Locals in Georgetown South need not travel as far to borrow from the Halton Hills Public Library (HHPL) anymore.
The HHPL’s new library lockers are now available for the public to use – in essence, bringing a piece of the library to the Gellert Community Centre. Councillors, library staff and board members officially unveiled them in a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday (June 28).
“This area in general, we’ve found, has been interested in library services,” said Clare Hanman, manager of content and technology at the HHPL. “We’ve expanded out this way slowly. We’ve done story times for children at the Gellert. This was very much a natural progression.”
The locker concept is simple - users can request holds on items via the HHPL website, which can be sent to the lockers for pick up from specific compartments.
Residents can also peruse books in the browse and borrow section of the lockers. When the due date arrives, items can even be returned to the lockers.
Books are not the only type of item that can be signed out, however. Larger compartments are available for other goods from the library catalogue.
All one needs for any of this is their library card.
“Everything that you can reserve online, pretty well everything, we can bring it here to the lockers,” Hanman said. “Games, puzzles, music, movies, some of our technology. You just place it on hold and as long as it fit in our lockers, this can be your place to pick it up.”
The lockers themselves are modular. Functionality can be expanded as the library learns more about the needs of the public and how they use them. More borrow and return compartments and browsing screens can be added.
“It’s an extension of the library outside of its traditional walls,” said library acting CEO Beverly King.
King also said the lockers are an “interim solution” on the way to the next chapter of the HHPL.
“With the Vision Georgetown expansion and the expansion of Georgetown South overall, it’s providing a first step to moving towards that next branch,” King explained.
Mayor Ann Lawlor, in her remarks to the gathered crowd, said that she “secretly” wanted a new branch during her time as Ward 4 councillor and a library board member.
“But the lockers are innovative. They are a great idea; they will create the kinds of connections that the library is all about,” she said. “We are bringing the library to where the people are."
More information about the lockers, and other services, can be found on the HHPL's website.
