Exciting news! Over the next 8 weeks, the La Porte County Public Library is transitioning to a new integrated library system. (new computer software system) The new system will provide greater ease of use and operability for the customer, creating a similar user experience that customers have searching elsewhere online.
Phase one begins today, December 2, when no new ILL requests can be submitted, either online or in person. This process will resume by January 20, 2020, upon complete transformation into the new ILS.
After a lengthy process (over a year researching and analyzing vendors), the La Porte County Public Library is involved in an ILS migration. The library uses an ILS to track items owned, orders made, bills paid, and customers who have borrowed items from the library. In other words, it is the software system used by the library to order, catalog, promote and circulate library collections to the community.
Even though the goal is to have improved customer services, community members that use our library branches will see impacts from the migration for a time. The migration began in late October and will last through mid-January. Most of this work is behind the scenes and customers will not see service interruptions. However, there will be some service adjustments as follows:
- From December 9, 2019, for a period of about 5 weeks, no new materials will be processed and made available to the public or made visible on the catalog.
- Requests for new materials will be suspended for this same period of time.
- The library system branches will be closed from January 13-15, 2020 and possibly longer depending on the result of the migration. Customers should still return any items they have finished or are due to the library locations.
- The customer’s current reading history will be lost as of January 13, 2020. If any library customer wants help to make a copy of their reading history, they should contact the library for assistance.
- The public catalog will be visibly different once the library is up and running again and customers should seek the help of library staff for any issues encountered with the new catalog regardless if it is searching, requesting materials, paying fines and bills, or managing your customer account.
We thank you for your patience and understanding as we move to improved catalog and circulation services for our community.
We are very eager to get moving with the process and cannot wait for its completion. With any new and exciting features, such as a new software system, we will have outages, updates, and closures that will need to take place. Please keep up-to-date by checking the website and following our social media. We will do our best to keep you informed.
2020 will surely be the BEST YEAR EVER at the La Porte County Public Library! #YouBelongHere
