LCO can cooperatively purchase access to these statewide resources at a cost-effective rate whereas most individual libraries would not be able to afford them on their own.
These subscription-based research databases are available for free to all Ohio residents regardless of their location, age, education, or economic status and include online publications and research resources, such as scholarly journals, popular magazines, trade publications, newspapers (Ohio and nationwide), encyclopedias, dictionaries, and educational/training tutorials.
The three LCO library networks — OPLIN, OhioLINK, and INFOhio — provide an additional $3 million in state funds each year from their budgets.
Its primary mission is to ensure that all Ohio residents have free public Internet access through the 251 independent local public library systems in Ohio, as well as the use of research databases not freely available on the World Wide Web.
Most of the budget is used to purchase the services provided to Ohio public libraries, primarily Internet access and information databases.