About the Council

The Southeastern New York Library Resources Council is a regional, not-for-profit, multi-type library cooperative encompassing the eight counties of Columbia, Greene, Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, Sullivan, Putnam and Rockland. Over one million people reside within the 5,372 square mile area served by the Council. Currently seventy-one libraries from the region are members of Southeastern. The Council headquarters is located in Highland, New York, and has a staff of nine.

Council member libraries are from both non-profit as well as for profit organizations, in both the public and the private sector. The size of the library collections range from small specialized collections of a few hundred volumes to large research collections with thousands of volumes. Through the coordinating activities of Southeastern, this network of academic, business, hospital, institutional, legal and public libraries is organized to share library resources and professional expertise for the betterment of the individual library users.  The Council is governed by a fifteen member Board of Trustees including both librarians and lay members representing the research community.

Southeastern is one of nine Reference and Research Library Resource Councils (NY3Rs Assocation) of New York State. Most of the 3Rs provide similar services to that of Southeastern. These services include:

• Interlibrary loan of books and serials;
  
• Access to electronic databases and documents;
  
• Union list of periodicals;
  
• Compilation of a regional union catalog of library resources;
  
• Continuing education programs for the staff of member libraries;
  
• Training in new hardware technologies and software releases;
  
• Delivery of materials;
  
• Administration of state funded regional automation program;
  
• Coordinated collection development;
  
• Hospital library services program and access to health related information;
  
• Online searching;
  
• Consulting services; and
  
• Communications (SENYLRC News, Miscellaneous).

SENYLRC Bylaws | Criteria for Membership (Appendix A)

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