Bella Vista library named a top 10 borrower, lender

BELLA VISTA — The Bella Vista Public Library was recently named a top 10 borrower and lender of the Mockingbird virtual catalog system.

Mockingbird is a service of the Arkansas State Library that connects participating Arkansas libraries for inter-library loans of materials, according to Bella Vista Public Library Assistant Director Amanda Gibson.

“Anyone can go onto it and search for what library has what they’re looking for, and they come to us and fill out the paperwork for an inter-library loan,” she said.

The website address is arsl. agshareit. com. At this time, 52 libraries in the state are participating. Gibson said the service is fairly new, and the Bella Vista Public Library has only been participating since September.

“The first running of it was in June, and because of summer reading, we didn’t sign up the first time,” she said. “It’s pretty new. Right at the beginning of summer reading, that’s our busiest time. But we joined the second one [in September].”

Gibson said the most commonly sought-for items are large- print books that the Bella Vista Public Library formerly had but that were damaged or cannot be reordered.

“It’s helped us out, and it’s helped the patrons out,” she said.

Regarding being named a top 10 borrower and lender, Gibson said, “I was very proud, especially since those statistics were from June when it first started, and we didn’t even join in until the fall. I’m glad our patrons are using it. We try hard to get every item the public wants. We can’t get all of it, and this really fills that need.”

She added, “Before Mockingbird we’ve been unable to share our items with other libraries. This is the first time in several years we’ve been able to share our collection with other libraries. This kind of makes me feel better about, not only are we using other libraries, but other libraries are using us as well. I just kind of feel if we’re going to be asking that of other libraries we need to provide it. It’s a little more balanced.”