Saturday, July 11, 2009

New Passport Office

Tired of standing in line for your passport application and photo at the post office?

You are in luck.

The East Columbia branch of the Howard County library has been officially designated a Passport Acceptance Facility by the U.S. Department of State. Beginning August 10th, the general public will able to apply for passports and purchase passport photos at this branch of the library system.

Why is this better than the post office?

Unlike the post office, if there is a line at the passport desk at the library you will be given a pager so you can browse the library or sit and read a book while you wait. How good is that?

The new library passport desk will officially open on August 10th and the hours will be Monday through Thursday, 3 pm to 7 pm and Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm.

A wag of the wordbones tail goes out to Jessie X for bringing this item to Tales of Two Cities.

3 comments:

Bob O said...

Good to hear about the shortcut for passports. In another shout out for HoCo, have you been up to Alpha Ridge Landfill and recycling center lately (technically known as "the dump")? They've rearranged things, and really did a nice job, particularly up top in the lawn and wood waste area. Courteous and helpful staff there, too. It's worth checking out if you're cleaning out your garage or cutting back some brush. Really.

Anonymous said...

Is the library/County getting compensated for hosting/processing this duplication of services only 2 miles from an existing facility?

Putting applicants for (typically) distant tourism into the same queue as library patrons in need of typical library-specific services seems odd. Are we wasting staff time (trained and paid to run a library) to process this unrelated paperwork instead?

What's next: "I'm rich, so I should expect any gov employee to drop their specific function and instead give me what I want right now for my exotic vacation, give me a latte while I wait, and make sure it doesn't have too much foam this time"?

This seems to fall right in line with your proposing reserved, preferred parking for SUVs at the movie theater.

Freemarket said...

I think this is a good idea. What's involved in getting approved to issue passports? I am surprised more places besides the post office aren't doing it.