The Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC) was established as a non-profit corporation in 1987 to support research and instructional capabilities of eight universities in the Washington metropolitan area. The WRLC is operated exclusively for the benefit of other non-profit institutions of higher learning by promoting the development of a cooperative network among libraries in the Washington metropolitan area and by providing services to enhance library and information resources. It included the implementation of a telecommunications network linking all eight universities and their offsite campuses to an online database of 2.6 million library records and other information databases. Paul Vassallo was the first president and CEO of the non-profit.