Acronyms to the Rescue! Or, How ILL, CLICS, MaRLI and ALB Can Help Your Research

By Prof. Anne Leonard
Faculty members often seek material for their research and teaching that is not available in the City Tech Library’s print and online collections. Access to circulating books held at other CUNY libraries is facilitated via CLICS (CUNY Libraries Inter-Campus Services), which permits faculty, staff and students to request books owned by one CUNY library for delivery to another using the library barcode number on their college ID cards. The loan period for books borrowed from other CUNY libraries via CLICS is the same as it is for books borrowed here: six weeks. For journal articles as well as books and other media not held by other CUNY libraries, the library offers interlibrary loan through ILLiad, an online system for placing and tracking requests for books and articles. Through interlibrary loan, we are able to provide books and journal articles from library collections around the country for our faculty (students may use ILLiad to request journal articles only). Most articles are delivered as PDF files directly to the ILLiad user’s account. The loan period for books obtained through interlibrary loan is determined by the lending library, but is usually at least four weeks from the date the library sends the book.
City Tech Library also participates in consortia that facilitate use of other libraries. The eight members of Academic Libraries of Brooklyn (ALB) permit students, faculty, and staff of member institutions to use and borrow materials of the other member libraries. ALB member institutions are Long Island University, St. Francis College, St. Joseph’s College, Pratt Institute, NYU Polytechnic Institute, and of course Medgar Evers College and Brooklyn College. Get an ALB card at the library’s circulation desk before visiting an ALB member library. Borrowing is usually limited to two books at a time from any one library.
METRO is an organization that develops library services for its hundreds of member libraries throughout the New York City metropolitan region. With a Metro referral card, faculty may visit a METRO member library to use a book or other resource that is not available within CUNY or at a public library; borrowing is not permitted. Consult a reference librarian to get a METRO referral card.
The libraries of Columbia University and NYU have partnered with New York Public Library to offer access to the research collections of each institution, including at-home borrowing of select library materials. This program, called MaRLI (Manhattan Research Libraries Initiative), is open to any New York Public Library cardholder. Read more about MaRLI below, including one librarian’s experience using MaRLI to do extensive research.