Group Membership

New provisions adopted by the members at the 2004 Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh in November 2004, revised at the Annual General Meeting in November 2008 and again in November 2011.

1. A group should be a corporate body or a group of libraries with a Leading Partner which is entitled to enter into a contract with CERL and act on behalf of the participants, having legally established relations with the said participants in order to define its role and the payments due from each. The Leading Partner will be responsible for dealing with search accounts and passwords as well as payment of the Group’s combined CERL membership fee.

2. Institutions participating in a Group can be from different countries.

3. Normally, only one national library or regional equivalent will be allowed in a Group, exceptions being permitted at the discretion of the Board of Directors.

4. The minimum number of participating institutions in a Group is two.

5. Group members will not be allowed to have Cluster libraries.

6. All applications for Group membership will be subject to approval by CERL’s Board of Directors.

7. The current (2011/2012) fee is set at €8,000 for a Group of up to 16 libraries. A new Group membership can be split in the following way:

1 library: € 8,000 annually,
2 libraries: € 4,000 annually each,
3 libraries: € 2,666 annually each,
4 libraries: € 2,000 annually each,
5 libraries: € 1,600 annually each,
6 libraries: € 1,333 annually each,
7 libraries: €1,142 annually each,
8 libraries: €1,000 annually each,
9 libraries: €888 annually each,
10 libraries: € 800 annually each,
11 libraries: € 727 annually each,
12 libraries: €667 annually each,
13 libraries: € 615 annually each,
14 libraries: € 571 annually each,
15 libraries: € 533 annually each,
16 libraries: € 500 annually each.

The fee set by CERL is for the whole Group, but the distribution of the cost within the Group is for the members of the Group to decide. The Directors may agree a specific fee for cases where the full amount is not appropriate.

8. The Group will be required to sign a three-year funding agreement.

9. A Group has one vote at the Annual General Meeting.

10. The Group may either vote through its administrative body, or its votes may be exercised by nominated institutions within the Group.

11. A Group member can be elected Director or serve on one of CERL's committes.

12. Group members receive unlimited access to the HPB file, and each institution participating in the group will have 200 free searches in the OCLC WorldCat file.

13. Group members are warmly encouraged to submit files to CERL for addition to the HPB and the CERL Thesaurus, and to participate in other projects that CERL may develop.

Applications for membership of CERL should be addressed to:

Dr Cristina Dondi
Company Secretary
Consortium of European Research Libraries
Marsh’s Library
St Patrick’s Close
Dublin
Ireland
D08FK79
E-mail: c.dondi@cerl.org