Research Blog : fyi

Website Unavailability on November 12 & 13

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:05:00 GMT

Encore, an online catalog we introduced in December 2008, is currently being upgraded! There may be brief outages this afternoon while the upgrade is completed.

Shortly after closing on Friday, November 13, additional upgrades will be performed. During that time, approximately 6:00pm to 10:00pm, the following sections of our website will be unavailable:

New versions of our library software are released periodically. These upgrades add new functionality to our website & fix issues our users have encountered.

We appreciate your patience during the downtime and apologize for any inconvenience it may cause.

If you have questions or comments, please submit them below!

Changes to EVPL eNewsletters

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:17:00 GMT

For several years, we've offered an assortment of eNewsletters. On our eNewsletters page, patrons have subscribed to eNewsletters and received them via email.

Unfortunately, our content providers have discontinued the following eNewsletters:

BooksTV
Chapter-A-Day
Meet the Author
Meet the Illustrator
Pearl's Picks

Email subscribers have already received the final issues of these eNewsletters and won't receive new issues in the future, as there won't be any.

On the brighter side, we have added a new eNewsletter: New DVDs. Movie buffs can subscribe to be notified of new releases every month!

Visit our eNewsletters page today to check out the changes, view current issues, and sign-up to receive future issues via email!

Central's anniversary celebration SUNDAY features mini-golf, Book Cart Drill Team, & more!

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:59:00 GMT

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Starting with a press conference on Thursday, September 17, we've been honoring Central Library's 5th anniversary with some special events. Our Film Festival wraps up this afternoon with a showing of Citizen Kane. On Saturday, we'll be hosting a Poetry Festival.

On Sunday, party with us at Central Library's Anniversary Celebration! There will be activities & entertainment for all ages to enjoy.

How many times have you had the urge to play mini-golf in the library? Satisfy that urge on Sunday, when we'll have 18 holes of mini-golf set up in Central's stacks (on the 1st & 2nd floors)! And don't worry...there won't be any water hazards. Get your golf game on from 1-5pm.

Enjoy some food & music in the café garden from 1-4:30pm. We'll be grilling hot dogs & hamburgers!

Over 20 cakes will be on display in the lobby from 1-3:30pm as part of our Cake Decorating Contest. Vote for your favorite! Winners will be announced shortly before 4pm, and the cakes (& punch) will be served from 4-5pm.

Nothing will prepare you for our Book Cart Drill Team's first public performance at 2:30pm in the lobby! With epic choreography & drama, the team will recreate a famous battle from literature (& a recent movie trilogy). With book carts.

We'll also have a scavenger hunt & appearances by literary actors (can you guess who they are?) throughout the celebration.

There will be something for everyone at Sunday's Anniversary Celebration. Hope to see you then!

Please pardon our mess: Parking deck repairs at Central Library

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:32:00 GMT

Due to repairs to the parking deck, portions of Central Library's parking lot will be closed at varying times until mid-November or when construction is complete.

Parking is still available in Central's underground parking garage. The entrance is slightly east of the parking lot entrance on Chestnut Street.

Also, due to the limited parking availability, new meeting room reservations for the Browning Events Room will not be accepted until the repairs are complete.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and intermittent noise. Please contact library administration with any questions or comments you may have.

PINs updates for self-checkout & in-library computer usage

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:27:00 GMT

Last March, the EVPL introduced PINs for security & privacy reasons. At that time, PIN numbers became required for users accessing their library account on our website. Upon logging in for the first time, users were prompted to create a numeric PIN to be used on subsequent logins.

Last week, we completed phase 2 of the PINs rollout. Self-checkout terminals (available at Central, North Park, & Oaklyn) now require users to enter their PIN number prior to checking out items. Users that haven't yet created a PIN will be prompted to do so.

Phase 3 of the PINs rollout will occur soon. Beginning Thursday, October 1, 2009, PINs will be required to use in-library computers. Upon logging into a library computer, users will be presented with a textbox for their library card number and a new textbox for their PIN.

The EVPL cares about your privacy, and PINs are a way to safeguard it. With these new security measures in place, your account & personal information (such as address, phone number, etc.) are safe in the event that your library card is lost or stolen. Beginning Thursday, October 1, PINs will prevent others from using your library card to access public library computers & exhausting your time daily time allotment.

