City, PLS partnership expands access to educational materials

A new 24 Hour Library in the form of a kiosk opened this month in front of Norman City Hall, 201 West Gray, to provide Norman residents with quick and easy, 24-hour access to reading materials. Library cardholders will be able to browse materials, or reserve a book online, pick it up at the kiosk, and even return it there.

The Norman Central 24 Hour Library joins existing kiosks at Norman Library East, Norman Library West, and Irving Middle School. In addition, a fifth site will open at the Reaves Park Building - the future site of a Boys and Girls Club Teen Center - in spring 2025.

The program is a collaborative effort between the City of Norman and the Pioneer Library System (PLS). The City provides the location, the electricity and the concrete pad for the kiosk. The Pioneer Library System maintains the equipment and handles the stocking of kiosks with materials.

Jason Olsen, director of Norman's Parks and Recreation Department, hailed the effort as another way the City provides opportunities for residents to become more well-rounded individuals.

"Parks and Recreation means more than just swingsets and soccer fields," Olsen said. "Our chief goal is to provide the residents of Norman with a wide range of ways to keep in shape - physically, mentally and emotionally."

There are different-sized machines in service. The kiosk in front of Norman City Hall holds about 340 titles, and Caroline Dulworth, director of branch services at PLS, said they will not only put reserved titles there, but also popular titles that will permit visitors to browse and select books and materials. She said holds are added daily and new, unreserved titles are added monthly.

"There are two ways customers can use the 24 Hour Library vending machine," Dulworth said. "Customers can either go directly to the machine, select a title they see, put in its number and their library card number. OR they can go to the PLS website to search the catalog, choose a book and then choose a pick up location of 24 Hour Library."

Customers can receive notifications that their item is ready by text, email, or phone call.

PLS was the first library in North America to install a 24 Hour Library in 2013 and has become a popular option for library customers with about 10,000 customers using it throughout the PLS service area.

Learn more about PLS, a partner organization of the City of Norman, at: https://pioneerlibrarysystem.org.

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