Objective: RLG's Cultural Materials Initiative helped to provide greater access to primary sources and cultural materials. The initiative produced policies that protected participants' rights and interests; tools and practices for creating, describing, and using electronic surrogates of cultural materials; and business models that combined appropriate use with financial return.

Overview: One outgrowth of this initiative was the development of RLG Cultural Materials, a rich multimedia collection of digitized manuscripts and images from leading institutions such as the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution. This database gave users a means of searching rare and varied collections that were otherwise unavailable to museum or library visitors.

Trove.net®, a free image locating and licensing site created by RLG, was another outgrowth of this initiative.

The project was spearheaded by the Cultural Materials Alliance. The RLG Cultural Materials Alliance was a subset of RLG members who joined together to create a resource for research and education and to establish best practices for making digitized cultural heritage collections accessible via RLG Cultural Materials. The conclusion of this initiative was announced in early 2007 as part of the merger and transition of RLG and OCLC products and services.

Also see RLG transition information for eContent.