The library is located approximately five kilometres east of the main University of Alberta campus. Its mission is to serve the students and professors of Campus Saint-Jean, the University of Alberta's francophone campus. However, it is open to the public; and borrowing options exist for users who do not carry a university ONEcard. As a member of the , BSJ is also a part of the library consortium, and . Therefore, users not only have access to the documents and services offered on site, but also to a number of collections and services offered by the other libraries in these networks.
Collection
BSJ's main collection is classified according to the Library of Congress system and includes books and periodicals that support all programs of study offered at Campus Saint-Jean. Government publications are added to the collection on a regular basis thanks to BSJ's status as a selective depository library for documents published by the Government of Canada. Furthermore, a large collection of documents on microform, including a number of historical Western-Canadian francophone newspapers and the complete EDUQ microfiche collection are available. BSJ is also a depository of the National Film Board of Canada's French films. A collection of historical documents is located in the Salle Durocher. This collection includes rare documents in the areas of francophone history in Western Canada and works by Western-Canadian francophone authors. Also included in the collection are documents from the Mahe v. Alberta trial, which centered on the right of Alberta's francophone minority to separate francophone school boards. All resources found in the historical collection are indexed in the NEOS catalogue. A collection of pedagogical and children's literature is mainly classified according to the Dewey Decimal system, with more recent additions to the collection classified according to the Library of Congress system. This collection was created in 1978 to meet the needs of students in the Education program at Campus Saint-Jean. It is also used by educators from other parts of Alberta and Western Canada. Combined, these collections include over 200,000 documents and 350 periodical subscriptions. Though most documents are in French, some English-language documents are available.
