Corporate library resource selection: Exploring its support for corporate core competencies

Many scholars and professionals have noted in recent years that the United States is experiencing a transformation to an economy based upon knowledge. However, researchers have only begun to explore how the essence of such an economy, the creation of wealth by organizations through their use of information, works empirically. This study provides such exploratory empirical research. It uses concepts from library and information science and strategy to build a theoretical model describing the relationships between the selection activities of corporate libraries and the competencies of their parent firms. The research results are testable statements of a theoretical model. These reveal that the breadth and depth of the parent corporations' intellectual strengths are supported by corporate library selection activity that is intense, moderately centralized, formalized, moderately specific, relatively open to user input, and highly automated.