Tampa Bay Library Consortium (TBLC), with headquarters in Tampa, Florida, is a nonprofit library cooperative that assists hundreds of libraries in the Central and West Florida regions. TBLC serves public libraries, academic libraries, school libraries and special libraries. The TBLC membership serves 6.3 million people in the State of Florida. [1]
The mission statement for the TBLC is, "the TBLC is a community of libraries and the people who work in them committed to collaboration and bettering Floridians’ lives through continuously improving library services. TBLC supports this community’s success by providing essential services, connecting staff through active engagement, and creating an environment of continuous learning and innovation. [1] "
TBLC was established in 1979. [1] There are five multi-type library cooperatives throughout Florida serving all types of libraries (academic, public, special, and school). The other cooperatives are NEFLIN, PLAN, [2] SEFLIN, [3] and SWFLN. [4]
TBLC is headquartered in Tampa, Florida. It operates with full-time and part-time staff members. TBLC is administered by an executive director and an executive board with 13 members. [1] Board members are elected from member libraries.
TBLC serves over 100 members in 18 Florida counties. [5] These counties include: Citrus, Desoto, Glades, Hardee, Hernando, Highlands, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lake, Manatee, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Sarasota, and Saint Lucie. [1] TBLC membership includes academic libraries, special libraries, public libraries and school libraries. " [6]
The TBLC does not serve patrons directly. Instead, it provides services to member libraries that help them serve their patrons in a manner that is more creative, efficient, and more economically responsible than if the members were to operate individually. In 2005, TBLC offered a group purchase opportunity for member libraries and these libraries became some of the first in Florida to offer downloadable audio books to users. [8] TBLC operates the Ask a Librarian program which answers an average of 65,000 questions a year. Other services include continuing education, interlibrary loan material delivery, [9] video production, and e-book purchasing. [6]
Training & Workshops: TBLC offers training to its members through webinars and in-person workshops, blended learning courses and conference-style events with a regional focus on continuing education for its members.
Florida Delivery Service: Library members of FLIN are eligible to be a part of the Florida Library Delivery Service. Florida Delivery Service picks up and delivers interlibrary loan materials among 200 libraries throughout Florida.
Florida Library Webinars: TBLC gives training to staff who works in Florida libraries in the belief of a well trained staff will serve its community to the fullest.
Ask A Librarian: TBLC provides virtual reference service to Florida residents via chat and text messaging. This service began in 2003 and evolved to be a main stay and vital service for many Florida libraries.
Interlibrary loan is a service that enables patrons of one library to borrow physical materials and receive electronic documents that are held by another library. The service expands library patrons' access to resources beyond their local library's holdings, serving as "an integral element of collection development" for libraries.
Westchester Library System (WLS) is the library system for the residents of Westchester County, New York. It was established in 1958. The system has 38 public libraries across the county and its headquarters are located in the town of Greenburgh, near Elmsford.
The St. Petersburg Public Library is a Carnegie library built in 1915 in Beaux-Arts style. It was one of ten Florida Carnegie libraries to receive grants awarded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York from 1901 to 1917. Steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie provided funding for more than 3,000 Carnegie libraries in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The library is significant to the city's history as the first permanent home of the public library system and embodies the transformation of the city in the second decade of the twentieth century from a pioneer village to a city with viable cultural institutions.
The State Library of North Carolina is an institution which serves North Carolina libraries, state government employees, genealogists, and the citizens of North Carolina. The library is the main depository for North Carolina state publications and serves the needs of North Carolina government agencies and state government employees by providing access to information resources that are vital to public decision-making and economic development.
NEFLIN, the Northeast Florida Library Information Network, is one of five non-profit library cooperatives committed to serving libraries throughout Florida.
Arapahoe Library District is a public library located in Arapahoe County, Colorado with branches in Centennial, Sheridan, Deer Trail, Byers, and unincorporated Arapahoe County. Outreach services and services to the Arapahoe County Detention Facility are also provided.
The Center for Research Libraries is a consortium of North American universities, colleges, and independent research libraries, based on a buy-in concept for membership of the consortia. The consortium acquires and preserves traditional and digital resources for research and teaching and makes them available to member institutions through interlibrary loan and electronic delivery. It also gathers and analyzes data pertaining to the preservation of physical and digital resources, and fosters the sharing of expertise, in order to assist member libraries in maintaining their collections. The Center for Research Libraries was founded in 1949, as the Midwest Inter-Library Center (MILC). The traditional role of CRL was as an aggregator of tangible collection materials, however this has been updated in the digital age into the CRL's current role as a facilitator of collection development, digitization, and licensing collections by individual libraries and interest groups. This transformation required CRL to adopt new funding models from partnerships with key organizations, and an updated use of current technology to support community outreach and engagement. The funding was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the IMLS.
