Foley offers new home for Baldwin County Library Cooperative

By GUY BUSBY
Government Editor
guy@gulfcoastmedia.com
Posted 12/9/22

BAY MINETTE — The Baldwin County Library Cooperative could be moving to a new home in Foley after several months without one.A proposal is being worked out by the BCLC, county commission and …

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Foley offers new home for Baldwin County Library Cooperative

Posted

BAY MINETTE — The Baldwin County Library Cooperative could be moving to a new home in Foley after several months without one.

A proposal is being worked out by the BCLC, county commission and city of Foley. Baldwin County Commissioner Billie Jo Underwood said the city has offered space for the cooperative in its current library and would provide facilities for the system in its new library planned to open in two years.

"They have graciously offered space to the Baldwin County Library Cooperative," Underwood said.

County officials said an agreement would have to be drafted and approved by the commission and Foley City Council as well as the cooperative before the move could take place. They said the process would take until at least January.

The cooperative moved from its former location to a leased facility in Loxley in December 2021. In July, the commission voted to cancel that lease. The staff recommendation that the county cancel the lease said conditions in the Loxley building were "unsafe and unsanitary."

The cooperative had operated from an office in the Baldwin County Annex in Robertsdale for about 20 years before moving to the Loxley location in December.

Underwood said that since the lease was canceled, the cooperative has not been able to carry out many of its functions.

"The library cooperative, one of their main functions, their No. 1 function, is to serve the people," Underwood said. "No. 2 is we have 13 municipal libraries, and there is an interlibrary loan program that goes on and this big card catalog that the BCLC houses. It's very expensive for any one library to do all these things, and that's why the cooperative exists and why it functions as it does."

John Jackson, Foley library director, said the cooperative operates a courier system that allows the municipal libraries to loan books around Baldwin County.

"Our main concern is that the courier runs, and over the past few years it hasn't run on a consistent basis," Jackson said. "What that does is it puts all of the 13 libraries behind and puts us in a bad situation with our own patrons when the courier can't run. By allowing the housing of the cooperative in Foley, we will make sure that the courier runs because what we'll offer is an emergency backup. If the courier is not going to run on a particular day, we'll make sure that we have somebody to make the run."

Jackson said the city will offer the space at no charge. The county had been leasing the Loxley building for $1,200 a month, according to reports.

Jackson said the city is building a new library that should be open in two years. He said the new library will have facilities for the cooperative. Until then, Foley will provide space in the current library building.

"We'll have to make do with space right now, but within two years, almost exactly two years, we'll have a new building and will incorporate space in there for the cooperative, so they'll have room to sort their books," Jackson said. "They'll have a room for their bags. They'll have an office space. So, they'll have plenty of room to do what they need to do and this gives them a permanent home so they're not wandering around hoping to have a permanent home somewhere."

He said the cooperative's central catalog and loan program allows all libraries in Baldwin County to expand the number of books and other material available to residents.

"None of the local libraries can afford this online library catalog by themselves," Jackson said. "Each one pays per capita, based on their local population for that catalog and without that none of us could afford that, especially the smaller libraries, but with that each of us gets access to over 500,000 titles. For us, without it, we would have access to 87,000, and if you're talking about Loxley, Silverhill, they've only got access to a few thousand copies, so they are really doing a service to their patrons."

He said the Foley library also has meeting space with library directors, cooperative workers and board members can meet.

"As it stands right now, everyone gains by us having a very effective cooperative working," Jackson said.

Underwood said the county will also still support the cooperative even through it will be housed in a Foley building.

"It's not that we would not continue to support the BCLC, but they would have a new home in Foley and it would not be a working library," she said. "They would continue to do every service that they do except having an actual brick and mortar building where people come in and check out books."

Underwood said the Baldwin County Library Cooperative is one of the few library cooperatives in Alabama.

"We've got 67 counties. There's only just a handful, only maybe two or three that actually have a cooperative," Underwood said.

Commissioner Charles "Skip" Gruber said the agreement would be good for the cooperative and the county.

"I think it's going to be a good move," Gruber said. "It gives them a home and the city of Foley is more than willing to help out and make it work."