If you can get something for free, why pay for it? That's the question some Piedmont residents are asking as the city ponders whether to continue its contractual relationship with Oakland for library services. 

Given California's philosophy of "universal lending" established during the late 1970s under Jerry Brown's previous tenure as governor, any California resident ought to be able to walk into a library within the state and get a library card to check out materials. So I decided to test the theory. 

One cold afternoon in December, I walked into the Piedmont Avenue branch library to see if I could get an Oakland Library card using my picture ID from Nevada County. 

On the day I visited, the one-room branch library was more crowded than Starbuck's. I could barely squeeze in the door past the phalanx of kindergartners piling in for their afternoon story time. The little table in the center of the one-room library was packed with patrons using free Internet services, and others sat quietly in a corner reading newspapers and magazines.

Sure enough, my application for a card was approved, and I was allowed to check out two books on a "probationary" basis. 

If I could get a card with a Nevada County residence, why couldn't Piedmont residents get one using an Alameda County address? 

The answer to that question goes to the heart of universal lending, which works a little like a poker game. You have to ante up to play. I was given a card because Nevada County has a seat at the same table as the Oakland Public Library, State Library Director Stacey Aldrich explained. 

Member libraries ante up by agreeing to make their collections available to non-city or non-county residents in exchange for, in some cases, a reimbursement from the state. The Oakland Public Library, for example, would receive $1.17 reimbursement from the state every time I check out materials as a cardholder from outside the jurisdiction. Lend a book to another jurisdiction– what's called an inter-library loan–and the state would reimburse the library $6.35, Aldrich said.

Should Piedmont decide not to renew its contract with Oakland, the city would need to either affiliate with another neighboring library or form its own library to remain a part of the system that supports universal lending.

Many California cities have chosen to form their own libraries in recent years–16 in the past decade alone–but that was an idea rejected in Piedmont more than 20 years ago when the city considered partnering with the school district to form a joint library. Tamra Hege, now President of Piedmont's League of Women Voters, was one of the school board members to kill the measure on a 3-2 vote.  Forming its own library proved too costly for Piedmont, and teaming up with the school libraries was too impractical, she said. 

In the late 1990s, the city toyed with the idea of teaming up with the San Leandro Public Library instead of Oakland. But that concept faced strong opposition because San Leandro's library is one of the few libraries that do not participate in the statewide California Library Services Association (CLSA).

"We need a library that offers universal borrowing," said Hege.

No one could readily say why Piedmont has never chosen to affiliate with the Alameda County Public Library system, which is based in Fremont with 10 branch libraries. That library has been around since 1910, back when Piedmont was a new city with just a few hundred landowners. 

Along with San Leandro, Berkeley also opted not to participate in the Alameda County library system. Berkeley's library, however, is a member of the CLSA and allows non-residents to get a library card for free. San Leandro charges a $60 annual fee to non-residents. 

In today's cyber-era, books and DVDs and the stuff of brick and mortar libraries are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to free resources. And with universal lending, that opens up huge collections to anyone living in a library jurisdiction with a seat at the CLSA table.

Get a card from the neighboring Contra Costa County Library, for example, and you would have at-home access to thousands of online databases, including the OneFile, which is like an online version of the archaic Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Within a matter of seconds, one can search–by topic, title or author–literally hundreds of thousands of published articles from trade journals to magazines such as National Geographic and Time.

It's at your fingertips, and if you're a cardholder, it's free. As the walls begin to come down on libraries, collections like these might be available statewide. Aldrich said the state is currently negotiating with vendors to create a similar service patrons can use with a debit card that would help defer the costs of the service. 

If Piedmont chooses to remain a player in that ever-expanding statewide system, the city either needs to form its own library or ante up with Oakland or Alameda County for access.