The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), a joint initiative of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and EDUCAUSE, promotes the use of digital information technology to advance scholarship and education. In establishing the Coalition under the leadership of founding Executive Director Paul Evan Peters, these sponsor organizations recognized the need to broaden the community’s thinking beyond issues of network connectivity and bandwidth to encompass digital content and advanced applications to create, share, disseminate, and analyze such content in the service of research and education. Reaping the benefits of the Internet for scholarship, research, and education demanded—and continues to demand—new partnerships, new institutional roles, and new technologies and infrastructure. CNI seeks to advance these collaborations, to explore these new roles, and to catalyze the development and deployment of the necessary technology base.
Since its founding in 1990, CNI has addressed a broad and diverse array of issues related to the development and use of digital information in research and education environments. As the premier organization fostering connections and collaboration between library and information technology communities, we represent the interests of a wide range of member organizations from higher education, publishing, networking and telecommunications, information technology, government agencies, foundations, museums, libraries, and library organizations.
CNI Executive Director Kate Zwaard has led the organization since September 2025; she was preceded by Clifford Lynch, who served as executive director from 1997 until his passing in 2025. Joan Lippincott, CNI’s Associate Executive Director Emerita, served from fall 1990 until her retirement in December 2019. See these resources for more information about CNI’s history and contributions:
- Networking Networks: A Festschrift Honoring Clifford Lynch, Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information, 1997-2025
Joan K. Lippincott, ed. Supplement to portal: Libraries and the Academy 25, no. 3 (July 2025), https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/55108.
- Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science entry on CNI (preprint)
Written by CNI Associate Executive Director Joan K. Lippincott in 2008, and published in the 3d edition. Edited by Marcia J. Bates and Mary Niles Maack. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2010. Copyright Joan K. Lippincott.
- The Coalition for Networked Information and the Rewards of Risk Taking
By Richard P. West; published in portal: Libraries and the Academy, Volume 9, Number 3, July 2009, FESTSCHRIFT Honoring Duane E. Webster Executive Director, Association of Research Libraries 1988–2008, pp. 317-325. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.0.0061
- The Coalition for Networked Information: The second year, part 1
Kirk, T., & Alldredge, N. (1992). Coalition for Networked Information: The second year, part 1. College & Research Libraries News, 53(1), 10-12. doi: https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.53.1.10
- Coalition for Networked Information: The second year, part 2
Kirk, T., & Alldredge, N. (1992). Coalition for Networked Information: The second year, part 2. College & Research Libraries News, 53(2), 98-99. doi: https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.53.2.98
- Previous CNI Executive Directors
Clifford A. Lynch, 1997–2025
Paul Evan Peters, 1990–1996
- CNI Historical Resources
Materials representing some of CNI’s past work
