Home → Student Access Initiative → Student Access → Student Access Overview
Last Updated 08/21/2023
Accounts for students and teachers will be added to the patron database for participating libraries automatically. These new Student Access (School) accounts utilize the school identification number as the patron barcode, are assigned to the School permission group, and do not replace existing library patron cards for students or teachers. Student Access/School accounts should never be merged with another patron account.
If a Student Access patron requests a standard library card so that they may have access to materials they cannot circulate with their Student Access account (as noted below), staff should create a new, separate library account using their standard barcode range and assign it to the appropriate patron permission group (usually Juvenile/Teen for students or Adult for teachers), as they normally would for any other patron. In short, when a library system is participating in the Student Access program, students and teachers within the system may now have two patron records, a standard (Juvenile/Teen/Adult) library account and the new Student Access account assigned to the permission group of School.
Public, charter, and private schools are all welcome to join the program. Ideally, the students and staff of private and charter schools will have DPI issued IDs, to ensure that there is no duplication within Cardinal. If the school does not have DPI issued IDs, please discuss with a Cardinal team member to come to an agreement on how to modify the IDs (e.g. with a prefix or suffix) to ensure lack of duplication.
In the summer of 2023, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) implemented a new process for Public School Unit (PSU) third party vendor integration that aligned with the North Carolina Department of Information Technology (DIT) data security standards for third party integrations with state systems. This new process involved the addition of a not insignificant number of new documents to be signed and procedures to be followed before third parties could be integrated with state systems. This understandably led to some confusion and concern among school systems and member libraries.
However, because NC Cardinal is also a state agency operating under these same DIT guidelines, we are exempt from these additional requirements. Therefore nothing has changed for member libraries and school systems with regard to how they implement or take part in the Student Access program. A document listing NC Cardinal as exempt from this process can be found here, and member libraries may wish to share it with school systems. You will find NC Cardinal listed under "Student Data Integrations" beneath question 1.