Library catalogue on your mobile - AirPAC

'AirPAC' was designed for use on your mobile phone. It's a stripped down, picture free version of the catalogue, perfect for slow load speeds or when you don't want to be connected for very long. (This also makes it great for dial-up.) You can do all the things that you'd do on the regular catalogue - search, reserve, check what you have out, renew items etc.

Here is the web address. http://www.elgar.govt.nz/screens/airpac/airpacindex-s8.jsp

Get email notification before your books are due

Life is busy. Sometimes library items are the last thing on your mind and when you do remember them it's too late. Rodney Libraries sends out email courtesy notices before your items are due to help you out.
A courtesy notice is an email reminder that your items are due a few days before they have to be returned. Then you can either renew or return them. No more late return charges!
All you have to do is add your email address to your My Info account (you'll need your card number and PIN to get into the account. If you have problems please email us or talk to a librarian the next time you're in the library.)

Interloan - what is that?

The Library has so many services that some of our longer lived ones can get lost in the mix. The Interloan service is a case in point. Did you know that you can get items from other libraries around New Zealand if Rodney Libraries doesn't have what you want? Not everyone does.

It will cost between $5-$30 depending on which library will send it to us. We have reciprocal arrangements with several libraries around New Zealand which basically says that we will lend some of our items to them for free if they will lend their items to us for free. There are some restrictions around that (no lending out the latest bestsellers for example) but generally, if you want it, and another library has it, then we can get it for you. (It will cost slightly more if we have to get it from a library that we don't have an arrangement with.)

To request an interloan you can either contact a librarian at one of our libraries or click on "Can't find it?" then fill out the appropriate form on the Interloan page.

Email notification from the library

If you've added your email address to your library account you may have received an additional notice last Friday. That's when we rolled out Courtesy Notices.

A courtesy notice is an email reminder that your items are due a few days before they have to be returned. Then you can either renew or return them. No more late return charges!

Add your email address to your My Info account (you'll need your card number and PIN to get into the account. If you have problems please email us or talk to a librarian the next time you're in the library.)

Pay your Library charges online

If you're a regular user of the online "My Info" facility and you sometimes have charges on your card then you may have noticed a button "Pay fines and charges". This is a new function on the catalogue. It allows you to pay your library fines and charges by credit card over the internet. Once you login to the payment area you can select which charges to pay. The next screen will ask for credit card details. Once your transaction is complete you will see a screen telling you whether it was successful or not. A copy of the receipt will be emailed to you. You can also choose to print it out.

The "Pay fines and charges" button will only display if there are charges on the logged-in library card. If you'd like to know more about this please talk to a staff member at your local library.

Tech alert: Multiple requests from cart problem fixed

There was a problem with placing multiple requests from a cart of saved items on the online catalogue. This has now been fixed, and is working normally again.

To place multiple requests
1. Search for item.
2. Add the item to the cart by clicking blue button "Add to cart" .
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 as necessary.
4. Click blue button "View cart"
5. Click blue button "Multiple requests"
6. Enter barcode and pin.
7. Choose "Pickup location" from drop down menu. Click blue button "Request All" or select titles and click blue button "Request Selected".

Express Check it at Rodney Libraries!

I was at the supermarket this morning buying my lunch when I noticed that they'd changed the layout of their checkouts. When I looked closer I could see that the new checkouts were actually self-checkouts. You can scan, pack and pay for your own groceries. "Huh" I thought, "They're copying the libraries."

Admittedly we don't have self-checkout or 'Express Check' machines in every library just yet (but we're working on it). There's an 'Express Check' at Orewa, Whangaparaoa and Kumeu. If you're in the mood give one a go. It's as easy as 1-2-3-4.
1. Put your library card under the red laser line.
2. Repeat with each book to be issued.
3. Press on the screen "Print Receipt".
4. Tear receipt off printer.

Behind the Headlines

The Cops have been getting some pretty bad raps at the moment with headlines about “Not Guilty” verdicts from three high profile trials, discussions on response times and everyone from the Prime Minister to talk back callers voicing their opinion.

I’m not going to get into whether the headlines are deserved or not (and you don’t want me on my soapbox about the media). However away from the headlines and at the coalface, the Police are an integral part of our society. They do have a colourful history and you can read about New Zealand Police, the successes and the failures, the histories and biographies, all in the non-fiction collection at any Rodney Library. You will find most of these under the Dewey Numbers starting with 360. Or you can read about the Police and Crime in our changing society under Dewey Number 305.

There are some interesting and funny biographies from the Police Force which you can find in the biographies which are located under Number 920. And don’t forget that the numbers are the same whether you are in the adult or the children’s non-fiction areas.

