Library Elf

Many months ago, we told our patrons about a great way to keep track of their library books: Library Elf. This free service (not run by us, but by a Canadian company) would send emails alerting their members when they had overdue books, books on hold waiting for them, and even when their books were almost due. It was a fabulous way to avoid fines, it was free, and they were supposedly immune from the provisions of the Patriot Act (if you don't know what this act means to your personal liberties and privacy, you should: American Library Association site).
Unfortunately, with our new system, Library Elf no longer works. The company did send out an email to their Ketchikan members alerting them of this, but if you missed the email and you rely on their messages to get your books in on time, I'm here to tell you that you need to go back to the old-fashioned way of tracking your books: look at the little date due slips we put in them upon checkout.
Another related piece of news: at this point we still have not been able to get our system to print overdue notices. We have just installed a software patch that we are pinning all our hopes on, and we will try again on Monday, but in the interim you might just want to hop online and check your account manually: Library Catalog. Click on 'My Account' and then on 'Review My Account'. In order to log in, you will need to enter all 14 digits on your library card barcode. The PIN is the last 6 digits of said barcode (if you hate this, you can change the PIN to something more memorable). Keep your fingers crossed for us on Monday!