Minitex is a publicly supported network of academic, public, state government and special libraries working cooperatively to improve library service for people in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. North and South Dakota libraries participate through contracts between Minitex and the North and South Dakota State Libraries, and there is reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin libraries.
Minitex is funded by the Minnesota Legislature through the Minnesota Office of Higher Education to serve Minnesota academic and state government libraries. It is a joint program of the Office of Higher Education and the University of Minnesota. The Minnesota State Library Services (the Minnesota state library agency), provides additional funding to support services for Minnesota libraries and library users.
Minitex programs are coordinated by the Minitex staff located at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Libraries, which fills the majority of requests sent to Minitex.
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Minitex enhances the effectiveness and efficiency of participating libraries by expanding their access to local, state, regional, national and international information resources.
This is accomplished by promoting partnerships, effective delivery of needed information and by sharing library resources including collections and electronic resources, bibliographic records and reference services through conventional, electronic and innovative means. Minitex pursues technological innovations to provide new opportunities for delivery of services.
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Over 2,000 libraries participate in Minitex. This includes K-12 school libraries, public libraries, academic and other special libraries.
Explore MinitexMnLINK is a statewide virtual library that electronically links people to Minnesota's rich library resources. It is funded by an appropriation from the Minnesota State Legislature, and is currently made up of two major components:
Launched in April 2009, the MnKnows portal provides Minnesotans one-stop access to statewide library services:
MnKnows.org also provides a link to the Minnesota Library Directory, which lists public, academic, and other libraries in a specified area. The directory is maintained by State Library Services, a division of the Minnesota Department of Education.
Explore MnKnowsNote: documents in Portable Document Format (PDF) require Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or higher to view.