Another way of looking for books on a topic is to do a subject or a keyword search in our Rodney Libraries catalogue. If you enter New Zealand Police into a subject search, this will result in a list of subject headings, any of which you can click on to bring up the titles to choose from. If you enter New Zealand Police into a keyword search, this will result in all the books in the Rodney Libraries that have these three words in our catalogue entry.

Time for a Proper Introduction

INTRODUCING “Rosie”

The majority of our customers at Rodney Libraries, ask for us to phone them when the book that they have requested has arrived. Phone calls are also the main way we contact you when you have overdue books and outstanding fines.

The voice of Rodney Libraries has been called many things. “The disembodied voice” is a common one, but there are many others (some of which we probably can’t publish) such as the automated or mechanical voice and talking technology. Well, we decided that was a bit unfair to the hardworking voice of the Library so one day we decided to give her (and we are all pretty convinced that the voice is female) a name and a personality.befitting her status as one of the most important members of our staff. It took a while (several coffees) before we thought that such a sunny personality should have the name “Rosie”.

Rosie is of indeterminate age and nationality, although we are fairly certain English is not her first language. She will not always get the pronunciation of your name right but she does her best. Because this is her second job she makes her calls to you after hours, often around dinner time or when the evening news is on (because that is when she is most likely to find you at home and we want to make sure the message gets through).

If getting a call from Rosie is not the highlight of your day (or week), you do have other options for how we contact you. You can choose to be contacted by phone, email or by letter. Obviously the letter will take a couple of days to reach you, which is why sometimes a letter advising your books are overdue when you have already returned them. And if you opt for being contacted by email, you should check it regularly.

If you would like to change the way we get in touch with you, just advise us next time you are in the library and check that your details are all current.

PS I hope you all had a fantastic Queens Birthday Weekend. And for anyone that is interested, Yes I did start my lawnmower. Have a good day.

The Facts of Lives

"Get up to date on the Facts of Lives"
This is the catch phrase for another one of the free resources you can access using your Rodney Library Card via our website and the e-resources link.

The Biography Resource Centre currently has more than 435,000 biographies on more than 340,000 individuals from around the world, throughout history and across all sorts of disciplines and subject areas. Each year more than 75,000 new or updated biographies are added. Articles are added daily and bio's are updated regularly (births, deaths, marriages, world events, etc).

Searches can be done by name, ethnicity, gender, occupation and birth/death place or year. While it is an American site, it certainly has an international flavour.

Do you remember how to access the e-resources? You just need to go to our Rodney Libraries website, click on the e-resources link and use your library card barcode and your PIN number and a whole world of people opens up to you.

HOW TO: Rate items on the catalogue

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that American Gods had a five star rating on our catalogue. This is a rating from readers who obviously really liked the story. (Granted, there are only 5 ratings but still, that's a 100% success rate...)

Here's how to rate your favourites (or un-favourites).

Step 1: Login to "My info"

Step 2: Look the item up on the catalogue.

Step 3: Click the star to rate the item. Choose carefully - once you've rated it you can't change your mind and go back.


To find out how many people have rated an item hover your mouse over the stars. A label will pop up listing what the rating is and how many people have rated it.

Have fun!

HOW TO: Get to the catalogue on dial-up internet

Are you on dial-up? Is it frustrating to watch the library catalogue load oh-so-slowly? There is another way!

'Airpac' was designed for use on your mobile phone. It's a stripped down, picture free version of the catalogue, perfect for slow load speeds or when you don't want to be connected for very long. This also makes it great for dial-up. You can do all the things that you'd do on the regular catalogue - search, reserve, check what you have out, renew items etc.

Here is the web address.

http://www.elgar.govt.nz/screens/airpac/airpacindex-s8.jsp

Doorway to the world

I'v mentioned before that your Rodney Library card is not just about the physical books and other items you can find within the confines of the Rodney Libraries buildings. This week I want to introduce you to another one of the fantastic resources that we make available to you.

The database I want to highlight this week is the Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre which is hosted by EBSCO. For a magazine and newspaper junkie such as myself this is heaven in a library card. This site will give you access to the full text of articles from over 240 (at last count) magazines, newspapers, industry journals and newswires, and has details of what is inside each edition of nearly 400 periodicals in total. As suggested by the title, there is an Australian and Kiwi emphasis but there are magazines from further afield (e.g. United States of America and South Africa). Check out this list of everything available at the site.

This is a fantastic way to track down an article that you can remember reading, but can't remember exactly where you saw it. In a lot of cases, once you track it down you can read it on screen immediately (that what we call fulltext). In other cases the site can provide you with details of what magazine it was in, what month or edition, and even the page number. You can then check the Rodney Library catalogue as heaps of the magazines we have on our shelves are covered by EBSCO (which is a quicker way to refer to it).

