With agreement from all three councils it has been decided that the existing cooperative arrangement will cease on June 30.

The decision by Yass Valley Council to exit the library cooperative was made after Goulburn Mulwaree Council proposed a substantial fee increase to offset unexpected corporate overhead charges. The additional cost that was proposed by Goulburn Mulwaree Council led to a financial review of the Yass Valley Library service. The review revealed that it was possible to deliver services and programs independently of the Southern Tablelands Library Cooperative (STLC) in a more cost efficient manner.

“Changes to our current service levels will be minimal as we will continue to provide our mobile library service to our villages, Murrumbateman Library Branch, provide access to our online resources and our regular library activities,” said Yass Valley Mayor, Rowena Abbey. “We are dedicated to ensuring that any books or resources missing from our independent collection are made available to our members.”

By becoming an independent library service, Yass Valley will be able to provide a more efficient service, with opportunity for library staff to focus on services relevant to our residents, including:

“Whilst we cannot hold every book ever published we can widen our chances of finding what our members want by requesting it from another library service within Australia,” said Yass Valley Library coordinator, Michelle Manderson. “This fantastic inter-library loan service will continue to be offered to our members after 30 June 2017.”

“We are also excited to announce that we are taking this opportunity to implement a new online catalogue system called LIBERO.”