Our Library Partnerships
As current affiliates (students, staff, or faculty members) of McCormick Theological Seminary or the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, your library services are paid for and provided by both seminaries through the JKM Library Trust.
No library can go it alone, however, and meet the high standards of resource access required to support quality academic work. Even when the JKM Library had 300,000 physical books and a range of electronic services, it was our partnerships with other libraries that kept us all going, together.
Those partnerships are more than just services you can use. While they also cost money, the reality of partnership means that we are responsible to each other, and that how you interact with these partner libraries when you use their services will reflect on all of us.
Now that the JKM Library Trust no longer operates its own library, it is more important than ever that you learn to use, and respect, our partners who provide you with services.
GTU TRELIS | UChicago Libraries
ACTS Libraries | I-Share Libraries
GTU TRELIS and Atla Reciprocal Borrowing
Starting in Fall 2026, McCormick and LSTC have entered into partnership with the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, to provide primary library services in place of the JKM Library.
As members of the TRELIS program ("Theological Schools Recentering & Enhancing Library Integral Services"), the seminaries have entered a partnership with the GTU's Hewlett Library not only for electronic resource access, but also for library staffing, including reference, curriculum support, and collection development.
But this new TRELIS membership also adds 141 libraries throughout the continental US and Canada (plus one each in England and New Zealand) that you can visit for local borrowing privileges. In Illinois, most of these are also ACTS members, but the list does also include Wheaton College's library.
This is because, as members of GTU, we now have access to the Atla Reciprocal Borrowing network. This access will be of special interest to remote students, who may now be able to find a library outside of Illinois that will let them borrow books to support their work.
You can find a list of these libraries with contact information in spreadsheet form, and we recommend that you call or email ahead of your visit in order to ensure that staff will be available to help you with signing up for local borrowing privileges.
To get local borrowing privileges at any of these libraries, you will need to ask for Atla Reciprocal Borrowing privileges as a member of the Graduate Theological Union, and demonstrate active standing at LSTC or McCormick (course registration for the semester works for students).
For assistance, you can contact library@gtu.edu, and you may also need to contact your seminary to help verify current affiliation.
As with all of our partner libraries, when you are a guest in their library, or using their services, you are responsible for following their rules, and we expect that you will treat them with respect and kindness.
You will be relying on services that are paid for and staffed out of someone else's budget, to serve their own people. While using services helps justify the costs of them, please remember that our use of other libraries is not priced in to their budgets, and staff will often be overworked already.
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University of Chicago Libraries
Current students, staff, and faculty of McCormick and LSTC also have very useful (but still limited) privileges at the University of Chicago Libraries. You can compare our current privileges with what had previously been offered to JKM patrons with the ACTS card.
You will also receive a higher level of dedicated service from our partners at the University Libraries, especially our liaison, Dr. Anne Knafl, Bibliographer for Religion, Philosophy, and Jewish Studies. (Her orientation handouts are posted on our Research page.) JKM Library and University Libraries staff are happy to be working together to support your needs!
However, your current access to the University Libraries has been arranged through the seminaries instead of through the JKM Library. This means that any technical issues will need to be worked out between your seminary (usually the registrar and the IT department) and the University (usually the ID and Privileges Office in the front of Regenstein).
Physical Books and Library Access
The University Libraries have literally millions of physical books you can borrow as a McCormick or LSTC patron.
This includes the ~135,000 volumes (roughly 45% of our pre-move physical collections) that the University purchased from us when JKM downsized in 2023. Listed as in "Off-Site Storage," these are kept at a dedicated facility in upstate New York. Scan requests are handled there, and items can be delivered to Regenstein on request from the University Libraries' catalog.
To visit the University Libraries in person, show a state ID at the ID and Privileges Office in the front of the Regenstein Library, and they will take your picture and give you a "Campus Card" that will allow you to access the libraries and borrow books.
Note: Since January 2024, McCormick and LSTC send your patron information directly to the University. That information is used to give you your "Campus Card." However, if you have a previous association with the University, you may be in their system more than once. They may tell you that they cannot give you a card based on your old information. If this happens, tell them to look for you as a current McCormick or LSTC patron instead.
CNetID Access
Since 2024, you have access to some additional privileges to go with your access to the University's physical collections, through the CNetID system. Some of these are quite useful for off-campus or remote students!
Contact your seminary's IT department (McCormick, LSTC) for the information necessary to claim your CNetID and set up your library account. (You will also be setting up email forwarding, and 2-factor authentication using the Duo Mobile app.)
Your CNetID login will let you:
- have books delivered to Regenstein's circulation desk
- request a "Scan and Deliver" copy of a section of any book in their collections
- log on to the desktop computers located throughout the Regenstein Library
Your CNetID will not give you access to the University's electronic resources. The University Libraries cannot legally give you remote access to electronic resources. JKM remains your source for those, using your OpenAthens login.
However, if you need something you can't find in JKM's e-resources, you can go to Regenstein in-person for guest access to their electronic resources, like anyone else. Use their wifi, or one of their desktop computers, to access the University's electronic resources while there.
ACTS Libraries
McCormick and LSTC are members of the Association of Chicago Theological Schools. Our fellow members are:
- Catholic Theological Union's Bechtold Library
Chicago Theological Seminary's Lapp Learning Commons(CLOSING 2028, collection severely reduced)- Meadville Lombard Theological School's Wiggin Library
- Moody Bible Institute's Crowell Library
- North Park University's Brandel Library
- The Northern Seminary Library
- Spertus Institute's Asher Library
Trinity International University's Rolfing Library(CLOSED)- University of St. Mary of the Lake's Feehan Memorial Library
- The American Islamic College Library
- Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary's Styberg Library
- Loyola University Chicago's libraries
If you want to visit them in person, you will need your McCormick or LSTC ID and a valid ACTS card, which you can get from your seminary. ACTS cards expire every year on June 30, and they will be happy to give you a new one each year.
Once there, these libraries will have to add you to their system for local borrowing privileges.
When you visit, you will need to fill out a form at the circulation desk. The library staff will have to process this form for you to get borrowing privileges.
If you go on an evening or a weekend, you may not be able to apply for or use your borrowing privileges on your first visit! Please contact these libraries in advance to make sure they have the staff to help you when you go.
All of these libraries have their own policies for patrons of outside institutions. Please follow their procedures, and be a considerate guest in their facilities.
I-Share Libraries (ENDING 2026–27)
As of the 2026–27 academic year, McCormick Theological Seminary and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago will no longer be members of the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI), or of I-Share, which the JKM Library had joined in 2014.
I-Share is a union catalog of nearly 100 other academic and research libraries and museums, and patrons of any member library can borrow any of over 38 million items representing over 15 million titles from any of the other members. However, they must commit to staffing a physical lending collection, and our seminaries can no longer do so.
Your loans from I-Share libraries will be due soon, as CARLI seeks to have I-Share items returned to their libraries because of our exit from the system.
Loans are between you and the library that owns the book, and you will be responsible to the lending library for each I-Share book you have on loan.
I-Share books can be returned to any of the other I-Share libraries, now that JKM is no longer an I-Share library.
