Introducing Pickup Anywhere
Published on May 09, 2022
Updated as of Feb. 1, 2023
Western students, faculty, and staff can now access books from 16 university libraries across Ontario – that's over 25 million items!
With Pickup Anywhere, you can walk in to any partner library and borrow a book from the shelves using your Western ONEcard. Items from partner collections can also be requested online and picked up at any of our five libraries, Western’s Affiliated University College Libraries, or sent to another participating university library for pick up. The same goes for returns – you can drop off books at any partner library.
“This is a great service that we’ve been eagerly waiting to launch. With Covid restrictions easing at most Ontario Universities, Western students and faculty studying and working in other parts of the province will now have seamless access to print resources,” said Crystal Mills, User Services Manager at Western Libraries.
Our search tool, OMNI, is your one-stop shop for finding and requesting books from across Ontario. It’s a welcome upgrade from the multi-step interlibrary loan process.
“Services such as Pickup Anywhere represent the future of shared collections in libraries. We know there is still demand for print resources, and our shared platform allows us to maximize access while increasing convenience,” said Mills.
The expanded access is the next step for the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) Collaborative Futures initiative that launched in December 2019. The list of participating libraries has grown year over year to include the following OCUL member institutions:
- Algoma University
- Brock University
- Carleton University
- University of Guelph
- Ontario Tech University / Durham College
- Lakehead University
- Laurentian University
- McMaster University
- Nipissing University / Canadore College
- OCAD University
- Queen's University
- Trent University
- University of Ottawa
- University of Windsor
- Wilfrid Laurier University
- University of Waterloo
- York University
- Western University
As membership grows so too will the collections you can access. In a world where more and more of us are working and studying remotely, we hope Pickup Anywhere will make it easier and faster to get the materials you need.
