We need a Universal Borrowing Privilege for all Oregon Libraries

Knowledge is power.  Libraries, especially free public libraries, are a source of knowledge and we need to do everything possible to encourage their use.  I am advocating that Oregon adopt a Universal Borrowing Privilege similar to the one in place in California.  Effectively, this allows every Oregon resident of a district which has a public library to be able obtain borrowing privileges from any other Oregon public library.  Since many of the resources loaned by libraries are now electronic, allowing residents to get library cards at other libraries can smooth out demand for electronic resources.  Also, if you happen to live on the edge of a jurisdiction, this would make it possible to access the library closest to you if it happened to be in another jurisdiction.  Further, this can allow a library to justify establishing a narrowly targeted collection since this now may be accessed by all Oregon residents.  Already, the Inter-Library Loan system does something similar with physical books and a number of libraries have established reciprocity agreements amongst themselves.  The proposed change would simply make these reciprocity agreements universal across all of Oregon automatically.  This can be simply enacted by adding to ORS section 357 wording similar from California Law Sections 20204 and 20205, with just a couple of editorial change, reproduced below:

ยง20204: (a) Public libraries participating in direct loan programs under this Act shall not charge any fee to non residents for borrowing privileges.

(b) Reserves and interlibrary loan requests shall be accepted by the participating public library under the same rules and policies applied to local residents.

(c) All procedures governing registration of borrowers shall apply equally to residents and non-residents.

(d) All materials normally loaned by a participating public library are available for loan to non-residents under the same rules and policies applied to local residents.

(e) All loan and return rules governing circulation apply equally to residents and nonresidents. If overdue material are returned to a library other than the library from which borrowed, fines may be paid to and retained by the library to which the return is made. Payments for lost or damaged materials are payable to the lending library, and are to be forwarded by the library to which payment is made.

(f) Special loan privileges extended by the participating public library to teachers and other groups within its jurisdiction need not be extended beyond the jurisdiction.

ยง20205: An eligible non-resident borrower must be a resident of California,

(a) Hold a valid borrowers card issued by their home library, or

(b) Hold or obtain a valid non-resident borrowers card issued by any California public library, or

(c) Hold a valid state borrowers identification card issued by any California public library;

(d) And present any additional identification normally required by a library of its own residents.

(e) Nothing in this section shall prevent the issuing of a non-resident card or charging of fees to a resident of another state, except that loans to such non-residents shall not be counted as reimbursable transactions.

I strongly urge that you write to your State Senator, State Representative and the Governor of Oregon to express your support to pass legislation to give Oregonians a Universal Borrowing Privilege.  Here's a link where you can find their email addresses:

https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/FindYourLegislator/leg-districts.html