Our city has many families who struggle to find adequate income, safe housing and reliable transportation. Children from these families are the least likely to visit a public library. IndyPLSS brings the IndyPL to the one place all children have access to: school. Sharing collections with each other and borrowing from IndyPL allows schools to leverage their scarce resources. By providing access to IndyPL’s more than 2 million item collection through a child’s school, IndyPL removes a barrier to reading, access and knowledge.

Because IndyPLSS results in a shared catalog, students and teachers can quickly and easily find materials in the IndyPLSS across the city. Students use their IndyPL library card to borrow material from their school or request it from other IndyPLSS members. IndyPL delivers and picks up materials from IndyPLSS members daily. A new initiative, Axis 360 Community Share, allows IndyPL to share downloadable audiobooks and ebooks with schools, while schools have the ability to limit the sharing of their own e-materials.

IndyPLSS aims to eliminate barriers to access all of IndyPL’s resources. The model adds 477,662 items to the shared catalog. Over the last five school years, this convenient model has resulted in 1.9 million in IndyPLSS total circulation, 385,307 circulations of IndyPL materials, while also allowing other patrons to borrow 120,243 items from IndyPLSS members. IndyPLSS library staff have added 20,314 new library patrons during that same time frame while maintaining current records on all students in their schools.