Hoping to address the needs of the growing Hamilton community, Richmond Public Library has introduced a new book dispenser this week, accessible any time the Hamilton Community Centre is open.
While Hamilton residents previously only had access to library services on Saturday, the new book dispenser allows community centre visitors to check out a variety of books every day of the week.
Photo: Richmond Public Library
"I encourage my Hamilton neighbours to check out the dispenser,” said Pauline Streckos, a Hamilton community member and avid library user, in a press release. “It's filled with a wide variety of reading material, offering more choices, more often.”
Stephanie Vokey, coordinator of marketing and public relations for the Richmond Public Library told the Richmond News by email “the book dispenser is very easy to use.”
“You simply insert your library card and follow the prompts on the screen,” she said.
Users will be asked to enter their four digit PIN and the door to the dispenser will pop open to allow for browsing. Library users will have approximately five minutes before the dispenser prompts them to close the door.
Vokey said library users “are free to take books off of the shelves, look at them and put them back. They don’t have to put them back on the same shelf that they found them on. Once the library card holder has removed all the books that they would like to check out, they shut the door and the machine initiates a scan, then shows a message on the screen with the titles of the books that it checked out for the customer.”
Books can also return books from the dispenser by placing them on one of the shelves inside. When the door is shut, the dispenser will scan all the books and check in what was returned.
The dispenser is accessible during community centre hours, which are Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and weekends from 9 a.m. to 4:30 pm.
