MBLC Services

Strong libraries are essential to education and lifelong learning, to economic development, to resilient communities and to a strong democracy.

The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) is the agency of state government with the statutory authority and responsibility to organize, develop, coordinate, and improve library services throughout the Commonwealth.

Committed to Serving All

The MBLC strives to provide every resident of the Commonwealth with full and equal access to library information resources regardless of their geographic location, socio-economic status, age, level of physical or intellectual ability or cultural background. The MBLC advances innovation, and fosters resilience in libraries across the Commonwealth through funding, guidance, partnerships, and the coordination of statewide services.

Efficient and Effective

Under the direction of the MBLC, library services have been automated and streamlined, cooperative purchasing agreements have been established, resources have been digitized, and many needs of local libraries and residents are met through statewide contracts, services, and grants that not only save time and money, but increase residents’ access

First in the Nation

The MBLC was established in 1890 under Chapter 78 of the Massachusetts General Laws. It was the first state library agency in the United States and many of the programs and services libraries and patrons enjoy today can be traced back to the work of the first serving Commissioners.

The MBLC consists of nine commissioners appointed by the Governor. A director, appointed by the Commissioners, is responsible for administration of the MBLC’s programs and services.

Programs and Services

In addition to the 16 major programs outlined below, the MBLC works with all libraries to plan and evaluate library services, assuring the most effective use of federal, state and local funds for the information needs of the Commonwealth’s residents.

Libraries in Automated Networks Program: Statewide Resource Sharing

The Nine Automated Resource Sharing Networks (Networks) span the Commonwealth and provide libraries of all types with technology, digital content and other services. They help connect libraries to both their local users and to the surrounding communities, and facilitate sharing books, eBooks, audiobooks and more across the Commonwealth.

Libraries depend on Networks for the technology to run everyday operations. Many also receive telecommunications and internet access through their Network.

Network membership is critically important for all libraries. With support from MBLC, 350 of the 367 Massachusetts public libraries are now Network members.

MBLC Grants to Networks

MBLC Grants support Networks and Libraries and keep membership fees affordable:

The Network Infrastructure Grants program provides annual support for the capital and infrastructure costs incurred by the nine automated resource sharing networks that form the foundation of essential library service in the Commonwealth.
The Resource Sharing Grants program offsets the costs of libraries sharing materials with other libraries, both within their network and across the state. First implemented statewide in 1998, the Resource Sharing Grant has helped drive an 44% increase in total holdings, from 26 to 37.4 million items, and an increase in interlibrary loan from less than 1 million to 9.8 million items per year.
The Small Libraries in Networks Grant program helps make both joining and staying in a network affordable to public libraries in our smallest Massachusetts communities. Over 150 libraries receive vital assistance through this program every year.
The Telecommunications for Resource Sharing Grant program offsets the costs of high-speed internet access, facilitating data transmission between member libraries and their network.
The Library eBook and Audiobook (LEA) Grant program increases the available funds for purchase of eBooks and digital Audiobooks to be shared through the statewide LEA program.

Certification of Library Personnel

To ensure communities are served by qualified library personnel, the MBLC coordinates Basic Library Techniques (BLT) classes with the Massachusetts Library System. The classes are required for MBLC certification of libraries serving populations under 10,000, if the library director does not have a Master of Library and Information Science degree. In these communities the MBLC requires the library director to complete the BLT course and have at least a bachelor’s degree. Other library positions may enroll as desired.

Continuing Education and Training

Staff from the MBLC, in conjunction with the Massachusetts Library System and other library groups, such as the Massachusetts Library Association, Massachusetts Library Trustees Association and Massachusetts Friends of Libraries provide a wide range of continuing education and training programs for library trustees, staff and friends of library organizations.

Data Coordination and Analysis

The MBLC collects and analyzes financial, demographic and personnel information about all types of libraries. The data is compiled and published each year in a series of reports that are available MBLC website. Libraries can use MBLC data and data tools to customize statistical reports for state and municipal officials. In addition, the MBLC actively participates in the Federal-State Cooperative System (FSCS), the State Library Agency Survey and the Academic Library Survey.

