The State Park Centennial Annual Pass Library Check-out Program is a partnership between Indiana State Parks and the Indiana State Library  to encourage people to visit libraries and parks. The Indiana State Library helped pay for the program and distributed one state park pass to each of the 240 public library systems in the state.

The parks passes, which provide access to Indiana’s thirty-two state parks and also to Indiana’s state forest recreation areas are only available for checkout from January 1-December 31, 2016. The Indiana Public Library listserv has been alive with discussion about how each library is handling circulation policies for this unique program.

Some libraries have chosen to purchase additional park passes to meet patron demand. The Indianapolis Public Library is purchasing additional state park passes and the passes check out for one week at a time. The passes are sure to be in constant circulation. As of January 19, there were 173 requests for the passes at Indianapolis Public Library. It’s a win-win for the library: patrons are happy with the new perk, and it’s bringing in new patrons interested in the state parks who, in turn, can learn more about the library.

“I’m just amazed at the popularity of this initiative,” said Mike Williams, Area Resource Manager at the Indianapolis Public Library. “My family has always enjoyed using our Indiana State Park Pass, but I never thought about circulating one to Library patrons. Clearly there’s a huge demand for this type of service. I’m glad the State Parks are celebrating with all of the public libraries in Indiana.”

Resources:

Indiana State Library Partners with Indiana State Parks to Offer Pass “Check-Out” Program at All Public Libraries, InfoDocket.

Library program lets you “check-out” state parks, Indiana Department of Natural Resources

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Even though Connecticut’s situation is unique compared to most of the country, the concept of state e-book collections is not unusual. Reading Arizona is a program being developed that allow state residents, based on IP address, access to a standalone website to check out e-books. Somewhere down the line the program hopes to provide MARC records to local libraries to allow integration of titles to individual library systems. “What makes Reading Arizona unique is that all content will be specifically focused on Arizona topics and themes,” states Digital Content Coordinator Michelle Bickert of Arizona State Library. This could include popular fiction set in the state as well as academic material.

Evoke Colorado is in the early stages of a similar program for its state’s libraries. The goal is to have content for all types of libraries in the state. “Down the road, the platform is envisioned to simply be…a place where thousands of publishers can directly sell their content to libraries, where collection development librarians can select and manage e-books and other e-content, and where end users can discover e-content,” states Jim Duncan, executive director of the Colorado Library Consortium.  At some point, there might even be a variety of content that includes e-books, e-audiobooks, movies, videos, and more.

Such an undertaking does take time, funds, and patience to cover new technological ground. Challenges have included convincing stakeholders at all levels that these projects are good for their patrons. Finding the right collaborators to not only create a central location for the e-material to be stored but also to maintain that location over a period of time can be a daunting task. But leaders within both programs seem focused on the outcome of providing rich and diverse e-content for their state’s patrons. “We want to carefully manage development so that it meets the needs of Colorado libraries first,” says Duncan.

Both programs are still working on preliminary steps and may have some testing available this fall. Check both websites for the latest info.

The post Two States Creating State-Wide Library E-book Collections first appeared on Public Libraries Online.