Haven't created a PIN yet? Don't sweat it! Follow these simple steps:

Access the My Account page.
Type in your name & library card number, LEAVING THE PIN FIELD BLANK! Click the "Submit" button.
You'll be prompted to create a PIN. PINs must be between 4-30 numeric digits and not be overly-repetitive. Type your desired PIN in both boxes (to prevent against typos) and click the "Submit" button. Your selected PIN is now active!

For more information about PINs, check out the PINs Help page.

Credit Reports Are Your Friend

PotionsMaster@evpl — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:31:00 GMT

Welcome back to the second installment of my blogs about managing your debt. I recently in the last week just signed my life away in blood in order to procure a car loan. My poor hubby's Toyota Camry decided to let it be known she was dying a potentially spectacular death, so we needed to find some new wheels. In order to do that, we needed money.

After searching around the local credit unions for the best APR (there's that Annual Percentage Rate again), we chose one and set about applying for a loan. As we are only a few years out of college, we had no idea what to expect. Our loan officer told us that things would get going after they did a credit check on us and received our 'credit score'. Once you graduate school, you think you're done with report cards, but no. As an adult, you are rated by three companies that compile together and create your FICO score, otherwise known as your credit score. This score tells companies how big of a 'risk' you will be to them.

Risk to a company means how likely you are not to pay back the loan, but it can also be used to make an educated guess at how likely you are to make payments late, how likely you are to steal from your workplace, drive recklessly, be bribed, etc, etc . Your credit score is a number assigned to you by three companies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Those three number differ slightly from each other, so the median number is used. Score Overview: You are given a number from 300-850. Pretty broad range. 620 and under: Dangerously bad. Take immediate steps to make a plan, stick with it, and keep your chin up. You can and will improve your score. 680-621: Decent; could use some polishing. 700 and up is where you want to be. 720 and over is just gravy.

These numbers are determined by a number of things, starting with how long your credit history is. The longer you have a line of credit open, the more pattern you show in your debt-paying, be it for better or worse. Credit reports take everything into account for the last 10 years. Another obvious factor in determining your score is your history of payments that are late. It is easier and easier to be late on a payment nowadays. Companies used to have something called a grace period, where there was a due date, but you had anywhere from 5 to 15 days for the company to actually receive the payment before it was counted late. In the last few years, this has unfortunately been a dying practice.

Credit card companies want your money, but if they can slap you with a late fee, they'll get more money. Thus, the slow extinction of grace periods. Worse yet, late fees are becoming a bigger sum than they were even five years ago. The current average is around $33 per late occurence. The final straw? Some companies are making it so that even if your payment comes in on the due day, if it isn't in by a certain time (like, say, noon), it counts as 'received the next business day' and is therefore qualified as 'late'. Cute, right?

Other factors that are used to figure out these life-depending numbers are how much debt you have revolving compared to how much credit you use per month and how well you manage different types of debt. In layman's terms, they want to see how much debt you are already in, how much more you take on in order to pay bills, and how you pay them off.

The last factor is how many other people have been inquiring for your credit reports. We discovered that when our credit union looked at our reports, they could see everyone else who looked into them, as well, and if we got approved or denied for any other loans/credit we applied for. This can be a double-edged sword, like so many other financial processes. If you've never been denied anything you've applied for, it helps your credit rating and makes you seem less risky for a company to lend you money or extend credit to you. If several companies have been looking into your report and you have been denied by some of them, it allows other companies to think that you were 'too risky' and makes them less likely to give you anything. If they do, they probably will hit you with a higher APR.

Now. What also shows up is if you look at your credit report. That's right! You can request your credit score from the Three Companies! You get one report annually free, so if you look into your own history, it reflects well on your report. It shows that you are policing it and if it is damaged, trying to take steps to repair it. (Remember, it takes 10 years for a black mark to be erased from it.) We've all seen the 'FreeCreditReport.com' advertisments where the curly-haired guy is singing about how much better his life would be if only he looked at his credit report. Quasi-true. It isn't an instantaneous thing, but you can catch potential thieves and fraud from happening. And you can dispute wrongful information, provided that you have proof to support you (bills, receipts, contracts, the like. Make copies of important papers when you cancel a payment and do other financial maneuvers).

