While we know that there can be a lot of joy found in the experience of browsing the
library stacks for something new to read, we also know that sometimes you’re looking
for a specific book or movie to borrow.
The processes that bring that book or movie to you are neither mysterious nor
particularly complicated, but they can seem that way if you aren’t yet familiar with how
things work.
Two systems work together to get you the items that you want. The first system is our
catalog software, and the second system is the statewide courier.
Our library owns a little over 25,000 physical items, mostly books and movies. When
you’re looking at the library catalog, however, you’re looking at the records for over 1
million items. We’ve joined forces with 160 other Colorado libraries in a consortium
known as AspenCat in order to share materials via a joint catalog system.
When you’ve searched the catalog and found the record for the item you want, you can
click the “Place Hold” button to submit your request. You’ll need to log in using your
library card number and your password (typically your last name in all lowercase letters)
to place your hold. Then, the software gets to work to get you the next available copy of
whatever it is that you’ve requested.
The software engineers built calculations into the system that help get items to you as
quickly as possible. If you were up at 2:00 AM and placed a hold on an item that we
currently have on the shelf, the software puts that book or movie on our list rather than
telling another library to send a copy. These fancy calculations also prioritize, to the
extent possible, items from libraries that are closer to us or which have more frequent
courier pickups. Requested items usually arrive in a week to ten days.
Some of you have asked us if we get a notification each time someone places a hold on
an item. Thankfully, we do not. You all (wonderfully!) request a lot of items, and a
notification for each request would, frankly, disrupt our other work.
Instead, we run a report each morning that tells us which of our items have a hold on
them, and then we run around the building to gather them up. When we scan the
barcode, one of two things happens—either the system tells us that one of you placed
that hold, and we let you know it’s ready for you to pick up, or the system tells us that
someone from a different library placed that hold, and gives us a code telling us which
library is the destination.
Our courier visits us three days a week: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We have
a give and take relationship with the courier. They give us bins full of the things you’ve
requested that are coming from other libraries, and they take the bins full of things that people at other libraries have requested from us. All the bins go to one of five warehouses in the state (ours is in Denver) for sorting and distribution to the correct libraries. The cycle continues year-round as we borrow items from and lend items to other libraries in our consortium.
We’re grateful that you all use the library to meet your reading and viewing needs.
Keep up the good work!
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