The CCRLS offices are located on the campus of the Chemeketa Community College in Hayesville, an unincorporated suburb northeast of Salem, Oregon.

The organization is governed by the College Board of Education, with input from the CCRLS Advisory Council, which is made up of one "lay member" from each county and representing the rural areas, five library directors, and one city manager.

At that time, the Chemeketa Community College administration was designated the fiscal agent for the grant money to fund the new Library Service.

The Cooperative began operating in 1974, and in its first two years provided library service to 41,800 previously unserved, rural users.

[7] This created (before the years of property tax limitations), the first stable funding for a public library multi-jurisdictional system in the State of Oregon.