Today I want to take a moment to explain to you one of the best benefits of MPL now being a part of The Catalog: how to request an item.
Because the Catalog is made up of all the collections of all the libraries in Allegheny County, it quite literally contains millions of listings of books, CDs, DVDs, videogames, and more. And not only can you search through the entire collection at once -- you can request any non-reference item that you find.
When you request an item, it will be sent from anywhere in the county to arrive at your "home" library (in this case, Monroeville Public) so that you can still pick up all your materials in one easy trip. Requesting is simple and fast -- and can be done at the Library or on your own home computer.
Let's take a step-by-step look at how to Request something online:
1. Go to our homepage at www.monroevillelibrary.org
2. At the top-right of our page, beneath our home page banner, you'll see the Catalog search feature, with the search choice defaulted to "TITLE"
3. There are several different searches you can do from here; "TITLE" is merely the default. Click on the small up-and-down arrows to change your search criteria; you can also choose to search by author, subject, or keyword. (We'll talk about the differences between "subject" and "keyword" in another post.)
I'm a big Stephen King fan, so let's say I wanted to take a look at what Stephen King items were available across the county. So I'd fill in the fields like this:
And then I'd click on the "Search Catalog" button.
4. This'll bring up a new website: The Catalog. It'll look like this:
Now let's take a closer look at the search results it gave me:
You'll notice it didn't just give me one author -- it gave me seven. (Actually, several of the names may in fact be referring to the same, best-known Stephen King; that happens sometimes.) This is a pretty common occurrence, particularly if the title or author you are searching for is pretty popular.
How do I know which one to pick? Sometimes you just have to try a few of the options and see what sorts of results you get -- but in this case, I'll go with the third listing, for "King Stephen 1947." Why? Because #3 has the biggest number of results:
The highest number of results is often, although certainly not always, a good indicator of which listing is the one you want. So I'll click on "King Stephen 1947" to see what titles are available.
4.
Welcome to the fun part. Now it's time to scroll through and decide what you might like to check out. Just click on the underlined title of any item you want to find out more about, until you find one that you want.
I'm a big comic book fan, so I'm thinking that the "American Vampire" comic book that King co-wrote might be pretty neat to try:
Now, there's not a copy at Monroeville Public Library. (I clicked on the big "View additional copies or search for a specific volume/copy" button towards the middle of the page to be sure.) But that's okay, because I can request it -- which means that, in a few days, another library's copy will arrive at Monroeville Public Library for me to check out.
5. All I have to do is click on the "Request" button towards the top of the screen:
6. Put in my Library Card Number and my PIN number:
And click the "Submit" button.
7. Just make sure the Pickup Location is set to "Monroeville Public Library" so it'll be sent here:
(The "Cancel if not filled by" fields are optional.)
Then click on the "Submit" button again.
8.
And -- that's it! In a few days (assuming it's not a super-popular new book that everybody's requesting), a copy of "American Vampire" will be waiting on the Holds shelves for me when I come into work. You'll be notified by either phone or email when the item is ready to be picked up (you can set your preference in your My Account options on the Catalog page or by calling the Circulation Desk at MPL). That's all there is to it.
By the way -- if you get an error message when you try to put in your PIN number, the Circulation Desk here at MPL can help you with that. Just give us a call and we can set you up with a four-digit PIN number:
Monroeville Circulation Desk
412-372-0500
ex. 5
Once you get your PIN squared away, though, the fun really begins. There's a virtual world of books, graphic novels, movies, music albums, videogames, CD-ROMs, and more, right at your fingertips -- all waiting to be shipped from their home libraries to MPL just for you. All it takes is a few clicks of the mouse!
We'll be back soon with more exciting benefits to you now that we've joined the Catalog. (And I'll let you know how that Stephen King comic book turns out.)
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