Ours are behind the circulation counter. No one can see the name of who the item is reserved for except staff. [We] recently (about a year ago?) went to self-serve holds, except with MeL books (on shelves behind circ). Concerned with patron privacy, we use only the 1st 4 letters of the patron’s last name and the last four of the patron’s card number on the slip that wraps the book. We also wrap the book with the spine facing toward the back of the shelf. The patrons have not complained, to my knowledge. We have a self-serve hold shelf. In order to keep it more private, we place the spines inward and the slip with the name sticks out of the pages of the book facing the back cover. I hope this helps. We have always wondered about this! We started open hold shelves about six months ago. We lay the books title down and have the patron’s name on a slip of paper that sticks out the end. So far – so good! We keep our holds behind the front desk for privacy reasons. It’s worked out well for us. We have had self-serve holds for a number of years now (at least 9, I think), and changed at the same time we added self-check machines. I suspect we are not alone in this timing! I too was skeptical at first but there hasn't been a problem. We even do it with MeL loans now and have yet to lose a MeL loan this way (our own items have gone missing from time to time, though). As far as privacy goes, our shelves are right across from our desk, in full view of the staff, which helps. We've really only had one patron look at others' holds, but this patron is one of our most difficult ones anyway and stopped after being told not to do so. We wrap the spine with a half-sheet of paper, which allows us to cover the spine label and a good portion of the title, and shelve our own items with the spine facing outwards. For MeL items we wrap (again with a half-sheet of paper) the edge of the book and shelve the items with the spine inwards; we had gotten into the habit of doing this when they were shelved behind our desk. About the only thing that comes up is this: a patron pulls a hold off the shelf, decides they don't want it, and then returns the item to our sorter without telling anyone. The hold stays active (with the same pickup date as before) and there is then a bit of confusion until we figure it all out. However, this doesn't happen very often. We also have the occasional hold leave without being checked out, but again this is very rare. I would be interested to hear about other libraries' experiences, particularly those who use automatically-printed hold wrappers as those appear to be smaller than our current hold wrapper. We have a lot of holds and no place to store them behind our Circ desk. We have shelves just outside each side of the Circ desk where they are held. A-L is on one side, M-Z is on the other. We generate a printed paper when the requested material is available with their last name running down the spine. The paper is folded it to fit around the book, dvd, etc. and secured with a rubberband and they are filed alphabetically by last name on the shelves. This seems to be working well and allows the patrons to be self-sufficient. We keep our regular patron holds in a self-serve shelving area. Some things we do to protect their privacy are to shelve the books spine IN, so only the ends of the pages are showing, or the lock side of a DVD lock box. Other than that, it's not very private, although we have not had any complaints that I know of. I know [another] Library allow patrons to make up a fake name (I forget what they call it - an avatar?) that goes on their holds. So, for example, their holds could be under "Batman" instead of their real name. In looking at their holds shelves, some people took advantage of this and some didn't. Maybe 30% did and 70% didn't? (I was on vacation, not paying super close attention.) I made this suggestion to our library, but it wasn't acted on. It might be that our software (Polaris) doesn't have this capability, or maybe we just haven't had complaints about privacy. Our interlibrary loan holds we keep behind our circulation desk for safe-keeping. we have self-serve hold shelves. We shelve the books spine in, so patrons cannot see the titles others are checking out. We have not had any issues with this method as far as I am aware. We keep behind the desk for privacy reasons. [We] keep holds behind the circulation desk. Items are not disclosed unless either the holding patron or his or her library card is present. I have wondered about self-serve hold shelves myself. Privacy seems very difficult to maintain. We just started self-serve holds a week ago today. Our ILS (Sirsi Symphony) has a hold wrapper receipt option that can be customized. We chose to include first 3 letters of the patron last name + last four digits of the patron library card number. We also shelve the items spine down for extra privacy. I think our system seems private- though with only 3 letters of the last name we have multiple SMI or BRO out at any given time, but with the last 4 of the library card we can keep the items separate. We do have patrons pulling and handling other patrons’ items already. An option that we will offer anyone who is still concerned about privacy is slipping their items into large manila envelopes, or possibly shelving in our former holds drawers. We’ve been self-serve since our remodel about seven years ago, but are considering going back to keeping holds behind the checkout desk. It’s not that patrons have complained, we feel it would be less of a violation of privacy. However, since then we’ve introduced self-check so there’s that to consider and some patrons are content with the flow: walk-in, pickup holds, checkout through self-check, leave. In my opinion, it's a major privacy violation and a serious violation of professional ethics. https://journals.ala.org/index.php/rusq/article/view/3797/4151 -- Shane Stewart Circulation Supervisor Chesterfield Township Library 50560 Patricia Ave. Chesterfield, MI 48051 Phone: 586-598-4900 Fax: 586-598-7900 E-mail: shanestewart@chelibrary.org