Staff outline rollout plan after city councils approve three‑way shared library arrangement

Library staff reported that the three‑jurisdiction shared‑library agreement — which relies on California Library Services Act channels and participation in the Pacific Library Partnership (PLP) delivery service — has cleared partner councils and is moving into implementation steps.

Staff said the agreement appeared on partner councils’ consent calendars and was approved by several jurisdictions; the next administrative step is signature routing through city managers or administrators. Staff emphasized the need to standardize loan rules, patron types and hold/circulation periods before public rollout.

Operational details: the shared catalog will use a Koha database; Carmel must upload its bibliographic records and the partners will test patron‑app authentication across their card prefixes. The courier service that currently handles deliveries through a PLP vendor is increasing rates with CPI; staff estimated the annual courier bill will rise by about $1,000 total and be split three ways, raising each partner’s share modestly.

Staff described a schedule of weekly implementation meetings, training for frontline staff, and a transition period before the public will see external catalog records from Carmel. Questions about exact launch timing and vendor bandwidth were raised; staff said the go‑live target is early 2026 after training and data uploads are complete.