After an extensive review and a site visit, the University of New Hampshire has been admitted to the elite Boston Library Consortium, the only member of the consortium from New Hampshire.

Founded in 1970, the Boston Library Consortium is a cooperative association of 19 academic and research libraries that share resources so the collective strengths of the group advance the research and learning of the members' constituents. The focus of the BLC is research support, because no one library can have everything that researchers might need.

Consortium members include some of the most well-known research institutions in the nation: MIT, Brown, the Marine Biological Laboratory/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Boston University, Boston College, the campuses of University of Massachusetts, Brandeis University, Tufts University, Northeastern University, Wellesley College, Williams College and the University of Connecticut, as well as the Boston Public Library and Massachusetts State Library. The BLC has not admitted a new member since the early 90s when they invited Brown to join.

UNH went through a year long review including a long application with data on collections, how much we used BLC member libraries for interlibrary loans and how much they use us. This review was followed by a site visit that included a meeting with Provost David Hiley to evaluate UNH's institutional support for the library.

"UNH will contribute to the support of programs of graduate study and/or research, especially in the sciences with strong collections in humanities, social sciences and professional programs. UNH's Special Collections are especially strong in primary material relating to the history of New Hampshire, items that make a strong contribution to the BLC." - Barbara Preece, executive director of the Boston Library Consortium

As a member of the consortium, UNH faculty, faculty emeritus, students and staff at both the Durham and Manchester campuses will have full access to a combined collection of more than 31 million volumes via interlibrary loan and on-site visits to member libraries.

Who can use it? UNH (Durham and Manchester) students, staff, and faculty (including emeritus faculty). They must register at the main desk in Durham or at the library in Manchester to obtain a BLC library card. Then they can borrow books from any BLC libraries.

Other services:

• Free interlibrary loan
• Onsite use of the libraries (combined collection of over 31 million volumes)
• Borrowing privileges
• Collective buying power (all the members have a combined collection budget of 57 million dollars)
• Professional development opportunities for library faculty and staff
• Programs that we could not do on our own, such as a 24/7 reference service that we will launch November 12th

"Membership in the Boston Library Consortium affirms the reputation of our faculty and the collections we have built at UNH. In the process of being reviewed for BLC membership, we had to show that we have an excellent collection and library faculty who are active in the profession. Although we have joined this excellent library consortium, we will still actively participate in the New Hampshire College and University Council (NHCUC), work with our sister institutions Keene State and Plymouth State and continue to loan library materials to all the public libraries in New Hampshire. This membership will provide better access to research collections not available in New Hampshire." - Claudia Morner, University Librarian 

For more info on the the Boston Library Consortium, visit their web site at www.blc.org.

For more info on the Ask 24/7 Reference service, click on the icon below:

Posted on Tuesday March 15 2005