CLEVNET provides access to more than 12 million titles of books, movies, music and e-books.
[1][3] The origins of CLEVNET date to the automation of Cleveland Public Library's card catalog in the late 1970s and early 1980s under Director Ervin Gaines in partnership with Data Research Associates (DRA).
[4][6] The original online catalog system ran from its inception in 1979 until a brief "shutdown" in 1990 for upgrades.
[7] The scope of the upgrade was outlined with additional details by a Letter To The Editor from Robert T. Carterette: "Clevnet is one of the largest library resource-sharing networks in the United States today, making 1.6 million titles available to public libraries throughout Northern Ohio... in addition to 4.2 million items owned by the Clevnet libraries, 1.6 million title records, 106,000 book order records, and 32,500 Union List of Periodical records must be processed, a total of 5.9 million.
[12] CLEVNET is mentioned on page 105 in the 2017 fiction work The Unclaimed Victim by D. M. Pulley, a Cleveland author.