Exciting Libby News 

On March 21st Libby will be getting a shiny new update for libraries and their patrons to enjoy! This news means that Libby is introducing two new features called deep search and notify me. The deep search feature will allow patrons to find more titles, ones that may not be in the library’s collection yet. And Notify Me tag is actually a part of the tags feature that already exists within Libby now!  

Deep search will allow everyone to see titles that may not be in the collection. Once you find something you are interested in but is not in the collection you can then use the Notify Me tag to let the libraries know you are interested in that title. And in turn if that title is added you will then be notified of its addition so that you can read or listen to that title! 

This does mean that the Recommend to Library feature that some people may be familiar with is officially going away. This is going hand in hand with the OverDrive App’s formal sunset at the end of April.  

So, this is a good time to remind everyone – if you are still using the OverDrive App and have not yet switched to the Libby App – now is the time! OverDrive will be going away officially at the end of April along with its Recommend to Library feature but fear not Libby will still be here with its handy new deep search and Notify Me tags to help us meet your library needs! 

P.S. For those not yet familiar with Libby’s tag feature please take a peak at their handy help page here all about tags and how to use them: https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/categories/tags.htm . And to get more familiar with Libby please don’t forget to checkout https://libbyapp.com/library/acla .

Happy Reading  

~Adrianne 

Northland Library 

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Need help looking for a book?

As library staff, we are often asked to find a book someone read a few years ago or as a child. During the interview process, usually some information is gathered about plot, characters, location/setting…but we lack the title. In comes NoveList! I’ve used this resource many times to successfully locate the title and author for the patron.

Here you or a patron can enter in search terms and narrow down criteria for the book. For this patron, she had read a vampire romance YA book (that wasn’t Twilight). Under Advanced search we can enter in keywords and select the age group.

Once we brought up the results, you can further narrow down the results by selecting publication date range.

Narrowing down the results gave us a much smaller list to look over and looking at the book covers, we were able to successfully locate the book!

There is also a hand link to check the catalog!

A successful book hunt all thanks to NoveList!

Gabi B. – Robinson Library

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Help Us Help You – DRC Training Videos

The DRC would like to create videos that teach consortium staff how to use the various digital resources offered to the county. These instructional materials would be hosted here on eLibrary Backstage and would be accessible at any time. Staff will benefit from these trainings for their own sake and the sake of their patrons. They can transfer the skills they learn into their daily work, helping patrons navigate digital resources and utilize them effectively.

What we would like to know is: what digital resources do YOU want to learn more about?

Let us know by taking this survey.

Please ask your colleagues to take this survey as well so we can utilize as many great ideas as possible!

— Derek, South Park Township Library

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Understanding and Navigating Per-Month Article Limits

Over the past 20 years, digital news-seekers have seen barrier after barrier put up to deter free browsing of high-quality journalism, essays, scientific research, and the like. The likeliest barriers are pay-to-read articles (more commonly known as paywalls) and per-month article viewing limits. Many consumers simply concede there is no way around rather than coughing up cash and going over the wall.

But, to those willing to experiment and explore some inner workings of their web browser, you can also go around or under these walls. This article focuses on article-per-month limited websites using The Atlantic as an example.

Monthly Article Limits at www.theatlantic.com:

I’m a cultured man about town, so I enjoy reading an article from The Atlantic from time to time. Not enough to purchase the physical magazine, but if there’s an important political or cultural article (in this case, how SNL was last night…), I like to read it from the source instead of a watered-down version elsewhere on another site. Thankfully, I haven’t read any Atlantic this month so I get one (1) free!

Example:

Unfortunately, something else caught my eye while I was looking at the main page—doesn’t matter what. I only get one free article per month… right?

Wrong. Now, let me try to explain my methodology. My understanding of web design and computer science is elementary at best, so here we go: every computer page you visit records information on you. This information gets tracked in a variety of ways—cookies, history, etc. Essentially, if you delete those trackers, the website thinks you have never visited it. Thus, you can enjoy free monthly articles ad infinitum. You can do this a number of ways, I’ll describe my two favorites below:

Option 1: Clear site data

Let’s start with the complex option. So, you want to read all the articles on the Atlantic but don’t want to pay today (or you are trying out the site to see if it is worth paying for!). There are four easy steps to this process. The first is to open the Developer Tools Interface with the F12 hotkey. It opens up this menu on the right:

Let me start off by saying this interface is incredibly intimidating. Fortunately, we just need to know where to navigate and completely ignore all the other options. Here are the next steps (with a picture guide!):

  1. Navigate to the Application screen (top of interface)
    • (1A) You may need to click “>>” to the right for a drop-down menu to see the “Application” option
  2. Click on “Storage” (left of interface)
  3. Then, click “Clear site data”
  4. Dance party (not pictured)

Repeat this process any time you are prompted you’ve read all your free articles—I personally use this for the New Yorker and the Atlantic. This process may not work with all, especially those that require a sign in / free trial.

Option 2: Incognito Mode is Your Friend

Now, the simple option. Google Chrome and Firefox (and countless others, I am sure) have “incognito” modes that do not save your browser history, cache, cookies, etc. When you “run out of free articles,” paste the URL into a fresh incognito window, and enjoy.

My last bit of advice would be to check out your local branch (or nearby branches) to see if they offer access to news sources! For instance, my home library (Cooper-Siegel Community Library in the Fox Chapel Area) offers free 24-hour passes to the New York Times for any card holders (under the right side under “NYTimes”)!

Hope this helps at getting those hard-to-reach, premium opinion and news articles. Any questions, comments, or concerns, please reach out to me at smithc2@einetwork.net.

Cameron R.S. Smith — Cooper-Siegel Community Library

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