Abstract
The Irish Research eLibrary (IReL) has been an exemplar of how library co-operation and centralized funding can build a world-class resource set to support research. Despite this, IReL came under serious threat towards the end of 2009, as the global economic crisis plunged Irish public finances into serious deficit. This paper presents the story of how IReL survived: the turmoil and uncertainty faced by its member libraries while its future was uncertain, the strategies adopted to face up to the crisis,the response from publishers, academics and libraries, and the outlook for IReL as the Irish government is committed to continue making cuts in public expenditure.
Highlights
During the 1990s, Ireland underwent a transformation from a less-favoured region of the European Union to the ‘Celtic Tiger’, a paragon of economic success
One of the keys to this was considered to be the growth of the ‘knowledge economy’ with the ICT, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries playing a large part in the economic growth
In 2008, funding was made available for the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) to gain access to a subset of Irish Research eLibrary (IReL) resources
Summary
Head of Information Access and Learning Services James Hardiman Library National University of Ireland, Galway. One of the keys to this was considered to be the growth of the ‘knowledge economy’ with the ICT, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries playing a large part in the economic growth To sustain this growth and having budget surpluses for the first time in the nation’s history, the government began to invest in research from the late 1990s. Despite overall increases in budgets, individual libraries could not afford to provide the level of access to information resources that our researchers required. In 2008, funding was made available for the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) to gain access to a subset of IReL resources. By 2008, IReL was delivering 116 e-resources to researchers in Irish universities and a subset to the RCSI, providing access to about 30,000 e-journals as well as databases, e-book packages and other resources
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