In the straw poll, Wendy Cooper DISAGREED and stated that 500 is too large for smaller museums.

We don't know what the right number is, and left itto the board to decide, but a formula based on size (budget orstaff size probably, not collection size) might well prove workable.

It might not be necessary to have a high lower limit because we've suggested a means to encourage members to contribute as much as they can and as early as possible. The idea is to enable members to acquire shares each year based on the number of works they have contributed to the Consortium on a given date, say January 1. In this way their contributions compound, like interest. And like interest, savings in early years will yield big dividends on retirement! A museum contributing 1000 in year 1, and 500 a year for the next two years would end year three with 1000+1500+2000 or 4500 shares. A member joining in year 4 to share an equal income in that year would need to contribute 7000 works (in year 5 this new member would have 14,000 'shares' based on 7000 works in the library while the earlier contributor would have only 10,000 but based on only 3000 works in the library). The mathematics here can be shown in some comparative tables, but the effect is to encourage everyone to contribute as much as possible as soon as it is available - this in turn builds the size of the Library, and the license fees are based on the size, so everyone benefits...got it. David