Specialists in collection development and preservation should work cooperatively to make decisions on selection for acquisitions and to define priorities for the preservation of existing collections. Cooperative conservation efforts for rare materials, although providing little assistance to individual institutions, are in the best national interest. Preservation planning is basically concerned with the production of surrogate copies. If the benefit of surrogate copies is to be maximised and if a truly universal library is to be created, national and international cooperation between institutions and publishers is desirable. Awareness in the united kingsom of preservation problems has spread rapidly in recent years, and is reflected in the activities of the british library the library association, and the publishers association council. Several international cooperative projects are either under discussion or in progress. 3 references.