Calvin Tam can be found in the library almost everyday, doing all sorts of work, be it reading the various books and newspapers or studying. Tam uses the library because it is a private place with plenty of room and ample amounts of tables and chairs to lounge in.

“It’s a very good place to study,” Tam said. “I come here quite often…about three times a week.”

The Skyline College library doesn’t just cater to students like Tam though, it is a part of the Peninsula Library system, which consists of 36 different library sites, including the libraries at Skyline, Cañada, and College of San Mateo. Being a part of the PLS, the Skyline library is open to the public and all their books are a part of the online catalogue used by the library system to move books from any of the libraries in the system to another.

“Our first priority is to support the courses taught on campus,” said Tom Hewitt, Library Director at Skyline. “We are looking at it [the library] from an academic subject point of view. We are a public library in the sense we are open to the public.”

Even though the library has a focus on academics, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have content that is interesting or original. Hewitt mentioned that because of the academic atmosphere they tend to not have much in popular fiction, DVDs or audio content however because the library is a part of the library system, any number of those medium can be sent to the campus library for pick-up in a matter of days.

The campus library was brought into the PLS voluntarily by Skyline College in the late 1980s along with the other two colleges in the district. It was an opportunity for the library to get an electronic catalogue system to replace the old card catalogue.

There are other advantages to being a part of the PLS as well, including the aforementioned inter-library loaning of books. This enables a book that is only found at a library in Redwood City easily accessible to someone on campus who cannot get down to Redwood City to pick it up. Instead of being limited to approximately 50,000 books that are available at Skyline, students can access over two million books, audio content and movies. Also the already large amount of academic databases available at Skyline, get more with its subscription to the library system.

However, Skyline’s library also offers some original content of its own, including the most extensive New York Times microfilm collection, spanning back about 150 years. Skyline also keeps a collection of all the works ever published by faculty at Skyline; one of the most recent additions is Kathleen de Azevedo Feinblum’s novel, “Samba Dreamers.”

Although it may not always seem like it, the library gets a lot of business. About 100 to 150 books get sent out on loan every month, and there are shipments of books coming in and out five days a week. People from the surrounding neighborhood choose Skyline’s library as their local library as well.

“A lot of people use the system remotely,” Hewitt said.

On top of all the books coming and going, many of the librarians are part of different committees in the PLS, to enable Skyline to get a say in what goes on within the system. No matter how much the librarians have to do outside of the library they always have time to help out the students that come in.

“Customer service wise it’s pretty good,” Tam said. “They are pretty helpful.”