A word of caution: the universal default law exists. This does nothing good for you and lets every company that you have a loan or a credit line open with potentially able to make loads of money off of you. This law says in a nutshell that if you are late on even one payment to one company, all companies that you have ties to are able to raise your APR because you are now "a greater risk". It does not matter to those companies if you are in 'good standing' and haven't ever in a million years made a late payment to them. If you are late paying your Ashley Furniture credit line (had to have that king size bed, didn't you?) your Visa can now bump up your APR, and so can your 5/3 credit card, and so can your private student loan, and-you get the picture.

A law was passed to start regulating credit cards in how much they can charge you and how high the APR can go, but it does not take effect until 2010. The credit companies are trying every trick in the book to hit as many people as they can with 'finance charges', late fees, higher APR, and what-have-you, before they lawfully are unable to. You might have already seen it in action; I know my husband and I have...one card of ours had the credit limit slashed down 3 months after it was raised, which is highly suspect. The company cited the reason that we 'had not proved our ability to handle' it. Don't make me laugh; we both have cards with higher limits than that one and both have steady, reliable income (AKA: not risky). What they really did? Dropped the limit within $20 over what we owed on the card, and we got a small envelope with nothing on it 10 days after it took affect. The letter, of course, was dated much earlier than that, wink wink. They were hoping we would use the card and max it out, thus enabling them to hit us with some heavy fees.

Joke was on them, though. We had enough money in our accounts to blast that card's debt down to two payments, and then the balance was a nice, round goose-egg. A big, fat zero. So far, they have not raised the credit limit back up and we don't particularly care if they do. We don't use that card on the principle that we lost faith in that company. We kept it open, because closing the account would make a bigger dent on the all-important credit report than just the reduced limit would. We were lucky. We also ate pasta for the next couple of weeks in order to pad our poor bank accounts again.

So be wary and be proactive. Take a look at your credit reports; that gives you the ability to head off problems before they become one. And with one free report a year, there isn't any reason not to.

Resources: , Carmen Wong Ulrich. My absolute favorite book on finances because it breaks everything down into easily understandable language. Chapter 4: The Potential Prison of Credit Card Debt, pp49-75. It ends the chapter with a list of websites that you can compare APRs, information on identity theft and other mishaps, and, as always, request your credit reports.

How To Get a Handle on Credit Card Debt

PotionsMaster@evpl — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:01:00 GMT

If you are like any other red-blooded American living in the current time of today, you probably are carrying a balance on one or a few different credit cards. This revolving debt is going to cost you plenty of money in interest rates, so the big credit card companies are in no rush to have you pay everything back, if at all. This is what they want you to do: pay the minimum balance, preferably not on time, so they can then slap on late fees (they are not small) and finance charges. You'll be amazed how much only $1000 in debt can turn into several...and it can feel like you'll never get out of an ever-deepening hole.

"But wait! If you call 555-Credit-Help-4-YOU, You'll be debt-free!" Yeah. Wouldn't it be nice. Plenty of these comercials are floating around, but please, please, please look carefully at them. A lot of these so-called 'debt helplines' are really just bankruptcy in disguise (). Bankruptcy is nothing to make light of, and it can take years to repair your credit report (grown-up report card, essentially). This is a simple but effective jewel of a plan that I use myself.

Step 1: Take all your credit cards and their most recent statements and sit down at a nice, cleared off table. You'll want the room to shuffle the paper around. Have a pen and a pad of paper so you can make lists. Then take a deep breath. You can do this.

Step 2: Look at each card's APR (Annual Percentage Rate). This is the most important number, regardless of however much you owe. This number determines how much more money you're going to be dishing out to the credit card companies. The bigger the APR, the more money you owe in the long run.

Step 3: List each card in descending order of highest APR to lowest. This is going to tell you which card you'll be focusing all your 'de-debt-ifying' power on first. Again: Don't look at how much of a balance each card carries; if you owe $2000 on a card with 11.999%, but $3546 on another with 8.998%, pay off the $2000 first. It is less money out of pocket in the big picture.

Step 4: One of my favorite books on this subject, Gener@tion Debt by Carmen Wong Ulrich , says the next thing to do is call the credit card companies and ask them to lower the APR. Most companies will do it, because they don't want to lose your business. The worst they can say is 'no'. If that is the case, find out what the balance transfer fee is, if there is one. You can always transfer a portion of a balance to a card with a lower APR in order to have less interest accrued. (Personally, I'm too shy to call a random company, but I am working on mustering up my nerve. Wish me luck!)

