District of Columbia Public Library patrons can now get holds and overdue notifications via SMS. What’s almost even cooler is something I learned just a few months back. When you apply for a DCPL card online it is immediately active and can be used to place holds and use electronic resources. And actually, people in DC don’t even need to get a physical library card. They can opt to use their drivers license and its number as their barcode. Pretty convenient. DCPL CIO Chris Tonjes and consultant Bill McClendon did a nice job with this stuff.
text message notifications from the DCPL
Feb 23, ’09
4:50 AM
Comments
We are going to need to do some screen sharing to help me streamline my system. I am wasting ALOT of time for sure.
These features are almost useless in practice if staff in the branches aren’t properly trained on how to use them or inform patrons about them. Where I worked, patron’s email addresses were not added to their library records even if they put it on the form so they never would have received email notices regarding holds and due dates. Whenever a patron came in wanting to use their Onecard or Driver’s License they were almost invariably issued a library card because no one was quite sure HOW the whole Onecard or License as Library Card was supposed to work. Only the tech-savviest of library patrons ever seemed to figure out how to access some of the library’s cooler features–such as SMS notifications. And that was a pretty small percentage of the library users.