff with opportunities to achieve the seemingly impossible. The preservation of this balance over the years may be the secret to the success of Berkeley's exchange program.

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