Step 5: Start with a fresh sheet of paper and re-order the cards in the list with their new APR's. Look at the top one: this card should have the highest APR. Circle it and post it on the fridge. Now work out a budget of your monthly expenses. Write down how much you make in a month, then take out utilities, car payments, insurance, and guesstimated groceries. The number you have left is your 'de-debt-ifying' money. Take out the minimum payment for every card EXCEPT the top one with the highest APR. That card with the most APR is where the bulk of your extra money is going to go. The more you can sock towards the debt sooner, the better off you'll be and the less interest will accumulate.

Step 6: Be patient and stick with it. You'll be amazed at how the numbers you owe go down and how gratifying it is, too. Now that the first card is paid off, put a big red slash through it on your list and either put it away or cut it up; whichever you need to do so you won't be tempted to use it unless it is a dire emergency. (New leather high heel boots or a new sound system for a car do not count as emergencies. Unfortunately.) Don't give up the good habit just yet, either. Now that one card is paid off, you can take all the money that would have gone to that card to the next one on your list! Add that to the minimum payment you were already paying to the second card (now the first on your list), and you're that much closer to getting rid of that debt.

Congratulations! You're on your way to being debt free! And you didn't have to pay anybody but the credit card companies! This plan is not instantaneous (these things never are), but with patience, perseverance, and discipline you can eliminate your debt. After the first credit card dragon is slain, the process will go faster. It takes the longest to get over that first hill, but once you're there...enjoy the view and the satisfaction of knowing that you can now call yourself a Debt-Buster. Give yourself a well deserved treat. Just don't charge it on a credit card.

(highly) Recommended Reading: User Friendly and extremely informative. It is easy to read and understand; the author is excellent in giving resources and explaining terms.

Must-do List for Debt Management. Government PDF file on how to find a credit councelling firm and what questions to ask. Good for people who are seriously mired in debt but aren't at the point of declaring bankruptcy.

I think it's more of a 'long term get rich quick' scheme, but I do like the chapter on 'Bad Debt: Debt Management'.

Encore unavailability on Monday, July 27

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:48:00 GMT

Encore, a new online catalog we introduced last December, will be upgraded to a new version on Monday, July 27. Encore will be temporarily unavailable during the upgrade process. We don't have an exact time yet for the upgrade, but I will update this post once our vendor lets us know what time to expect it.

The new version of Encore introduces new features, some cosmetic changes, and fixes for pesky bugs.

What do you think about Encore? Post your thoughts in the comments section below, or complete our online survey.

Beat the Heat by Coming to EVPL!

PotionsMaster@evpl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:26:00 GMT

This is the second day of a Heat Advisory for this area. Sure, we all feel drained and listless, not to mention that any kind of physical movement makes a person break out into sweat. But especially in the Ohio River Valley heat can cause more problems than sticky underarms. People especially at risk are the elderly, young children, and anybody who must work outside. Check the Weather Channel and weather.com for updates and further information. Here's what to watch for:

Severe Sunburns: It might not seem like a major heat related health issue, but it is. When the skin is reddened and burned, it loses the ability to drain heat away from the core of the body; blood that runs close to the surface in order to cool down isn't able to because the skin itself is overheated! Have you ever seen some poor fellow who looks like a boiled lobster after a day on the beach? That's a severe sunburn. The peeling that will happen will be spectacular. Hope that poor person doesn't wind up with sun poisoning and blisters from the burn.

How to Treat: Their best bet is to stay out of the sun in a cool spot, keep applying that aloe vera gel, and to keep hydrated. (Keeping hydrated will be a theme.)

Heat Exhaustion: This term gets bandied around alot with 'Heat Stroke', but they are not interchangable words for the same thing. Symptoms of heat exhaustion are weakness, nausea, heavy sweating, fainting, clammy and cold skin (do not be fooled! Cold skin does NOT mean cool internal temperatures!), and for those who are medically inclined to check the pulse, it will be weak and thready. This is actually a mild form of shock. Heat exhaustion can occur when working outside for extended periods of time when the weather is hot and humid. If not recognized and treated appropriately, it can and probably will lead up to heat stroke.

How to Treat: Get out of the sun, drink cool water (not ice cold), loosen clothing, rest for the remainder of the day, and stay away from protein-heavy foods. Ice water will feel like a kick in the gut and might cause cramping, while foods laden with protein (cheese, meat, milk, the like) will cause blood to flow to the intestinal tract and kick up the core body temperature in order to digest. High internal temperatures are what we are trying to avoid. Call the doctor if vomitting happens.

