Dear All

Apologies for the previous message which was so difficult to read.

I hope this version below will be more accessible.


The Combined Regions (TCR) and Conarls, two organizations dedicated to 
interlibrary co-operation throughout the UK and Republic of Ireland, 
amalgamated with effect from 1 April 2009. United under The Combined 
Regions’ name, the organization will provide a single, united voice for libraries 
throughout the British Isles on matters of resource discovery and sharing, 
thereby achieving economies of scale whilst retaining services.

For more than 15 years TCR, working with its partners, has taken a lead role in 
the move towards a national network for resource sharing for the UK and is 
responsible for the UnityUK™ national union catalogue. At the same time, 
Conarls has provided strategic and operational support for library resource 
discovery and sharing in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Its notable 
achievements include the Conarls Inter-Regional Unit (IRU) Cost Scheme – 
which currently has 457 members – the Joint Fiction Reserves and a database 
of non-English language fiction collections. The Conarls Working Group within 
TCR will continue to deal with such issues and, with improved resources, 
expand on that work.

According to company secretary Alex Ball, ‘While the merger will bring 
efficiency savings to both organizations internally, both TCR and the Conarls 
Working Group within it will continue to support libraries in much the same way 
as they have always done. The merger also resolves any confusion libraries 
may have felt about the best forum in which to raise issues of inter-library co-
operation.’

Further information about TCR and the Conarls Working Group may be found on 
the recently relaunched TCR website: http://combinedregions.com/ .

Notes for editors

The Combined Regions (TCR) is a company limited by guarantee, whose 
members are regional library organizations and national libraries. It was formed 
in 1994 with the mission to produce a national electronic union catalogue, 
Unity. The catalogue has undergone several transformations, and reached the 
milestone of full UK coverage when it merged with LinkUK in 2006 to become 
UnityUK™, developed and operated by OCLC. UnityUK™ has over 150 
subscribers, and contains over 9.5 million records and over 50 million holdings.

Conarls was originally set up as forum for collaboration between the National 
and Regional Library Systems in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. As the 
landscape of regional library organizations has changed, so has the 
membership of Conarls, but the organization's commitment to interlibrary co-
operation, resource discovery and sharing remains constant. Conarls is 
probably best known for its Inter-Regional Unit (IRU) Cost Scheme for 
interlibrary loans (ILLs). Instead of libraries charging each other the rate 
charged by the British Library Document Supply Centre for ILLs, libraries in the 
scheme charge each other the lower ‘Conarls rate’, thereby reducing costs. 
Conarls also played a part in setting up Joint Fiction Reserves: co-operative 
schemes whereby groups of libraries commit to maintain between them a 
comprehensive stock of out-of-print fiction, ensuring it remains available for 
anyone to borrow.

UnityUK is a trademark of The Combined Regions.