Boston Library Consortium

Professional developement - blc offers regular webinars and workshops designed to facilitate sharing expertise, highlighting the work of librarians and library staff across the blc member institutions. Blc coordinates the activities of more than 30 membership communities across a wide range of library practice areas. Blc communities include representation from across the blc membership and range from groups focused primarily on networking and sharing experiences with colleagues to those that are involved in a specific initiative or project. Blc also manages a signature leadership development program, blc leads. Blc leads builds shared knowledge through collaborative inquiry around a series of foundational leadership competencies and questions explored in weekly virtual activities and four in-person experiences over the course of six months. In 2024, blc received a laura bush 21st century librarian program grant award for the bipoc leadership academy for support staff (blass) from the institute of museum and library services (imls). Blass is a professional development retreat empowering library professionals through leadership training, community-building, and wellness.

Resource sharing - blc was founded upon a shared commitment to promote cooperation in making resources more readily available. Today, the blc remains committed to facilitating high-quality and cost-effective sharing of print and digital content through its resource sharing programs, including interlibrary loan and controlled digital lending. Blc maintains a group subscription to resource sharing technologies on behalf of the member institutions and manages a consortial delivery service to facilitate physical delivery of print materials among blc's network of libraries. In 2023, blc received a national leadership grants for libraries grant award to support consortial controlled digital lending initiatives from the institute of museum and library services (imls). This project supports and scales a reusable and sustainable solution enabling controlled digital lending as a component of libraries' interlibrary loan services.