Our History
The History of LYRASIS
In 2008, the Boards of both PALINET and SOLINET recognized the shared mission of both organizations and the unprecedented opportunities to expand education, leadership development, technology, and savings for members, while adding critical new initiatives needed for the future. In February, 2009, members of both organizations voted to merge. The merger became effective on April 1, 2009. Shortly thereafter in June, 2009, the members of NELINET voted to join LYRASIS. NELINET officially became part of LYRASIS on October 1, 2009.
Our Roots
LYRASIS was created from the merger of two well-established regional library networks, PALINET and SOLINET. Both networks were major multi-state multi-type networks, PALINET in the Mid-Atlantic region and SOLINET in the Southeastern region. NELINET, a regional network rooted in the New England region joined LYRASIS in October, 2009 to create the nation’s largest regional network serving libraries and information professionals.
PALINET and Union Library Catalogue of Pennsylvania was originally formed in 1936, making it one of the oldest library networks in the U.S. Its name was shortened to PALINET in 1975. In November, 1995 PALINET merged with the Pittsburgh Regional Library Center (PRLC) to expand services into Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia to provide information professionals in those regions with expanded product and service offerings with greater savings. PALINET’s original membership was chiefly comprised of libraries in the Mid-Atlantic region (Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia). At the time of merger, membership had grown to 612 members in 12 states and 2 other countries.
The Southeastern Library Network Inc. (SOLINET) was established in 1973 by the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) with 99 charter members. At the time of the merger, SOLINET was the largest regional library network in the US, with over 3,400 members, chiefly from the Southeastern region (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia), Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
NELINET began in 1955 when the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHI) was established by the six New England states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) to achieve foster inter-institutional cooperation. In 1964, the six-state land grant university libraries agreed to work together in cooperative ventures in technical services and in 1967, the organization adopted its name, the New England Library Network (NELINET.) Since that time, membership steadily grew to more than 500 academic, public, and special libraries in the six New England states.
