My Card and Account: Placing Holds on MaterialsPlacing Holds on Materials
Holds may be placed for all types of circulating materials except for the Express Collections. You will be notified by phone, email or postal mail when an item is ready for pickup.
How to reserve items
Patrons may place a hold themselves online in the library catalog. You also may cancel your own holds by viewing your circulation record in the catalog.
All patrons may have five free holds in the system at any time. Additional holds may be placed by a staff member for 50¢ each.
Receive Notifications for Pickup
By Email
If we have your email address, we can notify you electronically. If you are using email filtering software, please set your filter to allow messages from "circadm@alec.icpl.org".
By Telephone
We will phone all patrons without email about their holds, unless you prefer that we not call you. Please tell the Circulation Desk staff if you wish not to receive telephoned notices. The telephone notification system we are using is an automated generic message: your name will not be spoken, nor will the title of the held item. A typical message is "Library materials requested by a cardholder at this number are now available for pickup. These materials will be held until [date]." This might be a good option for patrons who are available to answer their phone or who have a reliable answering machine. It may not work well if you have young children who answer the phone or if you have several library users in your household.
By Postal Mail
Postal mail notifications are used only when we cannot send a phone or email notice.