Staff at the owning library decides whether to designate materials as new or popular based on their local customers' needs. These materials can only be checked out at the owning library. If your home library decides not to get a particular title and all the other libraries designate it as new or popular, then it will take longer for you to get it.

Mid-York provides libraries with a number of reports to help them remove the new or popular designation when there are no more holds for their customers and to help libraries decide to purchase a copy or additional copies if a lot of their customers have a hold. At this time, there are 2 million items in the system and only 12,000 are designated "new or popular" which is less than 1%.

Each member library is an independent member of the Mid-York Library System, and each is governed by a local citizen board of trustees and primarily supported by local taxes. They have agreed to share resources and do so to an extraordinary extent; however, they still have obligations to their local taxpayers.