A Brief History

The Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries is a non-profit organization that began in 1973 and was formally incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in 1981 by Ward Shaw, the founding executive director. From the beginning, the consortium was designed to help research and educational institutions share information resources and reduce operating costs by working together.

In 1982, the organization began development of the CARL integrated library system (ILS) to replace the traditional card catalogs at the Alliance member libraries. In 1988, CARL formed “CARL Systems Incorporated,” a for-profit subsidiary whose purpose was to market the CARL ILS. The organization also launched an article request and delivery system called “UnCover” in 1988.

In 1995, the consortium sold CARL Systems, Inc. and UnCover, plus the “CARL” name, to Knight-Ridder Information, Inc. With that sale, the consortium legally became the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries which is often shortened to "the Alliance.” There is no current affiliation between the Alliance and these historical products, and the Alliance no longer uses the "CARL" acronym.

With the advent of the Web, the Alliance began locally loading databases from vendors such as SilverPlatter and Ovid in the mid-1990s. This program evolved into a robust consortial licensing program for databases, journal packages, ebooks, and other resources used by member libraries.  The Alliance was a founding member of ICOLC (the International Coalition of Library Consortia) in 1999. This group represents library consortia around the world.

In 1999, the Alliance launched the Prospector union catalog and resource sharing system using the INN-Reach software from Innovative Interfaces Inc.  The system grew from a modest 8 libraries in 1999 to almost 200 libraries in 2025.  The system supports academic and public libraries throughout Colorado plus the University of Wyoming. 

The Gold Rush system was launched in the early 2000s as a link resolver and electronic resource management system.  In 2016 the focus of Gold Rush changed to support library collection analytics where libraries could load their entire catalog of holdings to support collection analytics, shared print programs, deselection of library materials, and other use cases. This change of focus was due to the establishment of the Alliance Shared Print Trust where libraries have made long-term retention commitments to portions of their collection to ensure long-term access to unique materials in the region.

An early history of CARL was published by Steve Fisher, the former University Historian at the University of Denver, in a 2009 article in Collaborative Librarianship.  Alan Charnes became the second executive director in 1991 until his retirement in 2011 (a tribute to Alan was published in Collaborative Librarianship in 2011).  Alan was succeeded by George Machovec who remains as the current executive director.