Brown University Library participates in a number of consortial arrangements and cooperative collecting plans. Current consortial partners are:

• Boston Library Consortium
  The Boston Library Consortium is a group of sixteen member libraries based in Massachusetts; Brown is the sole Rhode Island member. Brown students and faculty have access and borrowing privileges at all member libraries. A major current project of the Consortium is the Virtual Catalog, which allows end users to search multiple library catalogs simultaneously, view search results in a common system, and initiate interlibrary loan requests based on real-time local circulation status and interlibrary lending policies.
  
  Joint collection development in the Consortium is fostered by the Cooperative Collections Committee, which initiates and monitors joint collections efforts aimed at ensuring the most effective use of collections funds and resources of the Consortium libraries.
• CRIARL: The Consortium of Rhode Island Academic and Research Libraries
  CRIARL consists of most of the college and university libraries in Rhode Island, along with other research institutions. Onsite access to materials by Brown University ID holders is allowed.
• HELIN: The Rhode Island Higher Education Library Information Network.
  HELIN is a consortium of six academic libraries in Rhode Island, all of which allow onsite access to materials by Brown University ID holders.
• CLAN: Cooperating Libraries Automated Network (now Ocean State Libraries)
  CLAN is the Rhode Island Public Library Catalog; all Rhode Island residents may borrow from CLAN's nearly fifty public libraries.
• Center For Research Libraries
  Brown University Library is a voting member of the Center, a is an international not-for-profit consortium of colleges, universities and libraries that makes available scholarly research resources to users everywhere. Open to scholars and researchers, its outstanding collections include more than five million volumes of research materials rarely held in North American libraries.
• Association of Research Libraries
  ARL is a not-for-profit membership organization comprising the libraries of North American research institutions and operates as a forum for the exchange of ideas and as an agent for collective action. There are currently more than 120 members of ARL.
• NERL: Northeast Research Libraries
  The NorthEast Research Libraries consortium (NERL) comprises 18 academic research libraries with the common objectives of access and cost containment, joint licensing, and possible joint deployment of electronic resources. NERL offers a forum in which members can share information about management and budgeting for electronic resources. NERL focuses on expensive (over $10K) scholarly e-resources of importance to research institutions.