Utah County library system effort rekindled
Saratoga Springs mayor hopes to link services
When he moved to Saratoga Springs eight years ago, Parker discovered that libraries in Utah County did things differently.
"I was accustomed to knowing that even though I went to the Bountiful library, I had access to a much broader collection," he said. "It was a little frustrating for me to have to look at each library as a separate institution."
The Saratoga Springs mayor hopes to change that by rekindling an effort to establish cooperative library services in the county.
"It's something I'd like to see," Parker said. "I think libraries are a vital part of the educational foundation that we have at the base of our economy and our way of life. Free access to information is really valuable."
Parker said he has spoken with most of the head librarians or library directors in Utah County over the past two months about the pros and cons of a countywide cooperation of library services.
"I really wanted to start basically gathering a lot of information about what the local needs are at each jurisdiction," he said. "What I've found is there is a real desire to basically broaden the ability of county residents to be able to access different library collections."
"I think one of the things we really need to protect is the ability of the local libraries to remain local," Parker said.
Another concern is cost, though Parker said numbers aren't available because the process is still in the early stages of analysis.
Still, the issue of cost was raised in November when Jim Cooper, director of Salt Lake County Library Services, met with Utah County elected officials to answer questions about the operations of a countywide library system.
"If you're looking for a way to save money, (a countywide library system) probably isn't for you," Cooper told the Utah County Council of Governments (COG), made up of the county commissioners and mayors from the county's cities.
The reason to implement a countywide library system, he said, is to better serve library users.
Cost is one of the reasons previous proposals for a countywide library system in Utah County have failed, Parker said.
"It's come up every decade or so as a proposition, and it's always sunk back into the mist because of the difficulty of overcoming all of the problems that come from trying to get all of these well-established systems working together," Parker said.
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