OCLC Research Library Partnership Tiers and Dues

Annual partnership dues, which are based on the size of your organization, support the collaborative work of the OCLC Research Library Partnership.  The program year begins on July 1 and concludes on June 30; dues for institutions newly joining at any point in the year will be pro-rated.

Dues are calculated on the basis of an institution’s operating budget.  We understand that "Operating budget" can be a slippery concept. The unit of measure used to determine operating budget tiers for OCLC Research Library Partnership dues uses is the library (or library system) in a college, university, historical society, or museum. For national and state libraries and archives, the whole institution is the focus.

All Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) and Society of College, National, and University Libraries (SCONUL) members currently report their library operating budget data to those organizations, deriving it from standard definitions.  OCLC Research will use the latest submitted figure to determine the correct OCLC Research Library Partnership dues band and annual dues rate for its members that belong or are qualified to belong to ARL or SCONUL. For all other members, the relevant figure will be determined by applying the ARL operating expense definition to data in your most recent published financial statement. The ARL definition of operating expences includes:

• expenditures for materials
• expenditures for binding
• salaries and wages
• other operating expenditures (example, automation)

—but not facilities, facility maintenance, and fringe benefits. (For specifics, see Expenditures, the penultimate topic under section III, subsection 3, at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/ddoc.doc.)

Because OCLC recognizes the valuable contribution that research libraries play in the cooperative, it has increased its investment in the Partnership, which has enabled a significant reduction in the annual Partnership dues. Affiliation has never been more strategically necessary nor so demonstrably affordable.

Effective 1 July 2011

To illustrate just how significant this OCLC Research Library Partnership dues reduction is, a listing of previous RLG Partnership annual tiers and dues is included below for comparison.

Previous RLG Partnership Tiers and Annual Dues

Effective 1 July 2009-30 June 2011

Prior to the launch of the OCLC Research Library Partnership, RLG Partnership dues levels and structure had been reconsidered to enable partner institutions to maintain and take advantage of their RLG Partnership affiliation in the current economic climate. With the help of the RLG Partnership Council, the dues tiers and costs were modified effective 1 July 2011. The new (reduced) and previous RLG Partnership dues and structures are provided for comparison below.

The new structure simplified the tiers and provided a substantive reduction in financial contribution from partner institutions that was appropriately distributed across categories. Although the lowest dues category remained unchanged at US$4,000, the structure provided reductions throughout the other tiers that ranged from 18-40%. While this reduction in dues was significant, it did not change the current level of investment in and support for the work undertaken by the RLG Partnership.