About the OCLC Research Library Partnership

The OCLC Research Library Partnership is a new entity that replaced the RLG Partnership on 1 July 2011 and is a locus for OCLC's increased support of the research library community. It is an organization born out of the successful merger of RLG and OCLC in 2006, when expert staff from the two organizations were blended into one team with a combined effort directed toward supporting research libraries and archives. The merger created a venue where affiliated institutions could collectively identify, analyze, prioritize and design scalable solutions to shared information challenges.

The end of June 2011 marked the conclusion of the five-year period of integrating the RLG Partnership into OCLC. Since then, OCLC Research staff and RLG Partners engaged in an impressively wide and important array of initiatives, many of which are highlighted in the document, OCLC Research and the RLG Partnership: A Five Year Overview of Accomplishments (.pdf: 45K/3 pp.). Because of this, the OCLC Board of Trustees and OCLC management decided to substantially increase their investment in the Partnership.

A renewed commitment to the research library community

Because OCLC recognizes the valuable contribution that research libraries play in the cooperative, it wants to provide a specific venue for engagement around shared issues. This venue is the OCLC Research Library Partnership, and it represents OCLC's renewed commitment to the research library community. OCLC's increased investment in the Partnership has enabled a significant reduction in the annual Partnership dues, which, in turn, has enabled a greater range of institutions to participate in the Partnership.

The OCLC Research Library Partnership is an energetic and influential global collaborative of research libraries and archives that work with a sophisticated and robust technical capacity, highly skilled on-staff experts and external consultants to achieve significant, innovative and collective action for the benefit of scholars and researchers everywhere. It continues to build on the success of the RLG Partnership and to help research libraries operate in an environment transformed by Google, Amazon and other game-changing organizations. It is also more inclusive and seeks to attract a larger, transnational group of research libraries to move to the next level of collaborative action.

An investment in collaboratively designing our shared future

All academic research libraries and not-for-profit organizations with educational, research or cultural missions—specifically, libraries and other cultural organizations that are prepared to invest resources and staff expertise in collaboratively designing innovative programs and future services to increase the efficiency and impact of research libraries—are invited to join the OCLC Research Library Partnership.

Additional details about the OCLC Research Library Partnership are available in the following documents:

• The OCLC Research Library Partnership (.pdf: 171KB/2 pp.)
• OCLC Research Library Partnership Frequently Asked Questions (.pdf: 35KB/3 pp.)
• OCLC Research Library Partnership Agreement Form (.pdf: 42KB/2 pp.)

Contact Nancy Elkington, Director, Partner Relations, at +1-614-764-6375 (voice) or elkingtn@oclc.org with questions.