White Co Library Now Offering Passport Services

Passport services have been added to the White County Public Library.

Director Cathy Farley said the library will have four passport agents that can renew or create a passport by appointment.

“There’s no other facility around us that accepts passports that is open as many hours as we are right now,” Farley said. “That’s what we were hoping especially for students in school. I wanted to give people another option to do it another way.”

Farley said two residents have already used the system since opening Tuesday. Farley said the state provided the training and technology to library workers for free.

“We receive the passport acceptance fees that goes to us, so it is actually a stream of revenue for us,” Farley said. “It’s not that lucrative. It is more about providing another service.”

Farley said the service was once offered by the county’s clerk office, but it has discontinued. Farley said after having to take her daughter to a neighboring county to renew her passport, that’s when she looked into the establishing the service.

“I had to go to Cookeville and it was on a court day,” Farley said. “It was hard, so I started thinking can we do that at the library? And I got to checking on it and sure enough we could.”

Farley said the library however cannot complete the photo portion of the passport. Farley said you must go to places such as Walgreen’s to do that. Farley said you can get your passport application online or at the public library.