How Large is the Library?

Did you know that the Warren Public Library has 170,296 books? If you read one book every day, it would take you 466 years to read everything we own! Listen to a CD a day? That would be 32 years of your time. Movies? You’re looking at 45 years of hard time! Flipping through one magazine title per day would take you almost 3 years, not including back issues!

When the neighborhood branches – Busch, Burnette, and Miller – close next week, patrons will only have access to the Civic Center collection, which includes 55,672 books, 6,126 DVDs, 3,229 CDs, and 444 magazine titles. While that’s still quite a chunk of time reading and watching one by one – you’d spend 179.4 years doing it all – imagine how much more you’d have to choose from if the libraries reopen in August.

A few more numbers to crunch:

How many books do you borrow in a year? If it’s only one per week, using the library has saved you $1,200 per year.

That’s 184 McDonald’s lunches:

638 gallons of milk:

25 tanks of gas:

39 nights out at the movies (2 tickets, 2 drinks, 1 popcorn.):

or 4 video game systems!

How much is the library worth to you? Do your own calculations by using our Value Calculator!

What's the Suburban Library Cooperative?

Warren Public Library is a member of the Suburban Library Cooperative, an association of Macomb County libraries (which also includes Harper Woods). Since we're members of the SLC, we can request books and movies and many other items from any library in the system - for free! You can also use your Warren Public Library card at any library in the cooperative, too, so if you're ever out in Shelby Township, you can visit their library with your card.

What do all the letters in the Outside of a Dog posts mean?
These are abbreviations of the libraries included in the system. There's is a short list below, but you can view (and print!) the full list, with addresses and phone numbers here.
ARM - Armada
CLL - Centerline
CHE - Chesterfield
EPL - Eastpointe
FRA - Fraser
HPW - Harper Woods
LEN - Lenox Township
LWM - Lois Wagner Memorial (Richmond)
MPL - MacDonald (New Baltimore)
MTC - Mount Clemens
RAY - Ray Township
ROG - Romeo Graubner
ROK - Romeo Kezar
RSV - Roseville
SCS - St. Clair Shores
SBL - Shelby Township
SHL - Sterling Heights
UPL - Utica
WMB - Warren (Maybelle Burnette)
WDB - Warren (Dorothy Busch)
WAM - Warren (Arthur Miller)
WCV - Warren (Civic Center)

Hold It Right There! (or here!)

Did you know there are three different ways to place a hold at the Warren Public Libraries?

1: Placing a hold at a Suburban Library Cooperative Library (all libraries in Macomb County, City of Troy, and City of Harper Woods).

· Look up the item you’d like to hold (or ask your reference librarian to help you do this).

· Place a hold through our catalog with your library card number and PIN.

· The hold will be sent to your home library in 3-5 business days, free of charge. A computerized system will call your phone number and notify you that it has arrived. Ask your librarian where to find it, and check out!

2: Placing a MeLCat Hold. (Michigan-wide, including some university libraries.)

· Look up the item you’d like to hold at http://elibrary.mel.org/search. (Please be sure to check the library cooperative FIRST to make sure we don’t have what you’re looking for!)

· Place a hold through MeL by clicking “Get this for me!” and entering your name and library card number.

· The hold will be sent to your home library, usually in about a week to 10 days. A librarian will call you and notify you that it has arrived. Ask your librarian where to find it and check out!

3: Placing an ILL/WorldCat request. (Outside of Michigan.)

· Look up the item in Worldcat, using the “Magazine and Online Databases” link on our library computers, or through the First Search link on our webpage.

· Place a hold with your librarian.

· The hold will be sent to your home library, sometimes in a week, sometimes in much longer (depending on where the item is being shipped from!) A librarian will call you and notify you that it has arrived. Ask your librarian where to find it and check out! (There is a $1 charge for each item shipped in.)

A few notes on holds:

** If you call a Warren Public Library and ask for a book that is currently checked in to be held, we will put your name on the book and hold it behind the Circulation Desk. You have 24 hours to come and pick it up before it is reshelved. Keep in mind we cannot do this if the book is not checked in at the library you are calling, or if it is not at a Warren library.

** Renewals work differently for all three systems.

- For an SLC book, you can renew an item once for three weeks, as long as no one else has a hold on that book. If they do, you must return it and reorder it at a later date.

- For a MeLCat book, you need to call or visit your library and ask them to renew the book. It MUST be renewed both through the SLC Catalog AND by logging into MeLCat. There is no guarantee that these can be renewed.

- For an ILL/WorldCat book, we need to be contacted *at least* one week before the book is due so that we can contact the owning library for permission to renew. There is also no guarantee that these can be renewed; the more notice we have, the better.