Joint use school and public libraries have a long history in Canada and, particularly in rural Canada, many of these realtionships continue. The lanscape for public and academic libraries is significantly different. There are 70 university, just over 200 college and technical institute, and over 3000 public libraries in Canada, yet few joint use academic and public libraries exist. This does not reflect a reluctance among academic and public libraries to work together, however. While actual and joint use might not be common, there are many examples of mutually beneficial partnerships between public and academic libraries. This paper provides an overview of the diversity of public-academic library partnerships that can be found across Canada, before focusing on Canadian examples of joint use libraries - unique partnerships created in response to an expressed need
