Utah County may finally get a countywide library system.

County Commissioner Gary Anderson, whose responsibilities include the county bookmobile, recently told American Fork residents that the plan for a cooperative agreement between city libraries was in the works.

Commission Chairman Larry Ellertson said the proposal has also been discussed at the Council of Governments, and it is a matter of getting cooperation among the cities.

We hope the system can be put into place soon. This is one service county residents have needed for years.

Unless you live in an incorporated city, your options to use a library are slim: Either pay for an nonresident card at the nearest public library or rely on skimpy Bookmobile service. The library cards can be expensive, up to $75 a year in some cases, while the Bookmobile's offerings are too limited to be of very great service to very many people.

So far, only Provo and Orem have an agreement to share collections.

Salt Lake County residents already enjoy a countywide library system in which residents can go to a satellite library anywhere in the valley and check out books or use other library services.

In Utah County, the city-by-city system may have worked all right when we were primarily a rural community. But the times have changed. Like it or not, Utah County is more urban, and it's time for the library system to reflect the new reality.

A free flow of books from any library to any other in the county is a good idea. Physical facilities are already in place. Past efforts to do this stumbled when cities balked. In the past, Provo and Orem officials argued that their taxpayers paid for their libraries and they should not subsidize out-of-town raiders.

But that is a narrow argument. It's just a question of how to distribute money. From a user perspective, a cooperative arrangement would make all libraries better by helping cover deficiencies in each other's collections. In short, a cooperative system would give library patrons the best of all possible worlds.

County government has long kept services to a bare minimum in the unincorporated areas, relying on special service districts or neighboring cities to provide such things as utilities, fire protection and recreation programs.

But it should make an exception for libarary services. We think the county should offer to subsidize the cost of library cards for these residents so they can have the same privilege as those who live in cities. Nonresident cards are a bad idea whose time has come and gone.

Additional money from the county could help win over cities that may be reluctant to share their collections. It would also show residents in unincorporated areas that they are not second-class citizens.

We urge the county and cities to get this plan up and running, so that everyone may receive the benefits of a first-class library system.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.

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