Regional library consortium members vote to dissolve Cooperative Information Network
Members of North Idaho’s interlibrary loan consortium have decided to dissolve the Cooperative Information Network that has shared materials with patrons across the region for more than 40 years.
Amid disputes with its largest member, the Community Library Network, the boards of each of the other 14 libraries in the last month have voted to dissolve the consortium, Cooperative Information Network Chair Meagan Mize said.
The Cooperative Information Network’s board, comprising each library’s director representing their library board by proxy, will meet Wednesday to make the vote official. The organization is expected to dissolve Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
The Cooperative Information Network has library members from Bonner, Kootenai, Shoshone and Benewah counties in Idaho, as well as the city of Liberty Lake and Pend Oreille County in Washington. If the consortium dissolves, patrons from these libraries would no longer be able to borrow books from the other libraries in the network. Many of these libraries are small and rural, so losing access would greatly diminish the number of available titles in their catalogs.
The Osburn Public Library board first proposed dissolving the CIN as a way to avoid a potential lawsuit it believes the Community Library Network is planning to file against CIN, Osburn Library Director Jamee Sperry said at CIN’s June 18 meeting in Coeur d’Alene.
“I just wanted to bring forth the idea that since we are in the place that we’re at, where we have so many things going on and we’re picking up the paper and we’re reading things about one group wants to sue us and we’re going through all of these things that are rather contentious,” a recording of the meeting shows Sperry saying.
The Community Library Network oversees libraries in Kootenai County outside of Coeur d’Alene, as well as Pinehurst Library in Shoshone County. CLN Director Martin Walters requested to reschedule a phone interview with The Spokesman-Review on Friday afternoon, but did not answer at that time or call back.
A May 16 article in the Coeur d’Alene Press reported CLN trustees mentioning discussions in executive session about possible legal action against CIN.
Sperry said she believes the potential lawsuit might be based on CLN’s interpretation of Idaho’s Children’s School and Library Protection Act. The new law went into effect last year and requires libraries to relocate “materials harmful to minors to an area with adult access only” within 60 days of a minor or their parent or legal guardian requesting the material be relocated.
Officials from other CIN libraries say CLN’s new policies go beyond what the law requires. Sperry said that distributing obscene materials to minors was already illegal and none of CIN’s members are violating the law.
Meanwhile, CIN had been attempting to rewrite its joint powers agreement after learning last year that its original incorporation in 1984 made technical legal errors that might make the organization invalid as a legal entity.
The consortium planned to reincorporate with a new joint powers agreement and rebrand as “Inland Northwest Libraries.”
But this process coincided with the controversial shifts in policy by CLN. In January, CLN’s board voted to restrict its nearly 9,000 library cards belonging to minors from placing holds on CIN’s catalog. At the same time, minor library cards from other CIN members cannot check out books from CLN’s mature content collection.
The policy has not yet been implemented since CLN’s IT department is programming the restrictions on the online catalog system, Koha.
Walters argued in previous meetings that these changes do not restrict other CIN members, but are simply meant to prevent CLN from directly distributing harmful materials to minors. CLN minors could still check out books from other CIN libraries as long as they visit those libraries in-person.
Other CIN members said they were blindsided by the policy and that it violated the spirit of the current joint powers agreement of sharing equal access to each other’s materials. CIN members in Washington took particular issue with the restrictions because they said they are not bound by Idaho law.
Several directors at the June CIN meeting said avoiding the risk of a patron suing CIN for apparent complicity in CLN’s overly restrictive policies is another reason to dissolve.
Over recent months, Walters and the CLN board resisted signing off on the new joint powers agreement, saying the new draft language is substantially different from the old agreement.
Other library directors expressed similar concerns and had planned to ask their boards to suggest edits to the agreement over the coming months. But the minor card policy and reports of litigation exacerbated worries that CLN was not acting in good faith.
“From my perspective it is due to the roadblocks we have had with rebranding or moving forward on a new joint powers agreement,” Coeur d’Alene Library Director Elizabeth Westenburg said in an email.
Sperry said at the meeting that dissolving would be simpler and fairer than individual libraries withdrawing. According to the current joint powers agreement, if a library withdraws it must give 180 days advance notice and would not be entitled to recover money it paid into CIN.
Mize, who is also the director of the West Bonner Library District in Priest River, said if CIN dissolves, money remaining in its bank account would be equitably redistributed to each member. CIN owns no physical assets, she said.
The CLN board was the only member library board that has not voted on whether to dissolve, Mize said. Walters has abstained from voting in previous CIN meetings because he said CIN’s current joint powers agreement states that the library boards make up the governing body of CIN, not the library directors.
The Cooperative Information Network board is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Coeur d’Alene Public Library to officially vote on the dissolution and discuss plans for redistributing assets.