eRead Illinois Fee Structure
eRead Illinois includes the cloudLibrary collection for SHARE members in Illinois Heartland Library System (IHLS) and the Axis 360 shared collection for members of Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS) and IHLS members not in SHARE. The same fee structure applies to all libraries:
$250 base fee + population fee + collection budget fee = eRead Illinois membership fee
You may use the calculator on this page to get a quick estimate for your library.
Base Fee
There is a base annual participation fee of $250 for all libraries.
Population Fee
For libraries serving at least 1,000 users, there is an additional annual fee based on the population served:
| Population Served | Population Fee |
|---|---|
| Less than 1,000 | $0 Libraries serving populations less than 1,000 pay only the $250 base fee (no population or collection budget component) |
| 1,000-9,999 | $100 |
| 10,000-19,999 | $200 |
| 20,000-29,999 | $300 |
| 30,000-39,999 | $400 |
| 40,000-49,999 | $500 |
| 50,000-59,999 | $600 |
| 60,000-69,999 | $700 |
| 70,000-79,999 | $800 |
| 80,000-89,999 | $900 |
| 90,000 and over | $1,000 |
For each library type, population is defined as follows:
- Public Library - Population residing in tax base (latest IPLAR figure)
- Academic or School Library - Full-time equivalents (FTEs) where FTE includes faculty and students, but not support staff
- Special Library - Full-time equivalents (FTEs) where FTE includes staff and affiliates served by the library and who are eligible to borrow materials; only government and not-for-profit special libraries are eligible to participate in the Axis 360 shared collection
Collection Budget Fee
For libraries serving at least 1,000 users, there is an additional annual fee of 0.5% of the library collection budget. Your collection budget is the total budget for books, periodicals, audiovisual, CDs, and electronic resources.
Libraries with collection budgets over $2 million will be charged a collection budget fee of $10,000.
Join eRead Illinois
Unbound Collections
In addition to membership in the shared Axis 360 collection, any library participating in eRead Illinois may purchase its own optional Axis 360 Unbound collection at a discount from Baker & Taylor. For details, please contact ereadillinois@railslibraries.info.
School libraries may purchase an unbound collection without paying a platform fee. The only fee will be for content. An unbound collection is a local collection for a library's users. Titles are only available to users of that particular library. Items purchased for an unbound collection are integrated into the magic wall so that all content is presented in one place for users.
