Get Your Stuff Faster!

Choosing to place a hold on items in your home library, or the closest library to your home library, helps us save money on shipping and courier costs. Saving money on shipping allows libraries to buy more great new stuff for your use. Saving time packing and shipping helps librarians spend more time on customer service and providing community programs.
 

When searching for an item to borrow, choose the listing closest to your home library. If you're logged in to the card catalog, listings from your home library will appear in the search. In the example below, the patron's home library is Palmer, and he's looking for the book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The first listing is the DVD (1).  The second listing shows the book is on the shelf in Palmer (2). By clicking the "Place Hold" button for that listing (3), the patron should get the item the next business day. Pulling items from the patron's home library saves time and shipping costs.

If your home library doesn't have a copy of what you want, or if it's checked out, click "X copies at other locations" on a listing. (4)

When you click to see what's available at other locations, a larger menu will open (5) Click the "Place Hold" button for the listing located in the closest library to your home library. Sometimes you may need to check several copies to find the closest library. In this example, Sutton's book is on the shelf, and is close to Palmer Library (6).  Other copies in the MatSu Valley (Big Lake, Talkeetna, & Wasilla) are checked out or "in transit", which means it's being transferred between libraries (7).

Also notice some libraries outside the MatSu have New copies of the book (8).  New items cannot be placed on hold from libraries outside your home network. This patron's home library is part of the Matanuska Susitna Library Network, which includes Palmer, Wasilla, Trapper Creek, Talkeetna, Willow, Big Lake, and Sutton.  When the patron clicks "Place Hold" on this record, our computer program should automatically choose the Sutton copy, and the pick up library will default to the patron's home library.

You may choose to pick up at a different library by using the drop down menu on the pop up box that appears after clicking "Place Hold" (9).