Those holding a Beverly Public Library card soon will no longer have to feel like second-class citizens when they visit libraries in other North Shore communities.

In a year during which legislators were discouraged from introducing non-budgetary issues into the debate over the state's spending plans, state Sen. Fred Berry, D-Peabody, and Rep. Mary Grant, D-Beverly, were able to add a provision to the budget requiring the Board of Library Commissioners to recertify the Beverly and Lynn libraries by Aug. 31. Both had lost their inter-library loan privileges due to cutbacks in the purchase of new materials.

Those budgets have since been restored, but the board had said the earliest they could gain recertification was next Jan. 1. Berry and Grant did not feel their constituents should have to wait that long and convinced their colleagues to include the early certification language in the fiscal 2006 budget sent to Gov. Romney.