Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home residents will soon be able to borrow books at Lebanon and Albany public libraries as well as others around the state.
The City Council approved a resolution to allow the library to participate in the Oregon Library Passport Program, created by the Oregon Library Association.
“We are going to go on-line Feb. 1,” said Library Director Rose Peda. “That’s the same day Lebanon will be going live with theirs.”
The program allows Sweet Home Library patrons to use all participating libraries throughout Oregon and to academic libraries, including Oregon State University libraries, Oregon Health Sciences University and several community colleges.
About 70 libraries are participating in the program.
The program costs the city nothing while expanding library services, Peda said. “The ones that I think our patrons will get the most use out of is Albany and Lebanon.”
To use the program, library patrons must drop by the Sweet Home Public Library and get a form that verifies they have a Sweet Home card and fines are current, Peda said. They can then take that form to another participating library, and that library will issue its own card.
The patron is responsible for materials he or she checks out, Peda said.
Inter-library loans will still be available for $3, Peda said.
In that program, patrons can send for a book from another library, but they must pay to cover shipping and handling expenses.
“It’s a very new program,” Peda said. “We’re working out the bugs.”
It helps provide some of the benefits of a Linn County library district that had been proposed several years ago.
“We are providing more library resources to our library patrons,” Peda said. If libraries in Brownsville and Scio don’t participate, it won’t look as much like a unified district, but it adds value for rural residents who do not pay a library tax and must pay the library directly for their cards.
“It opens up a lot of access to our patrons,” Peda said.
A card now provides access to many libraries, including university libraries, she said. “The only thing that it doesn’t allow our patrons is e-books and certain databases because those are paid for through other funding.”
One patron was excited because it would no longer be necessary to pack up books when headed out on a trip, Peda said, and searching other libraries, patrons are likely to discover new books.
A person caring for an ailing parent in another city can use it while they’re out of town, Peda said. “I can see some real advantages for our patrons.”
In some states, like Georgia, library cards are good at any library in the state, Peda said. This is one step in that direction.
“It will be interesting to see how this all works out,” she said. She hopes it will encourage rural residents around Sweet Home to go ahead and purchase library cards.
The library doesn’t have too many patrons from rural areas outside of a grant-funded program that has about 160 enrolled for 50 percent of the normal cost, $17.50.
The Sweet Home Library has about 40 cards available at that price, Peda said, and anyone purchasing one can have the life of the card extended past the default expiration date, June 30.
That program closes as of July 1, and library cards will cost $35.
“I think it’ll be a good program for everybody,” Peda said. “As I said to the council, if we see for some reason it’s not working for us, with notice to the association, we can opt out of the program.”
Peda wanted to thank the council for supporting the library with its decision.
In other business, the library is hosting “Take Your Child to the Library Day” from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. Activities will include music, Legos, people reading stories and prize giveaways.
For more information, contact the library at (541) 367-5007.