Heat Stroke: It's no joke. Seriously. The body shuts down your internal air conditioning unit, in short. The body ceases to sweat, and that can cause the internal temperature to skyrocket to deadly temperatures. The heat can rise so high, it is possible to cause brain damage. (If you think a sunburn feels like you're cooking, be thankful you have not experienced this kind of heat.) Look for red, hot and dry skin, throbbing headache, strong, fast pulse, dizziness, confusion, nausea, and worst: unconsciousness. If not treated immediately, death can occur within 10-15 minutes.

How to Treat: Call 911. Then try to cool the body any way possible, as fast as possible: strip the clothing, give a sponge bath with cool water, run a fan on the person's body. If outdoors, move victim to shade, strip clothing, and run water from a hose on the body. DO NOT GIVE FLUIDS.

So what can a person do to avoid these terrible health risks? First step is come to the library! Two words: Air Conditioning. This is especially helpful if you do not have air conditioning in your own home. Even if you only come for a few hours, when you go back out into the heat, your body will be able to handle the stress of it a bit better.

Second step: Hydrate yourself. If your body does not have enough moisture for it to sweat, you are on the fast track for heat stroke. Sweating cools the body by evaporating beads of moisture off of the skin. This is the first air conditioning the world knew about, and one of the most effective and environmentally safe ones, too. (Some people's noses might disagree, though!) After air wicks away the sweat, the skin is cooled, which cools the blood in the vessels close to the skin. The cooled blood then circulates around the body, cooling the internal temperatures, and then bringing more hot blood back to the skin in order to become cooler again. It's a beautiful system. The more water you drink, the easier it is for your blood to flow, as well. And it all relates back to making your sweating system more efficient.

Step three: whether you have electric air conditioning or not, keep those electric fans on and that air moving. Moving air evaporates water faster than stagnant air. This is why if you are sweating profusely it feels so good to stand in front of a fan. It's ok to talk into the fan, too, if you're alone...it distorts your voice and you can pretend to be an alien or an announcer. Other tips are to keep your front door and drapes closed; sun coming in through a window can increase the temperature in your house, wilt your plants, and make your AC and fans work harder. Closing the drapes will help your electric bill stay somewhat lower.

If you absolutely must go out, here are a few tips. Wear light colored, light fabric, loose clothing. Light colors in the spectrum bounce sun rays off and away, as opposed to dark colors, which absorb. This is why people with black, dark brown, and navy blue colored cars always have every window and door open in the parking lot when they first open them up in the summer. (I am one of those silly people...my car is black.) Central Library does have an underground parking level to for those who don't want to bake their car seats.

Slow down and don't over exert yourself, particularly in the middle of the day. This is a great excuse to anybody: "I must slow down and not exert myself, especially in the middle of the day, on a day like today; the heat index is says it feels like blah blah degrees, and I don't want to risk getting heat exhaustion. Let's go to the Library and get out of this heat." This next tip should be a no-brainer, but people do forget: wear sunscreen. Preferably with a high SPF. Getting a sunburn is uncomfortable and we've already been over why else it is bad.

Last tip; no prizes for those who can guess what it is: HYDRATE. Drink cool water, or Gatorade/Powerade/Vitamin Water, but especially WATER. This cannot be stressed enough. The body is 70% water and most Americans are chronically dehydrated. People find that if they take a sip or two of water during the day instead of reaching for a snack, that water is what their body wanted in the first place anyway. People confuse 'thirst' with 'hunger', mainly because you feel 'empty' with both.

The Cup and Chaucer here at Central has a cooler full of drinks for those who would like a refreshing thirst-quencher while they are enjoying the comfortable chairs and cool air when in the stacks. Who knows? By the time you finish your book, the heat advisory might be over. And you'll know exactly where to go when the next one pops up.

Services available to laptop users at EVPL libraries

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:31:00 GMT

Do you have a laptop? Bring it in on your next visit to the EVPL to take advantage of the following services!

Wireless Internet Access

Wireless internet access (aka Wi-Fi) is available for free at all locations. If your laptop has a wireless network card (odds are that it does), you'll simply need to enable it and connect to the "evpl-public" network.

Wireless internet access is compatible with Windows & Mac laptops, and most portable devices containing a Wi-Fi radio (such as cellphones, PDAs, etc). Check out our Wireless Internet Access page for step-by-step instructions on connecting with your specific operating system.

