In the interest of providing our community with the professional, educational, and recreational Internet access needed to participate in modern daily life, and doing our part to help bridge the growing Digital Divide, the Beaumont Library District is now offering a collection of WiFi hotspots and Chromebooks to the public for checkout for up to two weeks.

1. Checkout Limits
   
   

1. Eligible patrons must be eighteen (18) years of age or older and must have a library card in good standing.
2. Only one hotspot and one Chromebook may be checked out to any one card holder at a time.
3. No renewals or holds will be accepted for technology items.
4. Two (2) hotspots, two (2) Chromebooks, their cases, and their charging cables, will be reserved as “Rapid Checkout” items. These items will be checked out together as a single unit of one (1) hotspot and one (1) Chromebook, and will be due back in three (3) days rather than the fourteen (14) day limit for all other technology items. This three day limit does not include days that the library is closed.
5. All other technology items will be checked out separately from one another, and will be available to the patron for the full fourteen (14) day period.
6. Patrons must wait twenty-four (24) hours before checking out an identical technology item.
7. Technology items must be handed back to a Technical Services staff member to be considered checked in – technology items deposited in a book drop or returned via the sorting machine inside of the library will not be accepted. A Technical Services staff member will verify that all components (hotspot and/or Chromebook, charging cable, and case) are present and undamaged before checking in the item(s) (see Section 3 “Checkout Procedure” below).
8. The Library retains the right to disable service to overdue devices at any time. 

2. Technology Restrictions
   
   

1. The hotspots are limited to coverage within the continental United States. Additional fees will be incurred for the use of the device outside of this area, and those fees passed on to the patron who incurred them.
2. The Chromebooks will not be able to have data permanently written to them. Users must use guest sessions, and will be asked to save any important data externally, via storage devices such as flash drives or cloud storage services.

3. Checkout Procedure

Items will not be kept on publicly accessible shelves. Technology checkouts can only be made by a Technical Services staff member, who can inform the patron as to which items are available to be checked out. The patron will need to sign a waiver and liability form confirming that they are eligible to check out this item, acknowledging the financial penalties they will incur in the event the item is late, damaged, or lost, and waiving the library’s responsibility for the improper usage of the device, including any illegal activity performed while using the device and any additional charges incurred by the use of the device outside of approved areas. Once the form is signed, the hotspot and/or Chromebook, along with its associated case and charger, will be confirmed as being complete and undamaged by the staff member, and then handed over to the patron.

On returning the item, patrons must physically hand the full device package, including the hotspot and/or Chromebook, its case, and its charger, to a Technical Services staff member, who will confirm all items are present and undamaged before anything is checked in. If any item is damaged or missing, the patron will be informed that the item will not be accepted for a return until the missing component is found or a replacement fee is paid. A late fee will be added to the patron’s account for each day the item is missing or the replacement fee unpaid (see Section 4 “Replacement Costs and Late Fees” below).

At any time during the checkout period, if the patron encounters technical difficulty, they are welcome to either call or visit the library during normal working hours for assistance. The library provides no guarantee of any resolution to the technical issues encountered by the patron.

If a patron is found to be frequently violating Beaumont Library District policy, either by improper or illegal use of a borrowed device, the library reserves the right to revoke that patron’s technology borrowing privileges.

4. Replacement Costs and Late Fees

The Beaumont Library District will offer no grace period on late items, and will begin charging late fees the day after an item is due. The relevant fees and replacement costs associated with the hotspots and Chromebooks are as follows:

• Chromebooks
  1. Replacement
     • Chromebook: $450
     • Charger: $20
     • Case: $20
     • Instructional Literature: N/A
  2. Late Fees
     • $5/day
     • $30 maximum charge
• Hotspots
  1. Replacement
     • Hotspot: $100
     • Charger: $10
     • Case: $10
     • Instructional Literature: N/A
  2. Late Fees
     • $1/day
     • $30 maximum charge
• Chromebook + Hotspot Combination Kits
  • Listed as above
  • Accessories
    • Headphones: $5
    • Mouse: $5

5. Waiver and Liability Form

A waiver and liability form, discussed briefly in Section 3, will be presented to the patron on device checkout. The waiver and liability form will ask the patron to acknowledge the checkout limitations and conditions outlined above.