For your convenience, you now have the option to pick up and check out your own holds.
Here’s how it works:
- Place your holds. Holds can be placed in the Library catalog or app. You can also give your Library staff at the Information desks a call at 262-532-8900 to place a hold for you.
- Wait for the notification that your hold is ready for pickup. Log in to your patron account to monitor the status of your holds and to change how you’re notified. Email, text and automated phone call are your options.
- Visit your Library during regular hours. There is so much to do. Grab something from Latitude Café, use the computers, make something in the Forge. Take a look at the event calendar.
- Locate your holds. Holds are kept on the first floor, just off the lobby. They are shelved alphabetically by your last name and labeled with the first 4 letters of your last name, first letter of your first name, and first letter of your middle name, if provided. Signs are posted to remind you of this format. Special collection items will still be held and checked out with staff at the checkout desk. These include items like Wi-Fi hotspots, video games and some equipment.
- Take your items to the self-checkout. The Library has 3 self-checkouts you can use. One in the open holds area, one at the checkout desk and one in the Children’s Library. Staff are also available to assist you at the checkout desk.
- Scan your Library Card. You can use your digital barcode in the app, your regular card or even your small keychain card.
- Check out your items. Almost all library items have an RFID tag that allows the checkout to happen without scanning the item barcode. Just place the items one at a time on the pad and watch them appear at the top of the screen, checked out to you.
- Print, email, text or decline a due date receipt. If you choose no receipt, you won’t get a receipt in any format.
Here’s our very own Noushin, picking up and checking out her holds:
Never fear, your trusted Circulation staff are still here for you. We are always ready to help you use your library. Recent budget and staffing changes have altered our responsibilities but YOU always come first. Plans for open holds were in the works for almost 5 years as we waited for collections to shift and our limited space to adjust. The final stages fell into place this summer and now the time is finally here!
We hope to complete the first-floor refresh in our almost 24-year-old building in the next year. Stay tuned for more on that and the exciting CoLab news from the second floor.