Henefer Book Locker earns national achievement award from NACo

The Henefer Book Locker. In 2020, the locker had a record-breaking 1,268 checkouts. Photo: Summit County, Utah

SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah. — The Summit County Library won a 2021 Annual Achievement Award for their Henefer Book Locker project from the National Association of Counties (NACo). Until the book locker’s inception in 2018, the 1,025 residents of Summit County’s rural town of Henefer had to make a 20-mile round trip to the library in the neighboring city of Coalville to check out or return books from the county library system.

The idea for the program was sparked when Summit County’s Library Director Dan Compton attended a conference that featured a unique technology by a company called Bibliotheca. Compton immediately thought of Summit County’s small town of Henefer and the access to county library services this innovative system would provide its residents. In 2020, the book locker had a record-breaking 1,268 checkouts despite being closed in April 2020 due to the onset of the pandemic.

“This is a vital service for rural residents of a county that is nearly the size of the state of Delaware,” Summit County Library Director Dan Compton said. “I dream of adding more lockers throughout the county to provide after-hours access to book orders and to help make returning and retrieving books as convenient as possible.”

The Henefer Book Locker’s operation is conducted as follows: The Summit County Library system receives book hold orders from residents who opt for book delivery to the Henefer Book Locker in lieu of picking up at another county branch farther away. Librarians pull the books from the stacks and deliver them to the Henefer book locker. An email notification system sends the borrower a door code to gain entrance to the room with the locker. Once inside, borrowers simply scan or type in their library card number and follow the prompts on a touch screen to retrieve their materials. Borrowers can conveniently return their library books to a secure slot in the locker when they are finished as well.

The NACo Achievement Awards are given in 18 different categories that reflect the vast, comprehensive services that counties provide.