Friday Focus
Friday, September 4, 2015 . . . vol. 3, no. 4
You Know Who You Are! Important Form - All Library Staff Must Sign and Return
ICAN Joins Shared System, Begins Reading Campaign
Special thanks to the East 38th Street Library's Shanika Heyward, manager, and Patty Wallace, children's librarian, for providing financial, moral and hands-on support to ICAN as they reopen their new library!
Welcome, ICAN readers! And a special welcome to Aries! We can't wait to hear more about the literacy mascot!
IndyPL Teen Scene Blog Saves Adults Time!
There's lots in the IndyPL Teen Scene Blog to appeal to teens. And some of it could save parents, teachers and librarians of middle school and high school teenagers a lot of time! THAT'S certainly appealing!
There's also a link to library programs targeting teens. How about "Knitting for a Cause" at Pike where you can learn to knit and donate your work to Horizon House? Or, at the other end of the spectrum, "Teen Gaming @ Decatur," Minecraft at College, or Anime at Brightwood?
But wait, there's more! Just this morning, Michelle Frost, librarian at the Southport branch, added links to a slew of AP Study Guides available through IndyPL.
The Public Collection
Astute observers may recognize Pam Swaidner, IndyPL's Manager of Cataloging and Metadata, who is going to be really happy I published her picture.
It's Not Just about the Books
Brian Selznick to Speak at Central
Check out the book trailer below!
There's a booksale coming up in September. Be first in line on Friends' Night Sept. 11th!
- It’s eResource Friday! Every week Michael Perry, our eResource librarian, profiles a database or electronic resource for you to explore and enjoy! This week, he's writing about Morningstar, an investment database that might be of interest to your finance staff or students! Check his post out on the IndyPL Facebook page. I wanted to focus on some big changes Michael announced over the summer to IndyPL staff. It's all good!
All IndyPL Library cards with fines can now access all of our electronic resources. Even if the cards have fines or are in debt collect, they will still work for accessing all of our online products. That includes eBooks, downloadable audiobooks and streaming video on OverDrive, music and video downloads on Freegal, magazines on Zinio, and of course, our large collection of databases through the www.ilibrary.org website.
Why did this change? For two good reasons (plus several more connected to the 2015-2020 Strategic Plan):
- There is no risk of fines or lost item charges for patrons who have fines!
- We want to reduce barriers for patron access where we can, and we want to increase use of our collections.
OverDrive has listened to librarian and patron feedback and has made a small change that will really make your (and your patrons’) eBook checkout experience better and easier.
Simply put, when users borrow a title, they are no longer taken automatically to the Bookshelf on the OverDrive website so they can download the book. Instead, now users will stay on the current search results page and will see a notification confirming that they have successfully checked out the item.
In comments and feedback, OverDrive found that users and librarians alike wanted to STAY on the search page and borrow several books at the same time. Think “I want all the available audiobooks by my favorite author” or “I want to borrow all of the newest available books in my favorite genre” and the like. Before this change, users were directed to the bookshelf to download the title. Then, users would have to redo the search to get the search results again, so they could checkout the next item in the search. This loop was time-consuming and frustrating to users who just wanted to check out more than one title at a time.
We are excited about this change from OverDrive. Not only does it improve a patron’s experience, we’re expecting an increase in the number of checkouts from our users and hopefully some positive comments, as well.
About Us
Email: sbatt@indypl.org
Website: www.indypl.org/about/shared
Location: Library Service Center, North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IN, United States
Phone: (317) 275-4707
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IndyPLSharedSystem
Twitter: @SharedSysIndyPL