The Book Return opened on Monday, May 25th. Library members can now request books and other materials (place holds). Materials will be available for pickup after June 16th. Please wait for us to call.

On June 16th, staff will begin offering curbside pickup of holds at the library. Patrons are asked to please wait for us to contact them.

We are accepting the return of materials at our outside return box as the first phase of our curbside drop-off and pick-up service.

For now, please return only library books, magazines, DVDs, CDs or audiobooks. If you have anything else from the library, please hold on to it until the building is open. Please do not return fragile or large materials you may have out on loan.

At this time, we are not accepting book donations. Please check our website for updates about when we will resume accepting donations.

The health and safety of our staff and our customers is our top priority. The introduction of our curbside services follows the reopening framework provided by the Province of Ontario, and the advice of the Health Unit and other health experts, and follows best practices within library and retail industries for the safe delivery of curbside service. Here are some of the measures we are putting in place:

* All staff will have Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
* Pickup locations will have proper physical distancing protocols in place.
* Returned materials will be quarantined until they are safe to circulate.
* Intensive cleaning of the building will be done in advance.
* Regular cleaning and hand washing protocols will be in place.

You can continue to place holds online through our website at http://www.owensound.library.on.ca/. You can also call us, send an email or a Facebook message. When your holds become available, we'll notify you when you can pick them up.

If you have library materials on hold, here's what we recommend:

* Cancel any holds that you no longer want.
* Change the status of any holds you're not ready for to either "inactive" or "suspended". This will make sure that you keep moving up the queue, but don't potentially get flooded with all of your holds at once.
* You'll find more information placing holds on our website.

If library users have any questions about their account or need additional help managing their holds, they can contact us at [email protected], http://www.facebook.com/OSNGUPL or 519-376-6623 ext. 5

source: media release, OSNGUPL