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Your Library Card - Don’t Leave Home Without It!
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How to Join the Burlington Public Library

A BPL Library Card is available at no charge to people who:

live in Burlington
pay property taxes to the City of Burlington
work in Burlington but who live outside of the city
live in Halton Region

When applying for a card, you will be asked to present the following:

Adult card: an Ontario driver's license with your current address OR two pieces of identification, one with your current address.
Children's card: children up to and including grade 8 need a parent's or guardian's signature at the time of registering.
YA card: teens in high school may register using their student card as identification.
Staff will be able to clarify this for you further on registration at the Circulation Desk.

You may borrow up to 25 items on your card. Certain borrowing restrictions apply as follows:

5 DVDs are allowed on a card at one time
2 non-fiction books per subject are allowed
2 video games are allowed on a card at one time

If your library card is lost or stolen, please contact your local branch as soon as possible to let them know. You are responsible for materials borrowed with your card, or your child's card, until it is reported missing.

Non-resident customers are welcome but are required to pay an annual fee of $48 to obtain a Burlington Public Library card. Non-resident customers are entitled to full borrowing privileges, including the use of BPL electronic resources and the interlibrary loan service. This fee is equal to the annual per capita amount the City of Burlington contributes to support the Library's annual operating budget.

Reciprocal borrowing privileges allow holders of valid Burlington Public Library, Hamilton Public Library cards to use the other library systems on a limited basis to borrow up to 8 items and place 2 holds. These privileges must occur directly between Hamilton and Burlington systems and do not apply to residents of Grimsby, Cambridge, Haldimand or Waterloo. The reciprocal borrowing privilege does not include use of interlibrary loan service, use of the Talking Book & DAISY collection, or use of BPL's online databases outside of the library.

Loan Periods

Most library materials may be borrowed for 21 days, including CDs, Books on CD or tape, magazines and CD-ROMs.
The loan period on best-sellers and high demand items is shortened to 14 days if there are holds on the item.
DVD, video games and VHS loan periods are 7 days.

Renewals

Items borrowed from the library may be renewed... twice!

If no other requests are outstanding, most print and audio materials may be renewed once for 21 days from the date of renewal, not from the due date, and then once again for another 21 day loan period. (21 days x 2)

Exceptions:

materials with outstanding holds
seasonal items
DVDs and video games may only be renewed once for 7 days
VHS videos may be renewed for 7 days twice (7 days x 2)
interlibrary loans may be renewed once for a period of 21 days from the original assigned due date, but subject to the approval of the lending library

Materials may be renewed in the following ways:

in person at any of our library locations
through the library's online Catalogue
using the Touch-Tone Telephone Renewal Service: Call 905.333.3701 and have your library card and the item(s) you wish to renew within reach. Please note that items with outstanding holds and seasonal items cannot be renewed. If you have more than 5 items to renew, call the library at 905.639.3611, ext 138 and a staff member will assist you.

Returns

You can return whatever you borrow to any Burlington Public Library location. After hours, please use our book, DVD, CD and video drop boxes. 24 hour drop boxes are available at all library locations except Kilbride.

If you've missed the due date for borrowed items by 7, 28 or 60 days, the telephone notification system will phone to remind you that fines are accumulating daily! If you receive e-mail notification for holds, you will receive e-mail notification of items overdue.

Fines & Charges

Fines - there are three overdue fine structures based on your library card.

Items lost and paid for - it the item is found within 3 months you may return it to the library along with your receipt for a full refund. However, the overdue fine will apply.

60 days overdue charges - if you have any overdue items that you have not returned, they will be considered 'lost' if they are still checked out to your library card 60 days or more past the due date. The fee for 'lost' items is the library’s replacement cost of the item plus a processing fee. The processing fee is $4 for all items, except magazines and paperbacks where the fee is $2. More info...

Placing Holds

You can place a hold on an item using our Online Catalogue, or by phoning us. If you're going on vacation, or just don't have time to read, you may suspend your holds through the Catalogue. When you're ready to read once again, simply return your holds to active status.
For help placing and administering your holds...

Get your holds notices by e-mail. You can receive e-mail notices about holds that are available for you AND about items that are 7, 28 and 60 days overdue. We will also send you a due date reminder e-mail two days before your items are due.

If you prefer to be notified by phone our automated telephone notification system will call you to let you know that items on hold are ready to be picked up and at what location.

TIP: If you do not pick up your hold by the expiry date, unfortunately there is no record kept of the hold you've missed. With e-mail notification, simply DO NOT DELETE your message until you have picked up the item. That way you can keep track of your holds.

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