The collection between supply and demand?

With regard to acquisition policy, a debate exists about the place to accord the requests of readers, as against selections made by librarians according to prescribed rules. However, each acquisition is integrated into a collection forming a complex whole, the fruit of very varied placings in context; and this collection modifies the sense and the possible interpretation of each acquisition. In proposing some guides for assessing this complexity and some elementary tools for putting the acquisition process in perspective, the author suggests that the debate should be shifted on to the more fundamental questions of the policies for setting up and developing the collections, before accepting the suggestions of the users more meekly.
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