PROVO — To hear some people talk, the formation of a countywide library system in Utah County is going to happen just about the time that pigs fly. But some officials in northern parts of the valley aren't willing to wait for that to happen to create library-resource partnerships with other cities.

Lehi, American Fork, Pleasant Grove and Eagle Mountain have decided to put into place a reciprocal borrowing program in which residents may use their library cards at each of the involved cities' libraries.

By this fall, librarians in those four cities expect to have a system in place that will allow them to view each others' catalogues and permit residents to check books out of their neighboring city's library.

"We talked about a countywide system and whether it was a possibility or not," said Lehi library director Kristi Seely. "In the end, it really seemed like it wasn't a possibility at (this) point in time. It was after that that we started meeting and saying, 'What if even just ... (American Fork, Pleasant Grove and Lehi) could get something where we let other people use the system?' ... I know a lot of people feel like it's such a basic expectation, when you move into a community, that there will be a library."

Then Seely said, the library directors from those three cities and Eagle Mountain met for about a year and a half to establish a system that each city would be "happy and comfortable" with.

Although the libraries in Lehi, Pleasant Grove and American Fork are bigger than the library in Eagle Mountain, the young-but-growing city was invited to be involved in the effort because "we felt, of all the communities surrounding us, Eagle Mountain was the only one that had the foresight to see the importance of having a library and (is) actively working towards having a (bigger) library," Seely said.

Still, because Eagle Mountain's library is so much smaller than the other cities' libraries, Eagle Mountain residents will be required to pay $35 to participate in the reciprocal sharing program.

Residents who live in cities without a certified library can pay $70 to their nearest local library to receive a card that will give them access to all of the libraries in the system.

"Really, it's a bargain for everybody because all of the residents who have a library now will have three others that we can go to at no additional fee," Seely said. "The others can pay $70 not to go to one library, but to go to four. We feel like it's a win-win situation. We hope that's they way it will be perceived throughout the rest of the communities."

As more libraries in more cities become established, Seely said they can be added to the system. Or, if the program doesn't work well, the system can be re-evaluated on a yearly basis with the option to discontinue.