Curbside Service restarting 4/27/2020

Curbside delivery of library items

Curbside service will again be available beginning Monday, April 27, 2020. Pickups are available Monday through Friday, 10am to 4pm or other times by appointment. We may adjust our schedule and add evening and weekend pickup times if we have requests for that, so please let us know.

Here’s how it will work:

  1. Let us know what you need from the library. We have books (of course!), DVDs, jigsaw puzzles, board games, books on CD, music CDs, and various vegetable and herb seeds in our seed library.
  2. You can:
    1. Place holds through the Merlin Library CatalogPlease request only items listed as “Available” at the Mercer Library. Click here for video instructions on how to use our catalog.
    2. Email director@dev.mercerpubliclibrary.org.
    3. Call us at 715-476-2366 and ask us to pull some items for you and schedule a pickup time.
  3. If you’ve placed holds through our online catalog or by email, we will contact you to let you know that your items are ready for pickup and to schedule a pickup time.

Libraries have been given guidelines from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction on how to handle curbside deliveries. Please follow these instructions:

  1. When you arrive at the library, give us a call from the parking lot to let us know you have arrived. 715-476-2366
  2. Stay in your vehicle. A library staff person will bring your bag of materials out to our delivery table. Please wait until our staff has returned to the building before getting out of your car to retrieve your materials.
  3. Please do NOT leave returns on our delivery table. If you must return items, please place them in the return slot located on the building to the right of our front door. Please note: we cannot accept donated materials at this time. We will still accept donations of jigsaw puzzles if they can fit in our book drop AND are taped closed before you drop them in.
  4. If you are unable to get out of your car to get your materials or to return materials, please let us know and we will make arrangements to accommodate you.

Don’t forget, you can check out books and audiobooks from Wisconsin’s Digital Library, take a class through Gale Courses, or use the resources from Badgerlink anytime. All you need is your library card! If you need help getting your library card number of have any other questions, please call the library at 715-476-2366.


What’s available through curbside service?

  • Books, movies, audiobooks, music and more, all listed in our online catalog
    • You can request specific titles, or you can call or email to place requests for library-recommended materials. We’re happy to help with requests like “picture books for my 4-year-old,” “a few good movies,” or “some new mysteries to read.”
  • Board games for the whole family
  • Jigsaw puzzles: Various puzzles with 500 to 1500 pieces
  • Seeds from our seed library: Click here for our current seed inventory list
  • Water testing packets for existing Mercer-area volunteers: We have the water testing kits from the Wisconsin DNR/Iron County Land and Water Conservation Department for area lake volunteers. If you’re received information from Zach Wilson that your kit is ready for pickup, we can get it to you during our curbside service hours or at other times by appointment.

What’s not available through curbside service?

  • We are not receiving deliveries from other Merlin libraries or from our state interlibrary loan system, so we can only loan materials that are physically in our building. We hope that limited delivery services can be restored soon, but at this time we don’t have any information on when that might happen.
  • We cannot accept donations of any books, DVDs, CDs, or other library materials at this time. We will accept limited number of jigsaw puzzles IF they can fit in our bookdrop and if you tape them closed before placing in the bookdrop.
  • Equipment items like our projector, portable sound system, telescope, and camcorder may be available on request, but we will have to enact extra procedures to ensure their safe delivery and return to the library. Please call for details.

Safety considerations

The Mercer Public Library is following the guidelines provided by the CDC and the Wisconsin Department of Health to ensure the safety of our staff and patrons. Library staff will strictly adhere to current guidelines about not working while exhibiting symptoms of any illness. We will enforce social distancing standards and practice hand hygiene between each library transaction.

When you return materials to the library, please place them in our book drop. We will be quarantining all returned materials for 72 hours before handling them, so they will remain checked out to your library card for several days after you return them. We can only accept returns through the book drop in order to make sure these quarantine procedures are followed correctly. Please do not place returned materials on our curbside delivery table or anywhere else at the library.

Despite following these guidelines, the Mercer Library cannot guarantee that all of our materials are completely free of contagion. It is possible that the COVID-19 virus can remain viable on hard surfaces for several days (WHO). Please use your best judgement about how to keep yourself and your family safe. If you are concerned about exposure to COVID-19 from library materials, we suggest that you keep your materials quarantined in their delivery bag for 72 hours before you handle them, or that you avoid the risk altogether by using our digital services instead.

Last updated: April 23, 2020