Joining BELS

 

Interested in world-class servicess and sharing resources in a consortium environment? Have a school library? Have a professional librarian working at least 20 hours per week in your school district? If you answered, "yes" to each of the last three questions, then you are eligible for membership!

 

Geographic Limitations

Please note that due to the location of our current membership, it would be difficult (albeit not impossible) to accept members from outside the immediate northeastern New Jersey area. School districts and private schools calling Bergen, Essex, Hudson, or Passaic counties home are strongly encouraged to contact the Consortium Coordinator to discuss pricing. Discounts are available for prospective members which currently feed into a BELS high school or are interested in having their entire school district join.

BELS unfortunately cannot accept membership from out of state public or private schools at this time due to the current designation we possess from the Internal Revenue Service.

 

Benefits of Membership

Listing every benefit to joining BELS would be just about impossible. However, check out some of our highlights:

  • No hidden fees- everything BELS has to offer is included in your annual fees
      • We only collect what we need to operate each year
  • Polaris integrated library system and online public access catalog
      • Lookup and renew items from home
  • Inter-library borrowing between all BELS locations and each BCCLS public library (BCCLS public library card still required)
  • Customize circulation and collection reports yourself, or place requests for specialized analysis reports
  • Original cataloging services to ensure those items which nobody else has are properly in the catalog
  • Personalized tech support five days a week
      • No 800 numbers or robots
  • In-person or electronic-based training for the entire school library staff
  • Professional development programming
  • A consortium atmosphere:
      • Ask other members through individual communication or by utilizing private message boards and listservs
      • Coordinate programs and coursework between different school districts
      • Think something can be improved or more efficient in BELS? Members let us know and we take action
  • The BELS website is chock full o'Info and content is perpetually being added
      • Hosting for wikis, message boards, and other web 2.0 technology is on its way

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