In order to place a request for a title, you must have a Baltimore County Public Library card or have previously registered your library card from any other Maryland public library with BCPL. All eligible material may be placed on hold using our online catalog or by calling any Baltimore County Public Library branch.
To place a hold request using the online BCPL catalog, follow the steps below.
- Search for the title in the BCPL catalog by using the Search the catalog box on our home page found at https://www.bcpl.info/. There is also a Catalog (https://catalog.bcpl.lib.md.us/polaris/) link under the Books and More tab, just to the right of the BCPL logo. If you need to do an Advanced search (title + author, or other combination) use the Catalog link found under the Books and More tab then click Advanced Search
- Enter a title, author, or subject in the search box.
- Find the book you want and pay close attention to the icon below the book cover. If you want a physical book look for the icon that looks like an open book as shown below. Then click on the Place Request button, found in the bottom, right corner of the title box, as shown below.
- Enter your BCPL library card number (barcode) without any spaces and your library PIN/password. The default PIN is set to the the last four numbers in your phone number until/unless you change it.
- Select the branch where you want to pick up the item.
- Click Submit Request button at the bottom of the screen.
- A confirmation screen will appear, indicating if the hold was successfully placed.
When your library has your item available for pickup, you will be notified by the method you specified in your account. You may choose to receive notifications by email, automated phone message or text messaging. See (http://bcpl.libanswers.com/faq/193860) for more information about these options.
Please pick up your item within seven (7) days after you are notified, or your hold will expire. If you cannot pick up your hold, email and we can cancel it for you.
If you want to sign up for email notification of hold requests please see: http://bcpl.libanswers.com/faq/74854.
To ensure that you get your BCPL emails, add the addresses below to your email Address Book or Contacts List.
monitor@bcpl.net
notifyme@bcpl.net
notice@bcpl.net
