May 2025

Quick Facts

• For Hold processing, see Check In, AMH Check In and AMH Holds.
• Standard limits and timelines
  • Most patrons are limited to 20 active physical holds. Digital holds limits are counted separately.
  • Holds are usually held in branches for 7 days. Accommodation patron holds and holds for patrons who receive mail notices are held for 14 days.
  • Holds in the external lockers at Woodstock and Rockwood are held for 3 days, as they are accessible 24 hours a day, regardless of whether the branch is actually open or not.
  • Unfilled holds, both physical and in Libby/OverDrive, expire after 2 years. This includes frozen/suspended holds.
• To find out where a patron is in the hold queue, use the Checkout wizard to find the hold, left click the status to open the glossary and look for the position.
• When a patron wants to pick up another patron's hold:
  • If the pick-up patron has the library card, they can check out the hold with staff.
  • If the pick-up patron has the library card number and password, they can check out on self-checkout.
  • If the pick-up patron knows the hold patron's name only, holds can be checked out to the pick-up patron's account. After November 1, 2023, the pick-up patron will also need the last four numbers of the library card to find holds on the hold shelf.
  • If a hold is being checked out to the pick-up patron's account, not the original hold patron's account, the hold must be canceled at Check out by choosing Override Checkout Item and Cancel Hold and entering Y in the Override field.
• For information about in-library use holds, please see Special loans of Central reference material.
• BiblioCommons/My MCL does not allow patrons to place holds on titles they have checked out or already on hold. Staff must place those holds in Symphony. 

Tip

If you have trouble modifying or removing holds, or get an error message, there are many ways to complete these actions. Try using a hold wizard, such as Modify Holds for User, Display Item Holds, Modify Holds for Item, Remove User Hold and Remove Item Hold. These are on the wizard menu on the left side of the Symphony screen under Holds. If these wizards don't work, contact the IT Help Desk at 503-988-HELP (4357) and choose option 1 or email ithelpdesk@multco.us. 

Procedure

Placing holds in Symphony

1. Click the Place hold wizard.
2. Enter patron barcode in the User ID box.
3. Click Item Search.
4. In the Search for box type the title or author.
5. Select Keyword, Browse or Exact Search, see Item Search for more details.
6. Click Search and then select the record you want to place on hold.
7. Select the pick-up location and make sure that the level/range has Title (the default) selected.
8. Click Place Hold.
9. A pop up will let you know that a hold has been placed and give you further options.
10. When holds are to be picked up from the external lockers at Woodstock and Rockwood, there are alternative procedures to follow.
11. When shelving holds inside a branch:
    1. Place public holds on shelves alphabetically by patrons’ last name.
    2. Holds should be placed on shelves with the spine down, in order to protect patrons’ privacy.
    3. Oversized books can be laid face-down, flat on bottom shelves, with the spine toward the back of the shelf, so that the title cannot be read by others. The hold slip with the patron's name should be facing up.

Note: The dates on holdslips for patrons with accommodation profiles or who receive mail notices will be incorrect. The hold until date is updated by report after the hold slip is printed and before notices are sent.

Shelving holds

• Symphony will print the last four numbers from the User ID field on hold slips. See Hold slips for more details.
• Shelve items according to the information on the hold slip, not the patron's actual name.

• Last names will display up to four letters, symbols or spaces of the last name. For example, 

  "OTT-" (Ott-Nguyen)

  "VAN " (Van Buren)

• The basic shelving rule is nothing before something. Punctuation, such as hyphens or apostrophes, will go between nothing and letters. see more examples of spaces, hyphens and apostrophes.

• Names that start with the same letters like Martin, Martinelli and Martinez will be shelved by the first four letters of the last name, then in numerical order.

  MART 0432

  MART 1728

• Library Connect account holds are shelved with the last four numbers of their library connect number or whatever is in the User ID field.
• Patron's partial name is inappropriate
  • Partial names may create words in multiple languages. Patrons who don't like their partial names are welcome to change the names in their accounts or we can shelve holds by their User Key as the last name. See Hold privacy.
  • If a patron objects to another patron's partial name, please let Jen Steward know. We simply don't have time to review every partial name for every patron. Patron's can update their own names as needed.

Policy

Cataloged, circulating library material can be reserved for a specific patron.  

A patron may place holds in person, via My MCL and by telephone, email, chat, etc. 

Both Access and Information Services staff may place holds. If a patron has the exact title, call number, item number or barcode of the item, any staff member may place that hold. If the information given is not enough to determine what item is wanted, including different editions of a single title, the patron should be referred to Information Services staff. 

When hold are ready to pick up, patrons are notified by email, telephone or mail that material is being held at the location they have chosen. Items are usually held for seven days. Locker holds are held for three days. Holds for Accommodation patrons and patrons who receive mail notices are held for 14 days.

The current fee to ship one hold to a patron is $3.00 per item. Homebound patrons receiving service through Library Outreach Service (LOS) may receive free shipping of their materials.

Patrons may place a limited number of holds:

• Standard: 20 holds
• Accommodation 6 week loans: 25 holds
• Educator: 40 holds
• LOS: 40 holds
• Administrative (cards used by staff for library business): 200 holds

Interlibrary Loan requests and e-book holds, which can be seen in My MCL, are not included in these limits.

Holds are placed on public hold shelves for patrons to pick up themselves. A patron is not responsible for held materials until they have been checked out on their library card.

Holds on the public shelves are placed with the spine down under partial names, so that other patrons may not see what is on hold for a particular person. Patrons may not browse the hold shelves.

Patrons who do not want holds labeled with their partial name can contact staff. Staff can enter a different last name or use the patron's User Key as the last name.

Holds requested to be filled in the external holds lockers are placed in the lockers according to a different procedure.

People may pick up other patrons’ holds, if they can find holds on the hold shelf by the partial name, first initial, and partial library card number.

Unfilled holds, both physical and in Libby/OverDrive, expire after 2 years. This includes frozen/suspended holds.

Rationale

Patrons should have access to all cataloged, circulating library materials at the location of their choice. The number of unfilled holds per patron is limited so that holds do not exceed the staffing resources available to process them.

Holds are located on public shelves in order to meet the demand for holds and get patrons the materials they request quickly.    

Holds located in the external lockers reflect higher increased demand for holds at those locations than there is space available inside the public area to shelve them. This allows the patrons to retrieve those holds in the outside lockers at any time of the day or night, not just during the hours that the branch is open.

Hold slips will have partial names to improve patron privacy.

Unfilled holds expire after 2 years to help library staff with planning and purchasing materials.