Your Library Account and Bookdrop Returns

It’s great that so many of you are checking your library accounts frequently to see what you have checked out, what you have on hold, etc. But lately some patrons have been concerned about items that still appear on their account after they have been returned to the Essex Street bookdrop. The truth is that it can take some time for bookdrop items to be checked in and here’s why:

The outdoor bookdrop is emptied several times a day, but is not emptied when the library is closed. For example if you drop a DVD off at 4:30 PM Saturday, it won’t be retrieved and checked in until we open at 1 PM on Sunday. It is, however, checked in with Saturday as the return date. Holidays can further delay the process due to the closure and the huge amount of items returned.

Once the bookdrop is emptied, all the returned items must be sorted, checked for pieces (in the case of CDs, DVDs, audiobooks), and checked in one by one. This can take some time depending on the number of items that have accumulated and how busy we are at the Circulation Desk handling new checkouts.

So our advice to you is to wait a day or two before you become concerned about an item you returned that still appears on your account. Then, please let us know if you think we’ve missed something and we’ll check into it.