The Joint-Use Library in Carrboro: Bringing Together Orange County Public Library and Chapel-Hill/Carrboro City Schools

Abstract

Joint-use libraries have been created to share resources, reduce facilities costs, and more efficiently serve patrons. There have been several notable examples in the news. In the summer of 2013, a joint-use facility opened in Virginia Beach, a partnership between the Virginia Beach Public Library and the Tidewater Community College, whose campus houses the facility.2 A decade before that, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library opened in San Jose, merging the San José Main Public Library with the San Jose State University Library.3 But did you know that North Carolina has had a joint-use library in Carrboro for some 20 years?