Center for Research Libraries Membership Subsidy

In September 2008, the CARLI Board of Directors approved a partial subsidy for CARLI libraries interested in becoming members of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL). The subsidy covered 50% of the annual membership fee up to a maximum of $2,000/year for 2 years (through 2010.)

CRL, a consortium of 240-plus university, college, and independent research libraries, acquires and preserves newspapers, journals, documents, archives, and other traditional and digital resources from a global network of sources and makes them available to both member institutions and non-members through interlibrary loan and electronic delivery.

Through a CRL membership, participating CARLI libraries had access to more than 4.5 million publications, archives, and collections and one million digital resources to supplement their own humanities, science, and social science holdings.

CRL resources include the largest collection of circulating newspapers in North America; more than 38,000 foreign journals that are rarely held in U.S. libraries; more than 800,000 foreign dissertations—mostly from European institutions; and major microform and paper collections from Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Southeast Asia.

CRL member benefits include the following:

• Participation in the Purchase Proposal Program – an annual, ballot-based, cooperative acquisition program.
• Participation in the Shared Purchase Program – a cooperative acquisition program based on CRL-organized buyer groups.
• Participation in the Demand Purchase Program, in which patrons (faculty members, graduate students) at member institutions can request purchases up to $2000 annually in three areas: foreign dissertations, newspapers, and archival material.
• Electronic delivery of articles and monographs (when possible)
• Eligible to load CRL catalog records or subsets at no charge (includes periodic updates)
• Program and service orientations available for member staff.
• Individualized resource searches available through CRL’s User Services Liaison.
• Web consultations to optimize user access to the CRL catalog.
• Free subscription to The Charleston Advisor
• Eligible to participate in JSTOR, ICON, Print Archiving, and other CRL activities and partnerships