RLUK has not sprung fully formed out of the head of Zeus. For 25 years we have been operating as CURL, a consortium of the top research-led institutions in the UK and Ireland that has been successful in seeding and bringing forward new ideas, plans, projects, initiatives and services with the single aim of providing some of the best research support for research libraries and information services, for both their staff and their users, in the UK, and, in this global information age, effectively beyond.

In its 25 years of activity, as CURL we sponsored some of the major free online UK resources in support of research, including Copac, the de facto UK Union Catalogue of over 35 million books and serials, the Archives Hub, a national gateway to descriptions of archives in UK universities and colleges, and the award-winning SHERPA, whose aim is to facilitate the rapid and efficient worldwide dissemination of research output.

Current projects include partnerships with RUGIT on the UK Research Data Services initiative and with JSTOR and the JISC as part of the 19th Century Pamphlets Online digitization of 1 million pages of pamphlet material for use by researchers.

RLUK is proud of its past and confident of its future in the global information age