Several other members of our Consortium have browsing collections that do not permit holds at all. These are used for popular fiction and non-fiction, with the occasional juvenile or young adult item thrown in when required.

Both types of collections provide a nice balance.

And who told you you could post a picture of my apartment?!?!?! ;D (Ironically the last book I requested from the library was on organizing)

“Dude, if I wanted to order the book I could do that at home – but thank you for offering.”

We get a ton of people who request things from home. Especially in the evenings, lots of patrons coming to the library do nothing but go to circ desk to pick up a hold that we notified them is now available. For those people, I don’t think it would matter if we requested the item from another library or had to recall it from someone’s house.

People use libraries in different ways and for different reasons, so no one model will fit for everyone. I think @Amy’s idea of doing this only for certain parts of the collection is probably the most workable – figuring out which parts is the tricky bit.

However, being a patron and having never worked in a library, I agree with what Walt mentioned above. Usually some specific purpose urges me to the library – a particular book I want to check out, a subject I want to learn more about, etc – but once I’m there, I like to explore and browse the shelves.

Also, I tend to be impetuous and when I discover something I want, I want it NOW. This is probably fairly common with people who grew up as I did, in the days of USA Today and dial-up internet, and probably even more common with younger people who had high-speed internet, info-at-their-fingers from grade school.

For me, and probably moreso for them, the “stay-at-home” circulation system, in which a request would be sent and I couldn’t check out the material right then, would be extremely frustrating.

It’s like going to a bookstore and asking about a book to buy, and they say “We don’t have it in stock, but we could order it for you?” Dude, if I wanted to order the book I could do that at home – but thank you for offering.

The problem I see with this system is that it seems to assume that patrons are logical, know what they want, and plan ahead. Lots of times it’s going and flipping through physical materials that entices people to check them out.

For instance, Brian metnioned displays in an earlier post – books prominently set out before the patrons tends to make them curious about that book and check out something they otherwise might never have known was there.

So yes, I agree it’s a great solution for small communities without physical collections and academic communities, but as a patron – oh man, it would drive me totally nuts. xD

Maybe for the long weekend problem you could just ask patrons not to drop off materials? Is your library considering a drop box attached to the building? That would at least solve the problem of damage to the books.