More Locations to Pick Up Library Holds
New remote lockers have been installed at three Lawrence locations: Hy-Vee, opens a new window, Prairie Park Nature Center, opens a new window, and Sports Pavilion Lawrence, opens a new window. Thanks to the collaboration of these local partners and the generous financial investment from the Lawrence Public Library Friends & Foundation, opens a new window, the library can provide better access to the physical collection — books, DVDs, video games, and more — without requiring patrons to travel as far.
“It’s about accessibility,” said Ian Stepp, Circulation Supervisor. “ There are people who can't easily make it to the library during our hours of operation. Maybe you're a busy parent, or you were planning to go to Prairie Park Nature Center anyway. The new locations just make your life a little easier.”
In collaboration with the city, the library team aimed to space the new lockers across Lawrence as equally as possible while also prioritizing convenient locations where the community is already likely to gather.
“We worked with the city to imagine how to reach patrons in all four quadrants of Lawrence,” said Ian Stepp, Circulation Supervisor. “We’ve had the library in the northeast and Hy-Vee in the southwest, and now with the new locations, we have pickup locations in all four corners of the city.”
Shorter Wait Times
In addition to the new lockers at Prairie Park Nature Center and Sports Pavilion Lawrence, the 44 lockers at Hy-Vee have been replaced with a set of 56 new lockers, adding up to a total of 168 lockers across the three locations. The library’s circulation team hopes this increased number of hold slots will decrease inconvenient wait times for patrons.
“With our old Hy-Vee lockers, there was, on average, a five- to seven-day wait for your items. Because it was a popular service, having only 44 lockers caused a kind of bottleneck,” Stepp explained. “Now with more than triple the amount of total lockers, that five-day wait period should be dramatically reduced.”
How to Place a Hold for Locker Pickup
To place a hold to pick up at a remote locker, find your item in the catalog, and click ‘Place hold.’
Select the pickup location of your choice from the dropdown menu, then confirm by clicking ‘Place hold.’
If you don’t see this option, you may need to turn off your single-click hold preference under the ‘Holds and Pickup Location’ section of your library account’s ‘My Settings’ menu.
Expanding Outreach Across Lawrence
Between the new lockers and book drops, opens a new window at Sports Pavilion Lawrence and Prairie Park Nature Center, these community relationships only seem to be growing, including future opportunities for more library outreach.
“We’re really lucky. Hy-Vee has been a generous partner and so easy to work with, and it has been such a natural fit to work with the city at the new locations,” Stepp said. “Thanks to these partnerships, library outreach is gonna start going out to the two new locations more regularly. So be on the lookout for Dottie all across Lawrence this summer.”