Membership of NEREUS is key to successfully providing a critical mass of economics related research collections across Europe. Prospective members are either academic libraries or key information providers in the field of economics in Europe, with resources of excellence to offer the economics academic or student.

1. General membership

1.1 Overview
NEREUS members are united in their common vision of increasing the accessibility to quality information, unlocking resources which have to date been difficult to access. They wish to deliver this information in a targeted and user-friendly way to their library users both nationally and abroad.

As membership of NEREUS grows, the member libraries’ information stock will grow too - providing all member-users one-stop access to research materials otherwise not easily available. NEREUS will function as a tool for disseminating the results of research more widely across Europe by linking institutional repositories with the NEREUS system, providing more quality information from a number of different countries. This will be of value both to research itself, and to the enhancement of the visibility of universities and researchers in the field of economics.

The current NEREUS partnerships have shown to stimulate the accessibility, the transfer of knowledge and the expertise between information repository peers. The interaction of NEREUS members allows problems, innovative ideas, and practical solutions to stimulate action and further development in our libraries.

The NEREUS consortium provides opportunities for member interaction at NEREUS project meetings, and in working groups set up by various NEREUS members on issues such as; copyright, information quality, publishing, and joint applications for international funding.

The NEREUS network also takes an interest in the cost-effectiveness of its member libraries and their capacity for further growth, by exploring cost-controlling measures for collection purchase, maintenance and development. For example, this could include an inventory of information resources in all partner libraries in order to see where the consortium can save costs by sharing resources more effectively. The efficacy of various business models for supporting our library systems and services for revenue-building with regard to NEREUS, will also be investigated.

Membership of the NEREUS network of information professionals specialising in the area of economics, is a strong asset in the on-going strategic development of economics libraries in Europe.

1.2 Benefits
A number of benefits are available to Nereus members. An outline of the advantages is available for download as a PDF file here.

Additionally, all core NEREUS members and their academic resource collections, receive these material benefits as members of the network:

• The London School of Economics has agreed to offer IBSS Online, the most comprehensive international journal article bibliography in the social sciences, covering a very large number of countries and languages, free to all partners, instead of the standard ca. 2200 euro annual fee.
• Tilburg University will offer long-standing experience and technical support with the goal to promote OAI and the integration of library information systems for improved information exchange and dissemination.
• The German National Library of Economics will combine its EconBiz portal with those links of the NEREUS partners to become a key portal for virtual references for economics in Europe through NEREUS.
• The German National Library of Economics will offer discounted document delivery service from its library spanning major German, Austrian and Swiss collections, and others.

2. Core membership

2.1 Overview
The Core members form the NEREUS Project Steering Committee. They are the key decision-makers and driving forces behind the NEREUS project. Prospective core members are libraries with highly acclaimed collections, providing either great breadth and depth or particular significance and uniqueness.

Each core member has a defining voice and role in the establishment and development of the world-class NEREUS 'digital library for economics' portal and network. They have an influence on policy, management and collection development, i.e. the project’s research and development priorities, its content and quality, and its service provision and tools. Core members also act as a deciding body for the acceptance of new members to the project. In addition, they will have an equal say in decision-making regarding the financing of the NEREUS project. Core members play leading roles in the initiation and decisions on the development of advocacy proposals for international funding.

Core members contribute financially to the general administration of the project with a current annual contribution fee for core membership of 5,000 euros to cover project management, dissemination and other administrative costs.

The Steering Committee with its core members is the driving force behind the success of NEREUS. It directs and monitors the quality of its content, and actively participates in efforts relating to the project’s development, to further the development of advanced European library services in the field of Economics.

2.2 Obligations of core members

• To pay the subscription
• To be actively involved in the policy development, management and collection development of Nereus
• To invest time in advocacy efforts
• To evaluate the applications of new members
• To provide reciprocal access to resources to all members, subject to copyright restriction
• To cover all costs of providing their own content
• To present their metadata according to the required standards

2.3 Evaluation of potential core members
Potential core members are asked to provide a summary of the resources they propose to bring to NEREUS, according to the above criteria. This would include the description of collections of special or regional interest. The committee of core members will evaluate responses and issue invitations to join.

2.4 Subscription fee
The annual subscription fee is 5,000 euros for core members, payable in January of each calendar year. Members are also required to commit 0.25 staff time to Nereus activities.

3. Partnerships
In addition to core and contributing members, NEREUS seeks to establish mutually beneficial partnerships with other organisations, agencies and companies - both commercial and non-profit - whose content and services can complement those of NEREUS. The Steering Committee will consider any approaches from such organisations and will also issue invitations to potential partners.