EBRPL Something New – Page 2 – East Baton Rouge Parish Library InfoBlog

Check Out the New Library Catalog!

On Wednesday, October 26, the Library unveiled a newly designed catalog for the public to use. By November 28, the new catalog will become primary. However, we still will offer a link to the old catalog for patron use until January 2, 2017.

The new catalog has been designed to work well on all screen sizes, from the monitor on your desk to the screen on a cell phone. To see the differences between the old and the new catalogs, visit the InfoGuide at http://ebrpl.libguides.com/NewCatalog.

The new catalog also contains the following new features:

Search results will be sorted by relevancy. This means the results you see are more likely to match what you searched for. It currently only works with keywords searches. However for non-keyword searches, it will sort by popularity which should still produce better results than our current catalog which sorts by year of publication.
Patrons will be able to temporarily renew their Library card online. If a card has expired, they may click on a button on the My Account page to renew their card for 21 days. This option to renew is only available once the card has expired, and is only available on the account once per year. This means that after the 21-day extension, patrons will only be able to renew their card by visiting a Library in person.
Online registration for new patrons will be available. Patrons who find us online but do not yet have an account with us will be able to register for a temporary online card. This card number may be used to access our databases and e-resources and place holds from our catalog. The card number will expire after two months. After that time, patrons would need to renew their account in person and receive a permanent, regular use Library card.
Passwords will replace name codes. Currently, when patrons sign into their account online, they must type in their card number as well as their name code. The name code is the first four letters of the last name followed by the first three letters of the first name. Beginning on October 26, all new patrons will use a password to log in to their account instead of a name code. The default password for these new patrons will be their date of birth in the dd/mm/yyyy format. All current patrons will still log in using their name code as their password. All patrons with an email address, current and new, will be able to change their password at any time and reset their password if forgotten.
Patrons will be able to add or change their email address from the My Account page.
Patrons will be able to add and access linked accounts from the My Account page. This means parents will be able to link their child’s account to their own. They can then use that link to easily renew the child’s items without leaving their account. This requires an email address on all linked accounts.

We’d love to hear your feedback! To let us know what you think of the new catalog, simply click the green button at the top of the new catalog page to leave your comments via the Feedback Form.

Home Improvement Reference Center

The Home Improvement Reference Center is a new resource for people who want to do their own home repairs and remodeling. It has information on everything from routine maintenance to building your own window frames.

The toolbox will help you keep track of what you’ve learned and what you need to know. The Homeowner’s Journal is an especially helpful feature you can use to track the kinds of materials you’ve used and how often maintenance has been done, so you know what you’ll need to match when repairs or replacements need to be made.

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If you are a homeowner, this is a great resource for you to learn how to fix things around your house, or just to keep track of what needs to be done.

SELF-e and Biblioboard

It’s time to get that novel out of the bottom drawer of your desk, dust it off, and get it published – with the library’s new self-publishing duo, SELF-e and Biblioboard.

When you submit a book to SELF-e, it goes through a low-key review process by Library Journal – mostly just to check for file formatting errors and very basic readability standards, like the occasional presence of verbs. Some books are chosen as “Select” titles, which are shared with Biblioboard users across the country.

All accepted titles, though, will be published to the East Baton Rouge Parish Library’s Biblioboard collection. Readers will be able to add them to favorites lists, comment on their favorite parts, and share their opinions with other Biblioboard users – it’s kind of like Goodreads, but the books are already there, too.

SELF-e and Biblioboard are great resources for everyone who’s interested in reading and connecting with local authors – and for those authors who want to reach more readers with their self-published works. Try them today, or check out our infoguide for more information!

Fantasy Book Club

Good morning, campers. If the daily grind is getting you down, please come with us on a variety of magical journeys. We’re speaking, of course, of the nearly-brand-new Fantasy Book Club at the Greenwell Springs Branch.

Watership flyer

You can find Watership Down all over the place, like in our online catalog. It’s a great book. We have it on good authority that if you read it and then go to book club, there will be snacks. Enjoy!

