This article examines how collaborative collection development affects libraries. For many public libraries, adopting the collaborative collection development model would require a new way of thinking. In this model, libraries are equal partners "in which each library recognizes that it is a node in the network and that if it does not do its work, the whole system will fail." Some toughly independent academic libraries have learned to work together and love it. Public libraries already have significant tools in place to allow collaboration, though they may well take a different direction from their academic brethren. Collaborative collection development can take any number of forms, and librarians can make it work for them.