PROVO — Utah County mayors will be meeting with city library administrators in coming weeks to explore the creation of a countywide library card.

The Utah County Council of Governments, which includes mayors from across the county and the three county commissioners, formed a library committee last year to look into the feasibility of a single countywide library system. The committee has suggested the countywide card as a "first step" toward more integrated library services.

"The situation today is that we have several independent libraries in the county, and for the most part, those collections are cataloged separately and maintained entirely independently," said Saratoga Springs Mayor Tim Parker, a member of the library committee. "Each library is independently financed by the sole municipality in a variety of different ways."

Currently if Utah County residents want to use a library outside their city, they must pay a user fee, ranging $25-$75, to each city library they wish to use. Several cities, including Cedar Hills, Alpine, Highland and Lindon, do not have city libraries, and, upon request, will reimburse a portion of the user fee residents pay to other cities.

A county library card would enable county residents to pay a common fee to access all city libraries in the county. Parker outlined several steps mayors would need to take to enable such a system.

"For this to happen, there needs to be an interlocal agreement — an equitable, realistic fee needs to be calculated — and for it to work, there needs to be a uniform method of tracking and reporting library use," he said.

Provo Mayor Lewis Billings encouraged the committee to look into the matter but questioned whether communities couldn't work out a less costly alternative, similar to the shared privileges arrangement that exists between the Orem and Provo libraries.

"The thing I want to do here is make sure that every kid that wants access to a book has it," Billings said. "But I'm wondering why this couldn't be worked out on a community-to-community basis. It'd be very easy to set up a county Web page with access to all of the directories."

Provo Library director Gene Nelson said a countywide card could negatively impact Provo residents.

"I think the most difficult task we might have is coming up with the idea of a level cost that will be a fair cost across the board," Nelson said. "Most of our budget — probably a good 75 percent — comes from a dedicated property tax that is levied for the support of the Provo Library. What can the other libraries offer to the Provo residents that will make it worth their while to allow anyone to use their library?"