As we announced recently, the MIT Libraries will be transitioning its relationship with the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) to an affiliate membership, phasing out components of the current BLC service. As an initial step, requesting of BLC materials via MIT’s WorldCat is no longer available beginning January 27. The collections of the BLC libraries will remain available to the MIT community through our Interlibrary Borrowing (ILB) service.

Our transition away from BLC requesting will not limit access to materials. We will maintain our membership with the Ivies Plus BorrowDirect program, and BorrowDirect requesting will remain available in MIT’s WorldCat. The collections of the BorrowDirect Libraries are vast and offer unprecedented access to partner research libraries. If an item is not available through BorrowDirect, you will be able to request it through ILB. We are also working on expanding our relationship with Harvard University to include access to more of its libraries.

The MIT Libraries will continue our involvement with the BLC as an affiliate member, a category for libraries who share the research interests of the consortium but may not have the same resource-sharing needs. Additional components of the BLC service will be phased out during the spring 2016 semester. Watch for updates as this work progresses, and contact us with any questions.