boxofdelights

In ours, what's visible on the hold shelves is a gently-stuck-on label with the first four letters of the surname. There's another MALL at our branch who reads manga. Years ago, one of my bookclub friends used the same branch. She's great at finding out about new releases from author blogs and getting on the hold lists early, so I took to checking out the holds under her first-four on the way to checking mine. Once I saw her code on a book that sounded like it would be hers, but I didn't have anything on me to leave a note with - so I just stuck one of my business cards in the book. And of course, all the way home I wondered what if it was someone else with that abbreviation, and I don't remember if she ever did notice the business card.

At some points in the pandemic, the branch was open for picking up holds and for the one shelf of new-and-recommended, and at other points it went to "library takeout", where you phone from outside and they run out with your holds and drop them on a table with a 2-m circle chalked around it. (There were workarounds for people without cell phones, of course). They still do takeout for people who prefer that, now, and they aren't doing proof-of-vaccine-required for entry because the library is an essential service like groceries.