The Timberland Regional Library is now allowing SPSCC students who don’t live within the service areas of the TRL to get library cards.The TRL is one of the biggest libraries in Washington, which serves Grays Harbor, Lewis, Pacific, Mason, and Thurston Counties through a web of 29 libraries. 

The TRL was officially established in 1968, and is a public inter-county service run by appointees from all five involved counties, plus two additional seats usually held by one person from Thurston county, and the other from Lewis county. The appointees are selected by each county’s Board of Commissioners. It is funded through property taxes and supplemented through timber sales from state and county lands and fundraising.

The TRL offering SPSCC students who don’t live within TRL’s service area is a fantastic expansion of resources for SPSCC students and community members, especially those who wouldn’t be eligible due to their zip code. But what exactly does the TRL offer?

Claire Sandoval-Peck, A librarian at TRL said that in addition to this “certain cards offer certain privileges – for example, homeschoolers can get a separate card for school and have an extended checkout time (35 days as opposed to 21 with a basic/regular card).” If you don’t have a photo ID or a student ID, then you’ll still be able to get an internet card, but you’ll be limited on what you can borrow and or check out. For example, you wouldn’t be able to check out certain objects, tools, and utilities from the Library of Things.

Libraries are community staples and community builders with useful resources available at each location. Holly Guthrie, a librarian with the TRL, says that “libraries are some of the last places where you can go where you don’t need to buy something.” Libraries also facilitate community connection through programs, just one example being Baby Story Time. Guthrie continued in this vein, “I’ve watched them form Facebook groups for parents, and it ends up where they get coffee every week…when one of the kids has a birthday they get together…they wouldn’t have that connection if they weren’t able to come to story time.”  

The SPSCC library is also a major community builder on the Olympia campus. Kaylee Harrington, one of the librarians at SPSCC, says that libraries transitioned from gatekeepers of information to public places for self-education and community.

Both academic and public libraries provide a massive amount of resources for free if you live within the service range of the TRL. Printing, access to the scholarly databases like EBSCO and Gale in Context, and far more are all open to regular TRL card holders. SPSCC also offers access to ProQuest, Films on Demand, CREDO, Gale Virtual Reference Library, and so much more. Harrington notes that the SPSCC library gets digital books that are ‘unlimited use’, meaning that there is no limit to the number of people who can check out a particular book. In comparison, while TRL has digital books, they are not of unlimited use.

The SPSCC library isn’t just limited to students; if you are a community member in the area then you are eligible to get a community library card with SPSCC! There are more restrictions with this card than a student card. A community member is limited to checking out 5 books at a time and cannot check out any non-book media like DVDs, CDs or magazines, and they can’t remotely check-out material from their homes. You also can’t reserve study rooms if you are a community member.

Harrington also notes that libraries offer different resources depending on what kind of library they are. Academic or college libraries like SPSCC’s library will primarily have a wide range of textbooks, resources, articles and information that is useful for students or researchers. For public libraries, like TRL, there will be a more developed fiction section and will be more up-to-date than an academic library. “We will take a little more time to make sure that we are getting new, good updated information, not just what got published last month.”

Another benefit to TRL card holders is reciprocal cards. Guthrie said that if you take your TRL library card you can gain access to other public libraries in other cities. TRL has agreements with Pierce County, Seattle Public Library, Sno-Isle, Kitsap Regional, and King County Library, with some variation and different requirements on how you can get reciprocal cards.

This is a great expansion of resources for SPSCC students of all kinds, as students can access a variety of resources depending on their academic or personal needs.