http://library.bc.edu
Thanks for posting the link – it’s a great place to find out what we’re doing to keep library services going and resources available during the shutdown, and the place to start your research any time.
It’s nice to see the Student Affairs Realignment.
Thanks for your kind words! I’ll pass them along to Student Affairs and to library staff.
What’s the most valuable/rare book in here?
Not sure it’s the rarest, but certainly the oldest: Jean Gerson’s De Spiritualib[us] Nupciis (On Spiritual Marriage) from about 1470, in Burns Library. Lots more info about it, and a link to the digital version, here: bit.ly/ReallyOldBook. As far as value goes, here’s a worthwhile answer: bit.ly/bc-books-worth.
Why don’t alumni get access to inter library loan?
Interlibrary loan services (ILL) involve thousands of libraries. Therefore, most of the policies governing these services are not established at a local level, but through consortial agreements. Most academic libraries do not offer alumni members with ILL services primarily because of contractual agreements with publishers, and practices established by the library consortia they belong to.
What’s the oldest book not still returned in O’Neill or BC in general?
I’m not sure what you mean: the oldest book currently checked out?
If you mean oldest publication date, my library assistants attempted to glean this information by wrestling with the information system, and it turns out to be a much more complicated process than anticipated. IOW: we don’t know. If you mean longest checked out, theoretically, that would be 4 years because faculty and staff can check items out for a year and renew 3 times. If a book hasn’t been returned after its last possible due date, it’s marked “missing,” after a month and is no longer checked out, so the checked-out clock stops. IOW, again, we don’t know. My assistants might not always have all the answers, but at least they’re honest about it!
Update 4 years later (July 2023) : a patron recently returned a book they found in their attic, which they’d checked out over 20 years before while working on their master’s thesis.
What should I do if the same group of people is always being extremely disruptive in the reading room?
The Reading Room is a collaborative study space and traditionally, collaborative study spaces can be noisy. If you need a quiet place to study, the entire 5th floor is a quiet zone. However, if there is a group of students in the Reading Room who are unusually noisy or disruptive, you can let someone at the Circulation Desk know and they will address the issue.
How many books are there in BC Library? What is the oldest one?
According to the latest Factbook, at the end of fiscal year 2017, there were 2,326,205 books available from O’Neill Library. Defining what a “book” is gets kind of tricky (librarians love to nerd out on this stuff), but the oldest printed book in our collection is Jean Gerson’s De Spiritualib[us] Nupciis (On Spiritual Marriage). It has been digitized and is available to read online: bit.ly/BurnsOldestBook. The oldest item we have is a Mesopotamian clay tablet from 2000-3000 BC.
How do I use my BC ID to log into Open Athens? Help!
Short answer: you don’t. Athens is a system for managing logins to web resources, but BC uses a different system for our electronic subscriptions. If you’re looking at a book or article that wants an Athens login, you have probably arrived via Google. Usually, all you need to do is search for it at library.bc.edu, but feel free to ask my library friends for help.
I also applied to the lib job and haven’t heard back. Just want to make sure that they’re still reviewing applications & I still have hope, or I don’t…
The wall is reliably informed that supervisors are continuing to review applications. Keep the faith, and check your email daily in case you are invited to an interview.