Academic literature on the topic 'Boston Library Consortium'

Electronic journal packages, or bundles, have become standard resources in academic libraries in just the last few years. The impact on collections and budgets will be significant, but are largely yet unmeasured. A survey was designed to begin to provide some data concerning the financial and collection implications of these bundles, and was distributed to the fourteen academic libraries within the Boston Library Consortium. Results are presented and discussed.

This chapter is intended to describe the history of collaboration between the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) and RapidILL in developing new and unmediated resource sharing products: RapidX, RapidX for All, Rapid chapter sharing and RapidR, (Rapid Returnable sharing). This narrative explains the process of testing and piloting these products as part of a consortium that has a long partnership of being forward thinking in improving resource sharing among its partner libraries. Some of this chapter describes Interlibrary Loan and consortiums in detail which is intended to provide historical perspective to the 21st century implementation of RapidR. It is hoped that the story of the BLC and RapidILL may give guidance and provide advice to other libraries and consortiums if they are in search of new ways to share library materials in a more efficient, cost effective and unmediated manner.

In 2020–2021, the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) explored the potential for controlled digital lending (CDL) across the library consortium. Over the course of a year, the BLC's CDL Working Group engaged with internal stakeholders and external partners to develop a strategic vision for consortial CDL that received strong support from the BLC's Board of Directors. The group arrived at this vision through intensive collaboration, working closely as a group and engaging with the BLC's various membership communities while concurrently engaging with vendors and external entities to cross-pollinate ideas and co-create strategies. The BLC's resultant vision for consortial CDL is also predicated on powerful intra-consortial and inter-consortial collaborations to create the technologies for making CDL possible. This chapter is a case study of how this vision emerged and demonstrates its applicability to other types of consortial collaboration.