Research Libraries Group

The Research Libraries Group (RLG) was a U.S.-based library consortium. They developed the Eureka interlibrary search engine, the RedLightGreen database of bibliographic descriptions, and ArchiveGrid, a database containing descriptions of archival collections. RLG was founded by a group of major research libraries in 1974, two years after OCLC, another library consortium, was founded. A major reason for RLG’s establishment was dissatisfaction among research institutions with OCLC’s record keeping.

The Research Libraries Group's conspectus is still posted at the Library of Congress. This is a helpful scale for judging an academic collection's depth.

The founding libraries were New York Public Library and the university libraries of Columbia, Harvard and Yale. RLG moved its offices to Stanford University in 1978 and adopted Stanford Library’s BALLOTS computerized processing system. This system evolved into the online database, RLIN (Research Libraries Information Network). RLIN was generally only for use by library specialists. In 1993 RLG developed Eureka as a user-friendly interface for use by non-librarians. RLG expanded its membership to other research libraries throughout the U.S. and in 1992 the British Library became the first non-North American member.

In June 2006, RLG merged with OCLC. Its catalog became part of OCLC's WorldCat. Its current programs joined with OCLC Research to become OCLC Programs and Research. Eureka databases were migrated to OCLC's FirstSearch service. The office was relocated from Mountain View, California to San Mateo, California.

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