Tacoma, Pierce Cty. Try Reciprocation

Tacoma Public Library (TPL) will enter into a 15-month trial reciprocal borrowing agreement with the Pierce County Library System (PCLS), also headquartered in Tacoma, beginning July 1. TPL serves a community of just under 200,000, TPL spokesperson David Domkoski told LJ, while the surrounding system serves a population more than twice as large. PCLS proposed the arrangement, thinking “it would be good government,” said Domkoski, as “people are more mobile now.”

TPL's Board of Trustees apparently agreed, voting unanimously to do away with the current system in which a TPL card costs $56 annually for nonresidents and a PCLS card costs $121 per year for an entire family. The two systems haven't had reciprocal borrowing since 1979. Now cards issued by each system can be used in both, but books must be returned to the system from which they were borrowed. TPL has ten locations, PCLS has 18, and it already has reciprocal agreements with seven other library systems.