Contactless Holds Pickup

Library patrons can pick up their holds from a custom holds kiosk in the lobby of the library. Patrons are contacted via email or phone when theirs holds are available to pick up.

The holds kiosk was dedicated by the Friends of Curry Public Library on Wednesday, January 5th 2022. Funding for the kiosk was provided by a generous donation to the Friends in memory of Mark Rasmussen, a library supporter and avid reader. The three-way cabinet was custom built by local furniture designer and part-time library employee, Brodey Carpenter, owner of Dredge Design. It is a repository for books, DVDs, and audio-books ordered online by library users, or requested by phone. As soon as the materials are pulled from the library’s shelves, or are delivered from any of the fourteen libraries located in Curry and Coos counties, they are checked out and placed on shelves in the kiosk, located in the lobby. Patrons can drop into the library and pull their pre-checked out books from the shelves, with no wait time whatsoever.

The lobby “holds shelf” concept was the brain-child of library director, Jeremy Skinner, during the early days of COVID, when the library was closed to in-person service. While other libraries were forced to lock their doors and provided no means of checking out books during the first months of the pandemic, the “holds shelf” allowed our local library to continuously circulate books while avoiding in-person contact. It proved to be so popular with library users, it was made a permanent fixture in the library.