Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries
library consortium
The Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries is a US nonprofit cooperative of approximately 20 academic and public libraries in Colorado and Wyoming.
Purpose
The Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries was established in 1974. One major function of the Alliance is to share resources and provide the best terms and price to its members by group purchasing. Projects of the Alliance over the years include:
Prospector, a unified catalog of academic, public, and other libraries in Colorado and Wyoming (current)
Gold Rush, a database of online article resources (fulltext journals and abstracts) and access options; now primarily an analytics tool for library collections (current)
Alliance Digital Repository, a consortial repository service supporting the preservation of, management of, and access to digital content (current)
CARL and UnCover (historical)
Prospector also provides a faster and more convenient mechanism for interlibrary loans from member libraries, which can be ordered by patrons directly from the catalog.
UnCover
CARL started as a character-based access system to resources, particularly catalogs of participating libraries as they were being computerized, available via dial-up internet long before the advent of World Wide Web. The Alliance system eventually included a subset of Dialog. The flagship Alliance product was UnCover, an article index database. UnCover provides free article search and access to the article text for a fee. The product was spun off in 1988 into a for-profit company, later owned by Knight Ridder and then Dialog before becoming briefly Uncover, Inc. In 2000, UnCover was acquired by Ingenta and is now accessible as a part of Ingentaconnect.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries” is library consortium. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Colorado, Alliance and Research, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “library consortium” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5148699. VIAF identifies the subject as 132614584. The Library of Congress control number is n87100883. Authority coordinates are 39.690, -104.942. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1974, 1988 and 2000.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries primary sources, Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries archive and Colorado research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.