Have you taken time to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page that has your account information on it? Or have you clicked on those tabs at the top of your account info page? Under “Reserves” you’ll find a feature that you might find useful: “Have Some Favorite Authors?” With this feature you may browse the “Reserve Express” list of authors’ names, select one by clicking on it, and from that day on, unless you change your mind, you will automatically be placed on hold for any new books by that author that the library purchases. You may choose as many favorite authors as you like.

The authors on this list are those for which we have standing orders-we always get their new books, so you don’t need to do a special request to assure that they’ll be here.

With this feature you’ll never again have to ask the helpful person at the circulation desk whether we have Danielle Steel’s new book yet and then ask to be placed on hold for it. Also, choosing your favorites from this list will help us determine how many copies of books by certain authors we need to purchase. In the past we’ve waited for the reserve queue to build up to a certain point, then we order additional copies. We hope this system will reduce your wait times by a few weeks.

The first Hill Country Book Festival will be held at the library on Saturday, October 11, from 9:00 – 4:00. To celebrate, Ms. Rosa has planned entertainment by the Biscuit Brothers from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m., along with snacks, crafts, and face painting all day long. Children’s authors who will be speaking and reading from their works during the day will be:

• Ken Anderson, author of Dan Moody: Crusader for Justice, 9:00 a.m.

• Elizabeth Scanlon, author of A Sock Is a Pocket for Your Toes, 9:30 – 10:30 a.m.

• Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of Santa Knows, and Tantalize, and her illustrator husband, Greg Leitich Smith, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.

• Elizabeth Moon, author of The Speed of Dark and Victory Conditions, 10:45 a.m.

• Don Tate, author of Black All Around, 11:30 – 12:30 p.m.

• Diane Fanning, author of Bite the Moon: A Molly Mullet Mystery, 1:30 p.m.

• P. J. Hoover, author of The Emerald Tablet, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

• Deborah Frontiera, author of Eric and the Enchanted Leaf, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

• Joseph O’Connell, 3:00 p.m

As we enter the baking season, you need to know that Ms. Rosa has a small supply of fancy-shaped cake pans-the kind like you use to bake kids’ birthday cakes-that you may borrow. She also has cookie cutters appropriate for the fall and winter holidays that she would like to lend. This collection is an outgrowth of the tool library idea, which has been greeted with much enthusiasm, but needs more infrastructure and help to make it a reality.

The cake pans are hanging in the children’s room, on the rack with the audio kits (on the west wall, near the children’s magazines). The cookie cutters haven’t found a permanent home/shelf. Ask for them at the children’s circulation desk. They come in packages of three. The cake pans and cookie cutters check out for three weeks. All of this is a work in progress, so if you have suggestions, please tell Ms. Rosa.

The Friends of the Georgetown Library made a very significant donation to our music CD collection this year — $5000 to purchase all of the albums that were nominated for Grammy awards. This amounted to nearly 350 CDs! Sally Bernier, our stalwart music selector, worked for months to get all of these ordered and has finished cataloging about half of them. Many are already in the browser, waiting for you to check them out and enjoy them. To see a list of those that have been cataloged, use Grammy 2008 in the search box.

As we hope everyone knows, last week the library changed over to a new automation system. No electronic change of this size could happen without some glitches. We are experiencing a few. The new system brings with it some changes that you need to know about, too. (What? No Library Elf service?)

One problem is that family records have become “unlinked.” What is happening is that all materials your family has checked out are appearing under the default barcode for your account. That barcode is most often the one we assigned to the person who filled out the registration card.

We expect to have this corrected in the next few days, but until then items you have checked out may not appear under the barcode you’re using to access your account online. Likewise, the books you’ve requested (have on hold) may appear be on that other record. So, if your record doesn’t look right, ask your spouse or parent for their barcode, try entering it, and you’ll most likely find your materials. If this doesn’t work, please call us at 930-3551 and explain your situation. We’ll try to figure out what has happened.

