Jefferson County Library Cooperative

The Jefferson County Library Cooperative, a library consortium of 40 municipal public libraries in Jefferson County, Alabama, will increase its capacity to engage more broadly with and better serve the community. The libraries share a unified catalogue and have access to centralized information technology infrastructure and support. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the community's expectations of library service from providing centralized, in-person services to decentralized access points, microservices, and a seamless digital experience. To better serve patrons' needs, the cooperative will hire a new staff member to coordinate communication between member libraries. The staff member also will liaise with the cooperative's library software administrator to reduce wait times for resolving patron access and eligibility issues and expediate patron fulfillment of interlibrary requests.