Many universities and colleges are developing or considering development of a campus‐wide information system. On many campuses the impetus for CWIS development is coming from the computing services operations — a logical development in many cases since on the majority of campuses those organizations have a near monopoly on technology funding and system development expertise. As the campus information center, however, the library should have a central role in the CWIS development process. It becomes clear then that library managers must involve themselves in developing a role for their library in this development process. The question becomes: What is the best way to do this? This paper suggests that a philosophy stressing user service rather than one emphasizing control has much to recommend it in the development of a CWIS.