Brain HQ

Do you like games? Do you like competing against yourself? Do you also like personal growth and development, with bonus statistical metrics that will help you measure up against other people in your demographic? Join up with Brain HQ and literally expand your mind.

light up your brain hq

If you’ve heard of Luminosity, it’s kind of like that. Brain HQ has lots of different kinds of challenges to help you work on the things that most interest you. Games focus on the six core cognitive areas: Attention, Brain Speed, Memory, People Skills, Intelligence and Navigation. Most games will combine these areas in different ways, and there are a total of 27 games with over 840 combined levels.

After you’ve signed on and set up an account (which will be used to track your progress), Brain HQ will develop an optional personalized training routine that you can work through each day (or however often) to move through the levels and train your brain. You can also just play the games you like the best as much as you want.

brain hq

Brain HQ! We’ve been playing it at the library, and we love it. If you can’t trust a bunch of librarians to recommend educational games, who can you trust?

Oral History at Eden Park

Calling all Baton Rouge natives – if you’ve lived in the neighborhoods around the Eden Park Branch of the library, then we want to hear from you.

Eden Park is running an oral history program to capture some of our local history. If you remember the opening of the Gus Young Pool or when Gus Young Drive got its name, we’d love to hear about it! Just call branch manager Leila Reilly at (225) 231-3280 for more information or to schedule an interview.

Oral histories can be as long or as brief as the participants want; you can tell us everything you remember, or keep it to just a few events. Anything you know about the growth and development of the Eden Park community will be preserved so it can be shared with future generations.

Check out the Baton Rouge Room’s Digital Archives for examples of some of the library’s other oral history projects!

Wireless Printing!

Welcome to a beautiful new era! You can print documents from your laptop or smartphone at the library now!

printerOn

It’s a skosh complicated, so bear with us. From your laptop, you can go to the PrinterOn page and scroll down to the bottom to find a public printing location. Navigate through to the locations in Baton Rouge (or Baker, Pride, or Zachary), and choose your nearest library branch. Then you just have to upload the file or copy in the link of the file or webpage you want printed, and add your email address so that you know how to recover your document at the library’s printing station.

There’s also an app you can download if you want to print documents or websites from your mobile device – search the app store, Google Play, or whatever secret third option you use for “PrinterOn” (“PrinterOn AirWatch” is something slightly different, so ignore that one). From the app, you can search for a specific location by tapping the magnifying glass icon. Select a printer at that branch, and enter the usual information.

Check out the Mobile Printing infoguide for more information, like links to each branch’s PrinterOn page!

Small Engine Repair Reference Center

The Small Engine Repair Reference Center is a great resource for people who want to keep things running smoothly (we like puns). It’s got reference materials in eight categories:

2016-01-04 15_08_15-Basic Search_ Small Engine Repair Reference Center Home - Internet Explorer …and in every category, you can find manufacturer-specific information:

2016-01-04 15_09_32-Basic Search_ Small Engine Repair Reference Center Home - Internet Explorer

This is only some of them; the options went on for quite a while. (We picked motorcycles as the example because they’re the coolest.)

You can choose a model by clicking on the manufacturer’s name. That takes you from zero to clearly labeled instructional diagrams in just three clicks. (The extended metaphors are better with motorcycles, too. That would never have worked with a topic like “Generators.”)

2016-01-05 14_30_16-HARLEY-DAVIDSON - HARLEY-DAVIDSON 1200CC 1965 AND EARLIER._ Small Engine Repair — Cool Rider (is a song from the hit 1982 musical sequel, *Grease 2*)

Between this and our Auto Repair Reference Center, you’ll be an amateur mechanic in no time.

Modifications like this should still be left to the professionals.

Teen Health and Wellness

Teens, check out Teen Health and Wellness, a great database for all your health questions. It’s been revamped and now you can browse by subject (such as Family Life; Friendship and Dating; and Mind, Mood, and Emotions) and get informed on all the topics in which you might be interested! There are also links to hotlines and local and national resources if you’re struggling with something. It’s all free of course – check it out from our Teen Databases page in our Digital Library. Call 231-3770 for more information.

Treehouse Is Back!

Treehouse is available in our Digital Library again! In order to use this fantastic training resource, simply complete the form located under Treehouse in our Digital Library. If you used Treehouse through EBRPL in the past, you’ll still need to set up an account in the new system. Please contact 231-3750 or your local branch if you have any questions.