Coming to Billings Heights: a new library express locker

Billings, Montana – The Billings Public Library will soon be significantly more accessible to residents of Billings Heights.

Users of the library will be able to reserve materials online and pick them up whenever they want, seven days a week, thanks to a new express locker that will be installed outside the SCL Health Heights Clinic. The locker will also allow users to return stuff. The first was placed in January directly outside the downtown library, making this the second in the state.

Although the precise launch day has not yet been specified, Katherine Jore cannot wait.

“Oh my goodness, absolutely,” when asked if she would use the new locker. “It’s closer to my husband’s work even so he can stop and grab stuff for us on the way home.”

Jore travels from Huntley with her family once a week to the library. The lockers in the downtown area have already had a significant impact.

“I really like that I’m able to stop by and pick up my books even if it’s not library hours,” she said. “Like if I have to work late, or I’m running errands early in the morning.”

“It’s helped close to 4,000 people,” Billings Library Foundation Director Leslie Modrow said.

That is in a little more than nine months. Modrow is aware that a new location will have an impact.

“The most important thing a library does is provide access to information,” she said, “and being able to provide access further beyond these walls makes our community even stronger.”

And don’t worry non-Heights residents; there’s another one coming and it needs your assistance.

“We’re down to the last $9,000 on the 3rd one,” Modrow said.

You’ll just have to wait to find out where the third one will be because the library isn’t yet ready to reveal its precise location.