Wired Internet Access

If your laptop doesn't have wireless capabilities, wired internet access is also available at all locations. Bring an ethernet cable with you and ask a staff member for assistance. Wired internet access is compatible with Windows & Mac laptops.

Laptop Printing

A service we just recently added, laptop users can now print to library printers while at any EVPL location! By running a small print client from our website, library printers at the user's current location will appear on their laptop just like locally-connected printers would. Upon printing from the laptop, the print job can be paid for & retrieved from any Print Release Station at the user's current location.

Laptop printing is compatible with Windows laptops; Mac compatibility is not available. Check out our Laptop Printing page for step-by-step instructions on using the Mobile Print Client on your laptop. As the Mobile Print Client is only available on personal laptops used within the library, the "Launch Mobile Print Client" button is purposely disabled on all other computers.

With the increasing popularity of laptops, netbooks, and other connected portable devices, we're pleased to offer these connectivity options to our users. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please post them in the comments section below!

NEW security feature for EVPL patrons: PINs

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:59:00 GMT

On Tuesday, March 3, the EVPL will be implementing a new security feature to protect patron accounts: PINs. Similar to using a PIN at the ATM, EVPL cardholders will be required to enter their name, library card number, & PIN when accessing their account online. Since your library account displays your name, address, phone number, and any items checked out or on hold, your PIN protects your privacy in the event your card is lost or stolen.

When the feature is enabled on Tuesday afternoon, a third textbox prompting for you PIN will appear on the login page. Refer to the image above to see what it'll look like.

What You Need to Do

Once the PINs feature is enabled, you'll need to create a personalized PIN the first time you log in. Here's how to do so:

Access the My Account page.
Type in your name & library card number, LEAVING THE PIN FIELD BLANK! Click the "Submit" button.
You'll be prompted to create a PIN. PINs must be between 4-30 numeric digits and not be overly-repetitive. Type your desired PIN in both boxes (to prevent against typos) and click the "Submit" button.

Once this is complete, your PIN has been set! In the future, use it (along with your name & card number) to log in to your account. For more information about PINs, including instructions on changing your PIN and what to do if you forget your PIN, visit our PINs Help page.

The EVPL cares about your privacy, and PINs are a way to safeguard it. Beginning Tuesday, only the "My Account" section of our website will require you to log in with your PIN; in the future, your PIN will also be necessary to use in-library computers and self-checkout terminals.

If you have any questions or comments about PINs, please post em in the comments section below or contact us via Ask EVPL.

Library Elf now a paid-subscription service; here's our free alternative!

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:07:00 GMT

Library Elf, a free service that library patrons all around the world could use to keep tabs on their & their family's due dates, is no longer free. Check out their announcement here, which details the reasons for the change.

Since Library Elf began, we've been adding features to our own "My Account" section, many of which duplicate Elf's features. This means two things:

The EVPL is not currently planning on subscribing to Library Elf.
You don't need to either!

As long as we have your email address on your library account, you'll receive these email notifications free of charge! Follow these steps to make sure we have your correct email address on file:

Hit up the My Account page and log into your account using your name & library card number.
Click on the "Modify Personal Info" button.
Make sure the "I would like to receive my notices from the library by" option is set to "Email", and ensure we have your correct email address.
Click the "Submit" link.

Once this is completed, you'll begin receiving the following notifications via email:

Hold Pickup Notice: When an item you've had on hold is available at the requested library, you'll receive this notice within 24 hours.
Due Date Reminder: These emails get sent out 2 days before an item is due. A nice reminder to avoid those late fines!
First Overdue Notice: Sent out when an item is 4 days (for feature DVDs & Bestseller Express titles) or 7 days (all other materials) overdue.

Patrons are still free to subscribe to Library Elf's Premium service; however, the need to do so has greatly diminished. Those with Library Elf accounts who will be relying on our own email notifications from now on have been asked to close their Elf accounts; instructions on doing so can be found at http://www.libraryelf.com/FAQ.aspx#closeAcct.

If you have any questions or comments about our email notifications, please post them in the comments section below. Questions, comments, or feedback about Library Elf should be submitted to them. Library Elf is and has always been a third-party company with no affiliation to the EVPL, offering their notification services to patrons at libraries all over the world.

Introducing Encore: A better way to search the catalog!

