The Research Libraries Group (RLG) was a U.S.-based

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

consortium A consortium () is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations, or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a ...

that existed from 1974 until its merger with the

OCLC OCLC, Inc. See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was founded in 1967 as the ...

library consortium in 2006. RLG developed the Eureka interlibrary search engine, the RedLightGreen

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

of bibliographic descriptions, and ArchiveGrid, a database containing descriptions of archival collections. It also developed a framework known as the "RLG Conspectus" for evaluating research library collections, which evolved into a set of descriptors used in library collection policy statements, last updated in 1997.Collecting Levels
. Library of Congress. loc.gov. Retrieved 2017-06-19. The

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

used the conspectus in 2015 in revising its own collection policy statement, and decided to retain this resource on its website, as a helpful scale for judging an academic collection's depth.

History

RLG was founded in 1974 by four major

research libraries A research library is a library that contains an in-depth collection of material on one or several subjects.(Young, 1983; p. 188) A research library will generally include an in-depth selection of materials on a particular topic or set of top ...

: the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

and the university libraries of Columbia,

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

and Yale; it was incorporated as a not-for-profit membership organization in 1975."History of the OCLC Research Library Partnership"
OCLC Research. oclc.org/research. Retrieved 2017-06-21. RLG was established in part due to dissatisfaction among research institutions with the record-keeping of the OCLC library consortium. In 1978 RLG moved its offices, which were originally in

Branford, Connecticut Branford is a shoreline New England town, town located on Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, about east of downtown New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven. The town is part of the South Central Connecticut Planning Regi ...

(not far from New Haven), to

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

; and it adopted

Stanford Library The Stanford University Libraries (SUL), formerly known as "Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources" ("SULAIR"), is the library system of Stanford University in California. It encompasses more than 24 libraries in all. S ...

's BALLOTS computerized processing system. This system evolved into the online database RLIN (Research Libraries Information Network), which notably included bibliographic data representing JACKPHY (non-Roman) scripts. RLIN was generally used only by library specialists; in 1993 RLG developed Eureka as an interface for non-librarians. In 1988 RLG moved its offices to

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...

. In the meantime its membership had expanded to include other research libraries in the U.S., and by 1989 reached 100 members. In 1992 the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

became the first member outside North America. As of 2003, RLG's membership included over 160 research institutions in 15 different countries. In July 2006, RLG and OCLC officially initiated a merging of their organizations and resources.Wilson, Lizabeth; Neal, James; Jordan, Jay (October 2006). "RLG and OCLC: Combining for the Future" (guest editorial). ''Library and Information Science''. Vol. 6, no. 4. Retrieved via ''Project Muse'' database, 2017-06-21. The completion of this process took place over a five-year period, through June 2011. RLG's catalog became part of OCLC's

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

. Its programs joined with OCLC Research to become OCLC Programs and Research. Eureka databases were migrated to OCLC's FirstSearch service. An RLG staff of reduced size was relocated from Mountain View to

San Mateo, California San Mateo ( ) is the most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It is part of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan region, and is located about south of San Francisco. San Mateo border ...

.Guide to the Research Libraries Group, Inc. (RLG) records
. Stanford University Libraries, Manuscripts Division. Retrieved 2017-06-22.

References

{{authority control Organizations established in 1974 Organizations disestablished in 2006 1974 establishments in Connecticut 2006 disestablishments in California 2006 mergers and acquisitions Bibliographic database providers Cooperatives in the United States Library consortia OCLC Research groups