Students Spared from $80 Library Card for Non-Residents

Pay $80 a year for a library card? The Cupertino Library and its counterparts in the county library system will ask patrons living outside their cities to do just that starting July 1. With one exception.

On Thursday, the Joint Powers Authority Board, in response to public outcry, voted unanimously to exempt students who attend schools whose districts overlap with the boundaries of the Santa Clara County Library District.

For example, students who attend any one of 25 schools in the , regardless of where they live, will be eligible for a free limited student card valid for one year.

The school district covers six cities (including Saratoga and Los Altos), but a portion of them were not in the library district. That included Santa Clara, south Sunnyvale and west San Jose, said Mayor Gilbert Wong, who sits on the JPA.

"It's a trial period," he said. "We can try it out and massage it later."

A discussion about whether to extend the eligibility of the students to college was shot down, because community colleges, such as De Anza have their own libraries. 

In the end, the board members agreed that students from preschool to the 12th grade will be eligible for a one-year limited use library card, good for five checked out items and computer access. Students will be required to provide proof of their student status. Private school students are also eligible.

While most libraries in the county system require a card and PIN to use computers and wireless internet, Cupertino will be one of three to offer wireless without a card, as a result of its close vicinity to the city center.

By charging residents who live outside the city boundaries for internet and materials in the Cupertino Library, the Santa Clara County Library system will forgo state reimbursement for items checked out by those patrons.

"State funding has been going downhill for a decade," said Melinda Cervantes, county librarian. 

It costs the library system about $3 per item checked out, but the state is now reimbursing about 15 cents per item.

The decision to charge is "against the principle of a public library," said Jean Mordo, a Los Altos Hills councilmember, who sits on the Joint Powers Authority Board. "It should be free. Period." 

Mordo said the Los Altos Library would look for a mechanism in which they could pay for the cards for non-Los Altos residents.