Canadian Library Has Success with Vending Machines

Ottawa Public Library

Link to July 25 Ottawa Citizen article, "Vending machine library hits the spot".  (Thanks to Tony Driessen for the catch.)

Excerpt:    It looks like a regular vending machine, the kind you might feed loonies and toonies in exchange for a chocolate bar or bag of chips.

But if you were looking for a quick junk-food fix from this unit, you’d be out of luck. Instead of a box of Smarties, it dispenses Stella, Queen of the Snow.

These library kiosks — there are two of them in the foyer of the Hunt Club-Riverside Community Centre — are the first of their kind in Canada. They work just like regular vending machines, except that users swipe their Ottawa library cards instead of inserting coins into the machine. And instead of buying a pack of gum, the user is borrowing a library book or DVD. The printed receipt tells the library customer when the item is due back.

At last count, almost 1,700 items have been checked out since the program began in April. One machine stocks children’s materials, while the other offers items for teens and adults in both English and French.