Stanford Withdraws Its ARL Membership

Daniel writes American Libraries Online reports:

“Stanford University Library became the first major academic institution to rescind its membership in the Association of Research Libraries, an organization it helped found in 1932. In a statement released January 29, the university stated that University Librarian Michael A. Keller made the decision during an annual budget review.”

You need to scroll down to “Stanford Withdraws Its ARL Membership” and click on the link for the story since it’s a bonecrushing ALA URL.

The article notes that Stanford’s dues were about $20K year and that they had not been an active ARL participant for seven years or so.

If there are any LISNews readers who are also ARL-affiliated, could we have some comments on whether you feel ARL membership is a positive?

I’m not knocking ARL here. One of their newer proposals is to digitize historic gov’t documents, a task that make research easier and more affordable for a lot more citizens.”