The “European Association for Grey Literature Exploitation” (EAGLE) was created in 1985 by European scientific and technical information centres and libraries in order to produce the bibliographic database “System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe” (SIGLE).
The objective was to improve information transfer, ensure availability of research results and increase international awareness of European grey literature by making the bibliographic records as widely available as possible.
The role of the members was to identify and collect documents, to prepare associated bibliographic and subject descriptions, to provide information services and products to users, and to archive and deliver copies of the grey literature documents.
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From 1980 to 1985, SIGLE was funded by the Commission of the European Communities (CEC). When CEC financial support ended in 1985, the national centres formed a network for the acquisition, identification and dissemination of grey literature called EAGLE, who became the producer of the SIGLE database.
EAGLE was created as a non-profit making association registered in Luxembourg. In the beginning, membership was limited to the member countries of the European Union (former European Community) but this limitation was abolished in 1995. In the end, 15 countries participated actively, and discussions on partnership were going on with other potential members, especially in East European and North African countries.
The economic model of the association was based on initial funding by the European Commission and from 1985 onwards was based on membership fees and royalties from servers and products (CD-ROM, records). The SIGLE database was distributed by BLAISE, STN, EI and Ovid Technologies (Silverplatter) and in the early nineties by SUNIST in France. Records were also sold to vendor organizations like NERAC for specific use.
Costs were generated by the management of the association and mainly by the operating agent, whose task was to merge the national files into a unique server file every month.
The decline of the EAGLE concept twenty years after its creation had four reasons:
EAGLE members were aware of these challenges and discussed possible options and solutions from 2002 on. Nevertheless, the organisational structure and the non-sustainable business model of the non-profit making and low budget association did not allow necessary strategy decisions. It also became obvious then that no institutional member would invest more than its membership fee and that another funding from the EU would be unlikely.
In the face of this situation, the 2005 General Assembly from March 14, 2005, held at Karlsruhe, Germany, resolved unanimously to liquidate the association. The President (Joachim Schöpfel, INIST-CNRS) and the Vice-President (Silke Rehme, FIZ Karlsruhe) were appointed as liquidators.
After satisfaction of claims the remaining funds were distributed on equal parts amongst the members, taking into account the current memberships and the payment of the membership fees during the last years.
The contracts with STN, EI, NERAC and Ovid (SilverPlatter) were cancelled. The EAGLE website hosted by the Dutch Royal Library was deleted.
All usage rights of the SIGLE database lapsed upon complete liquidation of the association while the copyright on input remained with each member who supplied the records. Nevertheless, the General Assembly asked the operating agent, the FIZ Karlsruhe, for interim conservation of the SIGLE records in XML format beyond the liquidation of SIGLE, for the purpose of archiving and integration into a new open access European non-profit project (OpenSIGLE). Nearly all of the former EAGLE members signed a declaration of intention regarding this future use of their existing input of the SIGLE database.
The complete liquidation of EAGLE was published by the Luxemburg Register of Commerce and Societies at August 23, 2006.