The Western Massachusetts Regional Library System (WMRLS), was a collaborative that was supported by the state of Massachusetts, that provided leadership and services to foster cooperation, communication, and sharing among member libraries of all types. WMRLS assisted member libraries in promoting access to services. It ceased operations on June 30, 2010 as part of a statewide merger of regional library services into a single entity. WMRLS existed in a state of dormancy from 2010-2017. The WMRLS corporation was dissolved in 2017.
The non-profit Colorado Library Consortium (CLiC) is a library-related organization.
The Palm Beach County Library System is the public library system of Palm Beach County, Florida. Its headquarters, the Main Library, is located in an unincorporated area near West Palm Beach, the county seat. The system was established in 1967 and serves Palm Beach County through the Main Library and 17 branch libraries. Its first library branch opened in Tequesta on September 25, 1969 and its first bookmobile five days later. Unlike neighboring Broward and Miami-Dade counties, where most municipalities have joined their county's library system, most municipalities in Palm Beach County continue to operate their own city libraries, leading the county system to focus on the more suburban communities. Instead, a cooperative system model is in place to allow interoperation between county and municipal libraries.
The NEOS Library Consortium consists of 17 Canadian university, college, government, and hospital libraries with 49 sites between them. Patrons belonging to any NEOS library have seamless access to most of the substantial holdings shared by NEOS members. As of March 31, 2009, NEOS holdings were 10,867,551 volumes. The substantial additional holdings of electronic books, databases, and journals are not included because licensing arrangements often limit these to primary users of each library.
A distance education librarian or distance learning librarian is a specialized academic librarian whose primary duties involve serving the information needs of distance education students, faculty, and staff. This position typically involves coordinating the duties of many librarians and library staff to ensure adequate access to library resources for those who enroll in and teach distance education courses.
The Largo Public Library is one of the most widely used public libraries in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. It is centrally located in Largo and serves a community of over 75,000 residents.
The Tampa–Hillsborough County Public Library System (THPL) is a public library system based in Hillsborough County, Florida. THPL is part of two larger library networks, the Tampa Bay Library Consortium, and the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative which includes Temple Terrace Public Library in Temple Terrace, Florida, and Bruton Memorial Library in Plant City, Florida. There are 33 branches of the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative. Services provided by the THPL include internet access, public meeting room spaces, interlibrary loans, a Bookmobile, a Cybermobile for Spanish speakers, technology classes, adult literacy programs, and downloadable eBooks. Drive-thru windows for returns and hold pick-ups are located at the Jimmie B. Keel and the Jan Kaminis Platt Regional Libraries. In 2017, THPL introduced the new HAAL Pass, which gives access to certain library resources to all students in the Hillsborough County Public Schools System. Students use their student ID number to use different online databases, borrow up to three physical items and read eBooks. The Tampa–Hillsborough County Public Library System is also a part of Hillsborough County government. On January 1, 2018, the library cooperative became one of the largest in the country to go fine free. Overdue fees for borrowed materials were eliminated with the implementation of the "Just Bring It Back" initiative. In 2019 the cooperative received the FLA Library of the Year Award. Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library was recognized for its community focused initiatives as it "reorganized its staffing model and eliminated overdue fines, yielding $1 million in savings while increasing access to library resources and expanding opportunities for community engagement through unique, scalable programs."
The Pasco County Library Cooperative (PCLC) is the public library system that serves all residents of Pasco County, Florida, and is a member of the Tampa Bay Library Consortium. The Pasco County Library System, as it was originally known, was established by county ordinance in 1980.
Maria Chavez-Hernandez was an American librarian, educator, and advocate for information and library access for immigrant and underserved populations.
The St. Petersburg Library System is a free public library system for residents of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, located in Pinellas County. The St. Petersburg Library System is part of the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative and consists of 7 branch locations.
Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois is an academic consortium of public and private university and research libraries in the state of Illinois.
Virginia Boucher is a former librarian and professor emerita at University of Colorado Boulder. She was a pioneer in the field of interlibrary loans. The annual Virginia Boucher/OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award, delivered by the American Library Association (ALA) and OCLC to librarians for "outstanding professional achievement, leadership and contributions to ILL and document delivery through publication of significant professional literature, participation in professional associations, and/or innovative approaches to practice in individual libraries," was established in her honor in 2000.
The University of Calabar Library is the main academic library of the University of Calabar, located in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria. The current University Librarian is Aniebiet Inyang Ntui.
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