Digitization and Digital Curation

To support digitization and access to historical material, MBLC offers guidance, educational opportunities, and resources for building and managing digital collections, including creating memory labs, working with digitization vendors and software providers, developing online exhibits, and identifying digital storage and preservation options.

The MBLC also distributes Library of the Commonwealth state funding to Boston Public Library to support the Statewide Digitization Program, helping libraries access free digitization services and contribute local digital collections to the Digital Commonwealth online repository.

Disaster Preparedness & Mitigating Catastrophic Loss

MBLC is a founding partner of COSTEP MA, bringing libraries, cultural heritage institutions, collections care organizations, and the emergency management community together to identify and share useful, current facility and response information to mitigate and recover from local disasters.

Federal Grant Program—Library Services and Technology Act

Using federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the MBLC develops grant opportunities for public, school, academic, and special libraries that go beyond what local funding can do. The MBLC also uses federal funding to provide statewide library services like research databases and a consumer website where residents can access library resources, and to support the statewide eBook program.

The MBLC develops a comprehensive five-year long range plan detailing how federal funds will be used in Massachusetts libraries. This plan is submitted to the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. The State Advisory Council on Libraries, a group representing various types of libraries as well as library users, provides valuable advice to staff and Commissioners on LSTA programs and the allocation of grant funds.

Learn more about how the MBLC uses federal funding to improve library services in the Commonwealth.

Library-Based Literacy

MBLC staff provide consultation and technical assistance to help libraries assess the needs of their communities to develop or improve targeted initiatives for early literacy, adult education, digital literacy, and English language learning. The MBLC facilitates a statewide roundtable discussion that works to promote shared resources, literacy trends, and professional knowledge to contribute to building strong, accessible, and effective library services for literacy coordinators and library staff members. The MBLC offers LSTA grants for library-based literacy to support the selection of appropriate resources, the design of citizenship programs and English classes, and the implementation of outreach strategies to engage diverse populations.

Massachusetts Center for the Book

The Massachusetts Center for the Book (MCB) is also funded through the MBLC. MCB is the Commonwealth’s affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book, which promotes books and libraries, literacy and reading, as well as poetry and literature. MCB provides critical literacy programs in gateway communities and is a powerful ally for libraries extending literacy and learning beyond traditional library audiences. Through programming and events, the Massachusetts Center for the Book impacts readers of all ages by concentrating on family literacy as well as teen and adult reader engagement.

Summer Reading Partnership with the Boston Bruins

The Boston Bruins and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) have been working together since 2009 to promote literacy in public libraries. Each summer the Bruins make special library visits to encourage reading and award prizes to summer reading participants. The MBLC and the Boston Bruins also work together to create a Boston Bruins Recommended Reading List that features the players' favorite books. In addition, an annual READ poster featuring a player is created each summer and available for libraries to order at no cost to them.

Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program

The Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program (MPLCP) was first funded by a state bond authorization in 1987. Since then, the MPLCP has helped build 237 public libraries in communities across the Commonwealth. The MPLCP has also awarded 113 planning and design grants to support public libraries with the initial stages of design.

MBLC staff work with public libraries on all phases of planning and construction of library buildings from the competitive MPLCP application process through the ribbon cutting and final reporting requirements. The MPLCP also offers technical and high-level space planning assistance to all libraries, regardless of type, throughout the Commonwealth.

The MPLCP is governed by state regulation 605 CMR 6.00 and has been continuously funded through capital bond bills authorized by the Governor and the Legislature.

Learn more about how the MPLCP has impacted communities across the Commonwealth.

Massachusetts Library System and Library for the Commonwealth

The MBLC administers a program of services through the Massachusetts Library System (MLS) that allows libraries of all types to provide users with materials and information otherwise unavailable locally.

MLS services include statewide delivery of Interlibrary Loan items patrons request through library Networks, the Commonwealth eBooks Collections for schools, continuing education, technical assistance, and database access.

