CdA library patrons to gain access to other systems’ stacks

Avid readers in Coeur d’Alene will soon find it easier to get their fix of fiction – or any other genre – thanks to a new partnership between the city library and those in the rest of the region.

By summer, more than 50,000 North Idaho library patrons are expected to share a single kind of library card and access to some 2.5 million library records, once the Coeur d’Alene Public Library joins a regional consortium.

Library officials said this week they have received $44,500 in state and local grants to cover most of the cost of transferring data to the Cooperative Information Network, known as CIN.

“In the library world, it’s called a ‘migration,’ ” said Bette Ammon, Coeur d’Alene’s library director.

In practical terms, it means the holdings of the Coeur d’Alene library will merge with those of 10 other regional libraries and the Washington Idaho Network, providing readers with easy access to a vast range of books and other resources.

That’s welcome news to bibliophiles like Bill Crane, 69, of Coeur d’Alene, who moved to the city three years ago from California. “I got a driver’s license when I hit town so that I could get a library card,” the retired aerospace worker said.

Crane’s reading habit of three to four books a week has been adequately nourished by the city’s stand-alone library, he said, but he applauds any effort to expand availability.

“It widens your horizons, and it cuts your searching down,” Crane said.

Under the new system, library users will be able to seek, find and reserve library materials online, services not available to some 40,000 holders of city library cards.

“Right now, patrons can’t, in their bunny slippers at home, place orders or holds,” Ammon said.

The switch to CIN also will create a single, systemwide library card, which appeals to library user Julie Tiger-Liegert.

“I’ve just not gone to the other libraries. Why go get a million different library cards?” said the 37-year-old Coeur d’Alene woman.

About 308,000 library records are available in the CIN, which includes public, school and special libraries as far south as Benewah County. More than 2 million additional resources are available through the Washington Idaho Network, which includes the libraries of Gonzaga University and Whitworth College, among others, Ammon said.

A fledgling courier service has been put in place to transport requested materials from one library to another, Ammon said.

Granting all North Idaho users access to books and materials is part of an overall goal: universal borrowing.

Regarded as something of a holy grail in library access, universal borrowing will allow any user, anywhere, to find a needed document, Ammon said.

“In essence, library customers don’t care where the item comes from; they just want it,” she said.

The move will also benefit the rest of the system by adding the Coeur d’Alene holdings – including a valuable collection of human rights documents – to the mix, said John Hartung, director of the Kootenai-Shoshone Area Libraries district.

“Adding the Coeur d’Alene collection will give us a broader view than we’ve had in the past,” he said.

Coeur d’Alene library officials were awarded a $37,000 grant through the federal Library and Services Technology Act and another $7,500 from the local Friends of the Library group. The remaining $5,400 in costs to join CIN will come from the library’s general budget, Ammon said.

When the Coeur d’Alene library joins CIN, it will be a symbolic act of collaboration as well as a literal one, said Joe Reiss, director of the Post Falls Public Library. For years, the Coeur d’Alene library held itself separate from the regional system, he said. With the help of Ammon, who was hired last spring, collaboration has become a priority.

“It’s a bright new day,” Reiss said. “This is the first page of where we’re headed.”