The Northeastern Massachusetts Regional Library System was founded in 1997 by an act of the Massachusetts Legislature and in partial fulfillment of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners Strategic Plan for the Future of Library Services in Massachusetts. Through Regional Systems the Commonwealth supports and expands the collections and services of individual libraries. The Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System encompasses 54 communities and serves approximately 1,192,365 residents. Our service area stretches from Littleton to the seacoast and from just north of Boston to the New Hampshire border. The Northeast Region's predecessor, the Eastern Massachusetts Regional Library System served the area's residents by providing support services for public libraries for over thirty years. Recent trends, including globalization, the information explosion, increased electronic access to information and increased need for lifelong learning and retraining, inspired the creation of regional systems that are geographically smaller but that include all types of libraries: academic, public, school and special libraries. The primary role of a regional system is to improve library services to the people of a portion of the state. While individual libraries strive to provide collections and services that meet the "recurring needs of its primary clientele," the Regions provide support services to libraries and direct supplementary services to the public. Services include delivery of materials between libraries, central processing of interlibrary loans, reference and research services, continuing education and training of staff and administrators, technical advisory services for libraries and access to electronic databases.