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:54:00 GMT

Last October, we discontinued AquaBrowser. Today I am happy to unveil its successor: ENCORE!

The catalog widget at the top of our webpages now searches Encore. In a nutshell, Encore works very similarly to Google. In the search box, simply type in words about the items you're looking for; this can include a subject, title, author, or a combination of them. Then click the search button.

On the search results page, items will appear in the middle column. Click on a title to find out more about it.

The left-hand column will give you many options for refining your search, such as format, location, and publication date. Clicking on any of the available options will update your search results accordingly.

The right-hand column contains a tag cloud with related keywords. The graphic to the right shows the tag cloud when searching for "puppies". But say I'm more interested in adopting a puppy. "Dog adoption" appears in the tag cloud, and by clicking on it I'll be able to view "puppies" items about "dog adoption".

After trying Encore, please let us know what you think! Feel free to post your comments below or complete our official survey. We're excited to offer Encore and hope you find it to be a useful tool for searching our catalog!

OverDrive @ EVPL now Mac compatible!

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:31:00 GMT

OverDrive @ EVPL is a collection of downloadable materials (including audiobooks, eBooks, movies, & music) available free of charge to all EVPL cardholders. Since launch, patrons with Windows PCs have been downloading countless items from this digital collection...unforunately, Mac users were out of luck.

That is no more, as a Mac version of the OverDrive Media Console (the software required to download items) has just been released! Mac users can now download MP3 audiobooks and transfer them to iPods.

Unfortunately, there are a couple caveats for Mac users:

OverDrive MP3 Audiobooks are the ONLY compatible format available for Mac users. OverDrive WMA Audiobooks, OverDrive Music, & OverDrive Video all use Microsoft-based DRM and therefore are not compatible with Macs. Unless Apple were to license this DRM, which is very unlikely, these formats will never be playable on Macs.
OverDrive Media Console (aka OMC) for Macs can only transfer content to Apple iPods. Transferring to a MP3 player/portable device other than an iPod requires the Windows version of OMC, which only runs on Windows-based PCs.
OMC is unable to transfer content to the iPod Shuffle. Owners of these devices can transfer content to their device using iTunes.
Windows users with iPods will continue to use the Windows version of OMC to transfer content to their device. The Windows version of OMC is also compatible with a wide variety of additional devices, including the Microsoft Zune, Creative Zen series, and more.

Visit OverDrive @ EVPL, browse our collection, install the required software, and download to your heart's content! If you have any questions about the recently-added Mac compatibility, or if you have any questions/comments about OverDrive in general, please post them in the comments section below or contact us via Ask EVPL.

More Information

OverDrive @ EVPL: Visit our OverDrive site to start downloading our digital materials!
What is OverDrive?: Check out this guided tour of OverDrive to discover what it is and how to use it.
Compatible Portable Devices: A list of compatible portable media players that can be transferred to using the Windows version of OMC.

New computers at EVPL libraries

professor.knowsitall@evpl — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:29:00 GMT

Public-use computers at all EVPL libraries are being replaced with new Dell Optiplex 755 computers. With Windows XP, Core 2 Duo processors, and 2GB of RAM, these computers are much speedier than our old ones! These computers also include DVD burners (that burn CDs as well) and memory card readers (for use with memory cards from digital cameras).

Due to the unreliable nature of floppy disks (mysteriously losing files or getting jammed in disk drives), these new computers do NOT have floppy disk drives. We recommend patrons upgrade to one of the following storage methods to work on files at EVPL libraries:

Flash Drives (recommended): These plug into a USB port and are accessed just like a floppy disk. However, they are much more reliable and spacious than floppy disks. Flash drives with 1GB of storage can be purchased for $10 at all EVPL libraries.
Memory Cards: Memory cards, like those used in digital cameras, can be inserted into the memory card reader and used as a disk.
CD-R/DVD-R: Files can be burned to writeable CD-R or DVD-R. However, working with files on a CD-R/DVD-R is much more cumbersome than with a flash drive/memory card; CD-R/DVD-R is not recommended for files you'll be updating regularly. CD-Rs with 700MB of storage can be purchased for $1 at all EVPL libraries.

These new computers are already available at East, McCollough, Red Bank, Stringtown, & West. They'll be installed at Central, North Park, & Oaklyn by the end of the month.

Finally, we're having a Computer Sale this Friday at 9:00am. We'll be selling off some of our old computers. Stop by if you're looking for a good deal!