The second major problem is with books that were on hold when we checked them in last Wednesday, October 1. The new system failed to recognize that the library did not open until October 4, and so the hold period on those books expired this morning, October 6. Unfortunately, the new system does not allow us to rearrange the wait lists, so some people will have missed their turn for a specific book. We have placed all of these persons back on the wait list, but they will be at the bottom. Fair? No it’s not, but there was no work-around for this particular issue. But aren’t you happy to know that from now on there’s no way that anyone may be manually moved ahead of you on any wait list?

You may have received an email notification that Library Elf is no longer available to you. That’s true, but our new system provides the same service without any third party intervention. As long as we have your email address on your record, you will receive an email notice three days before an item is due. If you don’t return it, you’ll receive another email notice when the item is three days overdue. At fourteen days overdue we’ll send a postcard notification about the item, and at 30 days overdue you’ll receive a letter telling you the item has been declared lost and that your are responsible for its cost.

If you wish to change the way you’re being notified about overdues or holds, you may log into your account online and make the change.

We do want to hear from you if you believe your account is not correct, so don’t hesitate to call, email, or come in to talk with us in person. Call 512-930-3551 or send email to library@georgetowntx.org.

During the summer, the City’s webmaster, Erin McDonald, brought a trophy to us that she received at the annual conference of the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers. The library’s website, for which she is primarily responsible, won first place in a competition that the Association had sponsored. We were competing against bigger city websites that have more professionals working on their websites, but the layout and content of the library’s site outshone them all.

While Ms. McDonald takes care of the infrastructure of our website, the library staff provides the content, and we’re working hard to keep it new and informative. Across the top of the front page are four clickable tabs: Local Artists, Renew A Book, Photos & Media, and Contact Us. The Local Artists page is a work in progress that we share with the Convention and Visitors Bureau. If you’re an artist, send us your information so that you may be listed. If you’re interested in seeing the work of local artists, they’re organized by media in the menu on the left.

Renew A Book takes you directly to the catalog, but you’ll need your barcode to access your account.

Photos & Media is another work in progress, to which we add photos whenever we find something we think the public might like to see. Right now we have the Georgetown Heritage Society’s historic photo collection, photos of downtown Georgetown during the early 1980s, photos from children’s events, photos from teen events, shots of the library interior, and plants in the library’s landscaping. There are also links to two videos about Georgetown’s historic architecture.

The fourth tab, Contact Us, gives you the information that should allow you to contact any library staff member. Unlike many websites we’ve visited, we don’t want this information to be buried so deeply that you give up before you find it. Our hours also are listed here as well as driving instructions for getting to the building. We welcome your visits and communications!

Moving down the front page, the three blogs to the right of the large photo are the territory of Bethni King, the young adult librarian; Rosa Garcia, our children’s services coordinator; and Richard Groves, our adult services librarian. Their articles are intended to inform, enlighten, or entertain you, or perhaps all three at once when they’re feeling particularly inspired.

A constantly changing slide show runs in the upper right corner of the front page. It’s our effort to bring to your attention events we want you to know about or services and materials that you might not find without probing deeper into our site. These slides are “clickable” and will take you to more information about each topic. Event-related slides run for short periods of time, others are there for a while.

Below the slide show is the library newsletter, called Library Happenings. The two most recent postings will show on the front page, but you may see others by clicking on Library Happenings. Most of these articles will appear in the hardcopy newsletter that we distribute in the lobby each month.

A bold grey line divides the front page into two sections. What we call “below the line” — Library News, Ask the Librarian, Contact Us, and Landscaping Around GPL – includes some sections that change less frequently. Library News contains announcements that also appear on the City webpage. Usually they’re about adult events that we think the entire community, not just library users, might enjoy. Ask the Librarian is Reference Librarian Suzette Davidson’s column that appears in the Williamson County Sun. The photo gallery, Landscaping Around GPL, identifies the plants in our landscaping and gives a little information about each one. Clicking on the photo will take you to the complete gallery.

With the advent of Apollo, our new automation system, the online library catalog may be attractive enough that you’ll bookmark it and bypass the front page of the library’s website. We hope you won’t, though. We have become increasingly dependent on our website as the best way to communicate with our users. If you want the first word about anything that’s happening at the library, our website is the place to look!