Research collections in the digital age: the role of CURL

Abstract

The origins of CURL in the 1980s lay in its members’ need to share machine‐readable catalogue records ‐ an aim materially assisted by the establishment of JANET. Funding from the Wolfson Foundation and the University Grants Committee enabled the development of a consortial database of catalogue records, based in the University of Manchester from 1986. CURL became a limited company in 1992, with charitable status, and established itself as a reseller of records, through OCLC, addressing wider issues for research support through input to the Follett Review of academic libraries in 1993. The transformation of the CURL Database into a national OPAC followed from the award of national funding in 1994/5 and, with the Consortium’s membership growing to more than 20 by 1996/7, CURL has embarked on a systematic strategic plan designed to exploit its members’ extensive holdings of research materials for the benefit of the wider scholarly community.

Citation

Carr, R. (1998), "Research collections in the digital age: the role of CURL", Library Review, Vol. 47 No. 5/6, pp. 277-281. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242539810218906