Kenai Community Library card holders will soon be able to access books from across the state; the library has received several grants which will cover the cost of joining the new state-wide consortium.
Director Mary Jo Joiner said they’ll be easing into the new system over the next few months…
Joiner: “Library card holders in Kenai will be able to put holds on things in Anchorage and get them, the people in Anchorage won’t be able to raid our collections at first until we get used to the whole process and how to do it. They’ve done this with putting in the Juneau and the Mat-Su libraries and seems to have worked really well so they have worked the kinks out of how to get it up and going.”
Joiner said the library will save time and money by being part of the system, cutting down on staff time currently spend on tracking and requesting books from other collections. On the other side of the equation…
Joiner: “Postage will go up except that we’re paying postage now for inter-library loans so I think initially there will be a huge rush and there will be a real spike in postage but I think it will settle down.”
Kenai will be included in this next phase of the catalog’s expansion. Soldotna Public Library uses a different software system, so they will have to wait a little longer to be added.
