The overarching inhibition to utilization of academic collections by industry is the lack of available information. Industry needs access to very specific information as to the properties of the individual holdings. Very few academic collections publish paper or on line catalogs. Further, the available information in a published catalog usually lacks detail. A pyramid of strategies can improve the information transfer. At the base, consistent database construction and common vocabulary facilitate understanding by others. The accessible databases must contain sufficient information to be useful to industry without disclosing proprietary secrets. A material transfer agreement should be in place before distributing a culture. Finally, and lacking, is a central portal on the internet to allow direct access to the individual databases. Such a portal, i.e., a “microbiology commons” is the subject of a meeting in Gent, Belgium in June, 2008. Even before such a facility is available, a collection should register with the World Federation for Culture Collections World Data Centre for Microorganisms (www.wdcm.nig.ac.jp). In addition, an electronic catalog may be registered with, and accessed through, the StrainInfo facility (www.StrainInfo.net).