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Friday, May 24, 2013

Meet the New Hold Wrapper


Starting May 28th, we're changing the look of our hold wrappers, that little slip of paper wrapped around holds on the first floor. If you pick up holds regularly  you'll know what I'm talking about. Instead of being held in place by rubber bands, the new slip will stick nicely to the items.

Why are we changing them?

Think efficiency. Since we process around 10,000 holds a month, little changes make a big difference. Not only will new wrappers stay in place better, we'll be able to create them a lot faster. Currently the wrappers have to be typed by hand. Now we'll be able to generate them automatically. The wrappers will be more accurate too. 
We process around 10,000 holds a month.
What will they look like?

The big change is that now you'll see the following pieces of information on the wrapper:
  • A pickup date
  • The first 8 letters of your last name
  • The last 4 digits of your library card
  • The item's barcode
Pretty simple, right? Not only that, but we hope that obscuring more of your name will ensure greater privacy.

How will this affect you?

We hope you'll see holds appear out on the shelves faster, which will mean less waiting for the things you want the read, watch, and listen to. You'll still have 4 days to pick up hold, so that won't change. 

We do urge you to bring your library card though. If you have share a similar last name to someone else, you might need to reference your library card to identify your holds. We don't expect this to be a big problem, but now you know.

So that's it. Have a save Memorial Day weekend.

4 comments:

  1. Great idea on the sticky holds wrappers - bad idea on the design. Letters one on top of another are much harder to read. You have to mentally analyze and re-process in your mind. Any good designer should know this.

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  2. That's a good point about legibility. I'll mention it to our circulation folks.

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  3. Another great idea! I love our library.

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