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Library cards go countywide
By LESTER R. DAILEY
Article published on Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007 |
CLEARWATER – Because a single Pinellas Public Library Cooperative card can be used to borrow books at any library in the county, most people think Pinellas County already has a unified library system, but that’s not the case.
Six different automation systems support the 14 municipal library systems that serve the county’s 24 municipalities. The card must be separately registered with each of the six automation systems before it can be used in the area served by that system. So the PPLC card is, in effect, six different library cards in one.
But that will soon change. A new countywide Library Automation System will soon replace the six current systems, giving the county a truly unified library system for the first time.
Under the old system, patrons could only access the online catalog of the automation system they were using and there was limited communication between systems, making it hard to find a book in a library served by another system. But under the new system, librarians will be able to quickly locate a particular book anywhere in the county.
“This is really an exciting time,” Clearwater’s library director, Barbara J. Pickell, told the City Council at its Dec. 3 work session. “This will improve public service for everyone in the county. It’s a win-win situation for everybody.”
Clearwater’s cost of converting to the new system, which will be managed by the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative, is not expected to exceed the $28,000 already budgeted for the maintenance of the city’s current stand-alone system. No additional personnel will be required, and maintenance costs for the new system are expected to be about $6,000 a year less than the maintenance costs of the current system.
Patrons coming into a Clearwater library from another area of the county will no longer have to have their PPLC cards registered in the Clearwater system. That will save time for Clearwater library staffers, according to Pickell.
The council members liked the idea of joining the new countywide system and put it on their consent agenda, virtually guaranteeing its passage at their Dec. 6 meeting. The first phase of the conversion will take place early in 2008 and be followed by a second phase a year later.
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Article published on Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007
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