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Sunday, September 19, 2010

Public library service boundaries becoming blurred

“Public libraries serve a wider range of needs and objectives than most other libraries” (42)
Libraries in the Information Age
by Denise K. Fourie and David R. Dowell
It's certainly true that, unlike school and academic libraries, which served me only for as long as I maintained an affiliation with the school in question, I have relied upon public libraries for my entire life.
“The service areas of public libraries are defined by a local geographic area, usually a city or county. The lines of this traditionally defined ‘home turf’ are becoming blurred” (43)
When I moved to Lake County from the Santa Rosa area, I was surprised to learn that I was already in the system of the Lake County Library. Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma counties have a shared catalog system that allows patrons to make use of their combined library resources.

When I pull hold requests and prepare them for transport, they could be going anywhere within our three-­county system. For each of these library systems to be able to share their resources, really expands what any one library can offer to its patrons.

Beyond our three­-county system, there is also a Bay Area consortium of library systems that make books available to each other’s patrons through inter­library loan.

Composed for Cuesta College’s LIBT 101: Introduction to Library Services

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