Trending eHelp Topics – Winter 2023

It could happen to you too! Here's a list of the top 3 eHelp questions since my last post in September.

Beware! Not everything in Libby is listed in Sierra/BiblioCore.   

• You might be wondering why? Well, our Libby collection draws from a wider selection of ebooks and audiobooks available through the Northern California Digital Library Consortium. 
• At the same time, with popular eBooks we do purchase extra copies (which helps decrease hold lines because Palo Alto library users get those extra copies first). Our purchased items are visible in a catalog search.
• TL;DR version:  there are thousands of more eBooks available through a direct Libby database search. Hoopla too!

New Skillshare sign-ups went bye-bye.   

• Recall that this is a resource we're accessing via the California State Library, thus the unusual cut-off date. Customers were notified of this way back in August.
• GetSetUp, which is also part of that same grant from CSL, is the next to expire. That happens in April 2024. 

Lote4Kids is 100% working after some recent fixes. 

• Try it out! It's designed to help kids learn new languages.
• Lote4Kids also has its own mobile app for iOS and Android which loads faster than their website. We have been working with this vendor to fix that issue.

Bonus Round!

We didn't get any customer questions about the following, but still good to know.

• Kanopy changed their borrow limit system to tickets instead of checkouts.    
  • The app/website does an excellent job explaining how this works.
  • When you're introducing online streaming to new users, don't forget that both Kanopy (and Hoopla) also have sub-collections with unlimited simultaneous borrows.
• Beware! "Dormant" Gmail accounts were deleted on December 1st. This might lead to more bounced circ emails in the near future.
• This very rarely ever happens, but did you know Wall Street Journal has a special page that will zap browser cookies? Usually this is something you have to do within each web browser, but they have a page that does it for you.
  • As a side note, deleting cookies is a good troubleshooting step for almost everything in eLibrary. Here's how to do that in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
• Alexander Street Press videos and music streaming was just listed in A-Z and you should check it out. This database includes full indexing of their video transcripts, which is great for researchers, but for general browsing from BiblioCore there's also a Series Search option.  Read more about more series search in this blog post for 2020.
• Finally, did you know Libby has a tips & tricks website called LibbyLife?