Chacham's Journal: Verbiage: Our library in the digital age

Library? What's a library? Oh, books. What's a book?

Well, a library is a place where they have an Internet connection, and people tend to be on the quieter side. A book is where outdated information and stories without update or comment are posted. An anachronistic nostalgia wasting (y)our city's tax revenue. Not to mention our library's the ugly web page, not to be mixed up with a decent page from a library with a deceptively similar name.

I have a friend who works at the library. He works there part time, and has done so for many years. So when i do have an issue, i give him a call and (believe it or not) he is more than happy to help. And every time i do call and ask, i find out more about our library. Cool stuff too. The only prerequisite is a library card (number).

One item of interest is Zinio. IIUC, there's actually two Zinios. One for libraries, the other for personal use. Our library pays for Zinio, so as long as you have a library card you can login. I found the setup process to be terribly annoying, mostly due to error and a stupid process that keeps asking and re-asking. Whatever. Once it is setup, however, it works beautifully. Basically, Zinio has a bunch of digital magazine subscriptions such as Reader's Digest, National Geographic, fashion, hobby, and kids publications. I assume it depends on what the library pays for. You subscribe to it, and as long as there a "copy" available, you can read it. You release it when your done, and it can alert you where there are more. And, because there is an app too, you can read it just about anywhere. Cool stuff.

A second item is only interesting if you like ebooks. OverDrive has ebooks based on your library's subscription, and again, you use your card to login. It too has an app. It's like Zinio, but for books. (Should that be the other way around? :) I find this less helpful because i'm not big on ebooks, and i have a Kindle for that anyway. Nonetheless, between the webpage and app, it's a pretty cool option to have.

A third item, i found about only because my mother thought OverDrive would have it. It doesn't, but it's there, right on top, listed as "Catalog". Certainly you know what that is. Right? It allows you to reserve books and extend reservations (which is what my mother wanted), see what is past due, what you may owe, and so on. It also has a link to MelCat which they alert you not to use unless the other avenues have been exhausted. It's silly to order a book that already exists locally. Anyway, a website checkout for books. What will they think of next?

(When i went to "Catalog" on my mother's computer (via TeamViewer) it was pretty unusable in FireFox. So, i downloaded Chrome and set it to continue the last session on startup. Basically, where she usually uses FF, Chrome can be dedicated to the library. It's easy and simple, assuming it works out in the long run.)

The suggestion box is an email address. I want to tell them how ugly and unintuitive the website is and that the available options are very nice, nonetheless. But send a direct email?! Surely, you must be kidding.