So how do you access it. Simple! Go to the Rodney Libraries web page and click on the e-resources button/option. This will bring up the list of databases available to you. Scroll down to either Newspapers and Magazines or New Zealand and click on Australia/NZ Reference Centre. A screen will come up with two boxes, one asking you for your library card number and the other asking for your PIN. Once you have entered these correctly and pressed Go, the search screen for EBSCO will appear.

Oh and did I mention that you can do this from home.
Oh and did I mention that this is FREE to all Rodney Library card holders.

If you would like a demo of how this works, please ask next time you are in the library.

I want to have my say!

It occurs to me that you may have been reading our blog, wanted to put us right, agree with us or just make a comment, and haven't known how.

And as we would really like this to be more like a conversation than a just the two of us talking at you, here's a simple guide to how to us the comments function. It's really easy, you don't have to join up or register (which I know puts a lot of people off) and there's only four easy steps.

1. Click on the comments link at the end of the post

2. Type your comments into the text box

3. Type the string of wavy coloured letters into the box provided.

4. Select the name you want to comment under. You have 3 choices

• Log in using a Google or Blogger account. This means that the comment you leave will link back to your own website or blog.


• Choose another identity. You can pick a name and even enter a website URL to link back to if you want.


• Choose to be anonymous. With this option you don't need to supply a name or a website URL. And we don't have a problem with anonymous comments, but bear in mind that we do check the comments before they are published.

So all you need to do is follow these four easy steps and Congratulations. You are now part of the blogger world. Please have a go and let us know you are out there.

The "HOW TO" series #2 - Reserving

So you’ve found the book you want to read in the Rodney catalogue (http://www.rodneylibraries.govt.nz/).
It’s on the shelf of your local library so you figure the next time you go in you will grab it. But when you get there, someone else has got there before you. Or maybe it is out and due back in a week. But when you come back a week later it is still not there because the other person renewed it. How do you make sure the book is there for YOU!

It’s simple. You just need to request it. And once you have found the book on the catalogue it is really easy to do. If you have the record of the book on screen in front of you (using the same example as last week here is the link through to Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs). At the top of the page are a number of options with blue buttons. All you need to do put your cursor on “Request” and left click.

The next screen that comes up will ask you for your Library Card number (the barcode) and your PIN number. You need to enter the whole barcode off your library card (don’t worry about the spaces). You then need to type your PIN number into the second box. If you have never made a request or used a PIN number before, leave this box blank and you will then be asked to choose a PIN (which has to be at least four digits or numbers long). If this still does not work, please contact your local library so that we can set your PIN for you.

Push Go and the Request Verification screen will appear. This will ask you to choose which library you would like the book to be sent to for you to pick up. From the drop down menu select the most convenient library. This screen also gives you the option of choosing to cancel the hold if it is not received by a certain date (most convenient if the book is for a school project or a holiday). Or you can simply leave this blank and left click on “Go”.

A screen will come up telling you that your request was successful and confirming which library the book will be sent to. You then just have to sit back and wait for the phone call, email or letter letting you know that the book has arrived (this depends on the method you have chosen. Please note that we cannot call mobile phones with notification).

If you have any problem, please don’t hesitate to phone your local library or ask next time you come in to see us. The librarians are always happy to explain the procedure to you or can place the holds for you.

The "HOW TO" series #1 - Searching the catalogue

Searching for books in the Rodney Libraries catalogue is easy. And you can do it from the comfort of your own home simply by logging onto http://www.rodneylibraries.govt.nz/.

When you arrive at our webpage, choose to “search the catalogue”. There are several options for you here. If you know the name of the book, you simply do search by Title and then put the name of the title in the second box

You can also search for other books by a favourite author by changing the criteria to Author and entering the name (put Surname, then first name e.g. Reichs, Kathy) and a full list of all the books (including audio books) will be displayed for you to see which library in Rodney is holding them, where on the shelf they are (this is the Call Number) and if they are available. Click here to see the result of my search this morning for Kathy's books.

When you do your search and if you want to see more information, if you put your cursor (the arrow or pointer on your screen) over anything that is in blue and left click your mouse, this should take you to the next screen for a fuller description. For instance clicking on the first of Kathy's books in our results Bare Bones will reveal that we have a number of copies on our shelves, not just the three or four that were showing in our original summary.

The other common option for searching is to carry out a search by subject. Whether you want to know about dinosaurs (a favourite subject of our boys) or cooking, simply change the criteria in the first box to subject and then enter your subject into the second box. If you have a very specific subject that you are looking for, another option is to use the keyword search (this is a bit like a google search and can give you both useful and varied results).

A useful tool to use when you are first starting out is the Guided Tour or ask one of the librarians to show you next time you are in your local library.

Have a fantastic day.