DES MOINES, Iowa — Nearly 12,000 Des Moines Public Schools students will benefit from a new partnership with the Des Moines Public Library.

The school district and the library entered a partnership for 7th-12th graders at DMPS to use their students’ identification cards as DMPL library cards.

This gives those students access to the nearly 416,000 resources that the library has to offer. This includes physical books, digital books, homework help, learning kits, test prep, and other tools, both in-person and online.

Marketing and communications manager for DMPL, Aaron Gernes, said that this is an expedited process for kids who may be worried about filling out information and going through the process.

“You have to sign your name, your address, your parents’ name, all that,” Gernes said. “And, you know, DMPS already has that information. So what we were able to do is just say, you don’t have to worry about that, you belong… so they come in and they have their student ID. All they have to do is go grab the book that they want and get on the computer, and they can utilize our computers here.”

For people not included in this partnership, it is library card sign-up month at the Des Moines Public Library. Anyone living in the state of Iowa is eligible for a free library card. To sign up, those interested can find any of the six DMPL locations in Des Moines. For more information on signing up for a library card, click here.