Experience Passes Update

The Metropolitan Library System began an Experience Pass Program on November 1, 2020. We joined with the Oklahoma City Museum of Art on a pilot basis for evaluation after 6 months. The following speaks to the status of the program and recommendations for the future.

Our goal was to achieve 180 checkouts over 6 months. In the first 6 months, we had 192 checkouts, and we served 175 unique customers. Passes were kept on average between 6 and 8 days. Two customers used the pass 3 times; 13 customers used the pass 2 times.

Locations were asked for anecdotal information about how customers responded to the 7-day checkout period, the first-come, first-served nature of the pass, and the ability to hold the pass for up to 2 hours for someone to come and pick it up by calling ahead. Most customers have been excited about the program and have spoken positively about how it is being implemented. For customers who were initially upset about not being able to place holds on the passes, they were more understanding when staff explained that there was only one pass per location available. Staff frequently have helped customers find a pass that was available at another library when the pass at their location was checked out. Overall, the feedback has been very positive from customers and some have indicated that they would like to see passes for more venues like this in the future.

The Experience Pass program has been even more successful than we anticipated, even with launching the program during the pandemic and various stages of library opening. We will be pursuing other venues to join us in providing access to the arts and cultural institutions in our service area. Some venues we might contact are the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma History Center, American Banjo Museum, Oklahoma Science Museum, and the Museum of Osteology.

Members of the team working on this program included: Morgan Day, LaVetta Dent, Anne Fischer, Risa Jensen-Jones, Pauline Rodriguez-Atkins, and Kim Terry. Kimberly Boldt will be joining the group from here forward.