The MBLC also administers funds for the maintenance and development of collections and services for the Library for the Commonwealth at the Boston Public Library that serves all residents of the Commonwealth, not just Boston residents.

Preservation and Collections Care

The MBLC coordinates a statewide collections care and preservation program for all types of libraries and archives. This program provides information, guidance, and connection to resources and services in support of libraries’ efforts to preserve valuable special collections, prolong the life of circulating collections, and ensure the continued availability of these materials to library users. The program reaches librarians and archivists through consultations, instructional sessions, sharing of preservation information, emergency assistance, and federal grant awards.

The MBLC also administers a statewide Environmental Monitoring Program to provide libraries free tools, software, and training that empowers them to use the latest technology solutions to easily implement museum-quality monitoring for their library and/or targeted special collections and archives spaces.

Public Awareness

The MBLC works to increase awareness of the intrinsic value of libraries and the important role they have in promoting personal and economic growth for residents in every community across the Commonwealth.

As part of its Communications and Public Awareness Plan, the MBLC produces a publications, conducts public awareness campaigns, develops promotional materials, and provides information to the media to increase awareness on the part of librarians, trustees, friends of libraries, government officials, as well as the general public, to the ongoing programs, grants and work of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

Public Library Advisory and Technical Assistance

The MBLC provides assistance to municipal officials, boards of trustees, library administrators, staff, and library fundraising groups. MBLC staff advise on: roles and responsibilities of trustees, friends groups, library foundations and library directors; internal library policies; mining and sharing information advocates may use in support of libraries; fundraising for libraries; and regulations and legislation affecting libraries. MBLC staff also work closely with the Massachusetts Library Trustees Association, the Massachusetts Friends of Libraries, the Massachusetts Library Association and mission-related state agencies to strengthen programs for library advocates.

Reference and Research Services

The MBLC’s reference and research library supports the research needs of public libraries and the development of MBLC programs with a current collection of professional materials and resources. Members of the library community are encouraged to borrow materials, access electronic databases, and make use of the library’s reference and research services. The holdings of the library may be searched through the NOBLE Network.

State Aid to Public Libraries—Local Aid to Public Libraries

The MBLC’s State Aid to Public Libraries Program is composed of three grants, each based on a specific disbursement formula, that are awarded annually to municipalities whose public libraries meet statutory and regulatory requirements. It encourages municipal support and improvement for public library service, bolsters reciprocal resource sharing among libraries, compensates for differences in municipal funding capacities, and offsets costs to libraries that circulate materials to patrons from other certified municipalities.

Approximately 98% of the Commonwealth’s cities and towns currently participate. The State Aid to Public Libraries Program saves local communities money and certified libraries give residents access to 53 million items from across the state.

Learn more about the benefits of the State Aid to Public Libraries Program.

Statewide Services for Anyone who Lives, Works, or Studies in Massachusetts

The MBLC provides libraries and residents online access to:

a directory of more than 1,700 Massachusetts public, school, and academic libraries.
an online unified search of 59 million Massachusetts library holdings through the Commonwealth Catalog (ComCat), a virtual catalog where users can request an item from 500 libraries across the state and pick it up in their home library in a matter of days.
Millions of articles from trusted sources through research databases containing information on a variety of subjects including general and scholarly interest, science, health, biographies, history, literature, and K-12 interests.
more than 1,000 online full-text magazines, scholarly journals and publications, including current and back issues of The New York Times.
more than 635,000 eBooks (the MBLC provides funding for the eBook platform and some content; nine automated networks run the statewide eBook program).

Talking Book Libraries and Library Services for People who are Blind or have a Physical Handicap

Access to library services for approximately 20,000 individuals in Massachusetts who are blind or print disabled is provided by the MBLC through funding to the Braille and Talking Book Library at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown and the Talking Book Library at the Worcester Public Library.

The Talking Book Libraries, which are network members of the Library of Congress’s National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, enable people of all ages who are blind, vision-impaired, or with a physical, perceptual, or reading disability that prevents them from using regular print materials to enjoy the pleasure of reading and pursuit of life-long learning opportunities.