An assessment of an increasingly tight national economy dictates a reevaluation of the costs and functions of the corporate special library if it is to survive recessionary pressures intact. Services which are crucial to daily business operation, not duplicated elsewhere, and of high visibility to upper management must become the prime focus of the library or information center. All costs must be justifiable to the maximum extent possible and librarians must increasingly learn to build cost benefit presentations, as well as cultivate those services which can be more readily identified as highly valuable to business operations. A bibliography of 27 periodical citations is appended. (Author/RAA)