Question to Ask Customers When Issuing a New Library Card

Sometimes a library customer places requests on OverDrive eBooks and then they are issued a new library card.  They are notified by email that their eBook is ready for them to check out, but that eBook request is tied to their old inactive card.  At that point OverDrive won’t allow them to check out the title on the old card because it’s invalid and OverDrive won’t allow them to check out the title on the new card because the request is tied to the old card.  Because OverDrive and Sirsi only connect to validate a card, there is no way to address this in Sirsi.  OverDrive must make the necessary change to allow the title to be checked out on the new card.

What do you need to do when issuing a new library card?

Ask the customer if they use our eBook service.  If they don’t use our eBooks, you don’t need to do anything.  If they do use our eBooks, you’ll need to send an email asking to have their old library card and new library card numbers merged in the Overdrive patron database.

Go to Outlook email and send a message to:  Libraryebookhelp@co.anoka.mn.us

·         Use “Card Merge Request” as the email subject.

·         Provide this information in the body of the email: 

“Customer has received a new library card and needs to access requests on their old card.  Please merge these accounts:   22085XXXX (provide old barcode number) and 22085XXXX (provide new barcode number).”

This should be done when the new card is issued, so the customer does not lose their place in the queue for their eBooks on request and so they can continue to access the eBooks they currently have checked out and their wish lists.

How to Use the Desktop Inteface on an iPad

These days when a customer installs OverDrive Media Console on a mobile device, they automatically get a mobile browser downloaded to their device.  It’s a much simpler version of the OverDrive interface we see on our desktop computers.

This is done for a lot of good reasons, including having the ability to navigate more easily on a small device and the ability for OverDrive to block display of titles that won’t work on a mobile device, like the Adobe PDF eBooks.

However, the desktop interface is much richer, more image-driven, and is easy to use on an iPad.  You may find iPad users who will want the richer desktop interface on their device, instead of the default mobile interface.  It is possible for iPad users to use the desktop version by following these steps:

·         On a computer, go to our OverDrive interface.

·         Copy the url in the address bar and send that to the user in an email.

·         On their iPad, the user opens the email, clicks the url link, and is taken to the desktop interface.

·        For convenience in the future, the user can create a shortcut to the desktop interface on the iPad home screen by clicking “Add to Home Screen”.  See example below.