Milwaukee County Federated Library System

Serving the public libraries of Milwaukee County with resources and collaborations that enhance our communities.

Jennifer Schmidt

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More Say in Sierra’s Future Features with MEEP! (5/13/24)

We wanted to share some exciting changes about how Sierra’s future features will be chosen by users in conjunction with Innovative, the company behind Sierra! In the past, decisions about which features to include in new releases were made solely by Innovative. But now, they’ve entered into an agreement (the Member Exclusive Enhancement Process or MEEP) with the Innovative Users Group that gives library staff more say in what features get prioritized. In this new process, ~20 ideas from the Ideas Exchange will be selected by user run working groups. Innovative will then estimate the amount of software work needed for each idea. After that, all IUG site contacts will vote on which of these ideas they’d like to see prioritized. The ideas with the most votes will be worked on by Innovative and delivered within 12 months. The first Sierra working group met in February and here are the first round of MEEP winners that will be included in Sierra 6.3 (to be released near the end of 2024). Below is a quick list of ideas staff may be interested in voting on, but there are plenty more! Remove duplicate items on paging lists Add “back” option during record creation Open and edit the patron record from the item record Always allow patrons to freeze holds Add a filter to search unsuppressed records only Staff are highly encouraged to explore the Ideas Exchange, create an account to submit new ideas, and vote on the ideas that they believe will provide the most value for themselves and patrons. Find more information about the MEEP agreement on the IUG website.

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Automatic card renewal – now live!

Automatic card renewal (via Patron Point) is now live!  This is only available to patrons 18+ with a valid email address in their account. Patrons with residence in Brown Deer, Greendale, Franklin, Hales Corners, and North Shore must have fines paid in full before automatic renewal can occur. Patrons with residence in Whitefish Bay must have fines $10.00 or less before automatic renewal can occur (updated 5/29/24). Here is an overview of the process:
  • eligible patrons receive an email saying we will attempt auto renewal 35 days before expiration and giving them an option to opt-out
  • ~30 days before expiration, patrons will receive an email indicating the success or failure of the address verification process
  • Successful verifications will extend the expiration date by 2 years in Sierra (no note or message will be added)
  • Unsuccessful verifications or ineligible patrons will receive standard renewal emails with online/in-person renewal instructions, including a reminder email 7 days post-expiration.
Patrons can opt out or opt back in within their 5-day window using this form: https://mcfls.org/optout/ Feel free to direct patrons to the FAQ page here: https://mcfls.org/automatic-card-renewal/ As of 2/28, ~3k emails have been sent to eligible patrons!

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Nominees for the Milwaukee County Teen Book Award

The Milwaukee County Teen Book Award Committee is pleased to announce this year’s 15 nominees for best young adult book.  Readers may vote in person using in-library ballots, via email using mctba.votes@gmail.com or using this Google form.  There is only one vote per ballot, and voting ends on March 1, 2024.  The winner will be announced on April 1, 2024 on the MCBTA’s Tumblr and Instagram page. Decorative image of bookcovers

NOMINEES

Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli Promise Boys by Nick Brooks Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline Where You See Yourself by Claire Forrest The Getaway by Lamar Giles We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson We Are All So Good At Smiling by Amber McBride The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian Man Made Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers I’d Rather Burn Than Bloom by Shannon C.F. Rogers Give Me A Sign by Anna Sortino Hungry Ghost by Victoria Ying

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Online library services down Wednesday Nov 9, 2022

Scheduled Network Migration

On the morning of Wednesday November 9, 2022 starting at 6:00 am CST, the Milwaukee County Federated Library System will be migrating its library network. The scheduled maintenance impacts all public libraries in Milwaukee County, and is expected to take 4-6 hours to complete.  The maintenance needs to be performed during a business workday to ensure that key staff working behind the library system software are readily available to assist with the project.

While our libraries will be open this day, CountyCat, CountyCat Mobile and all resources or services with a connection to our library system (such as Hoopla, OverDrive/Libby, Kanopy, etc.) will be unavailable for the duration of the scheduled maintenance.  If you have downloaded titles from any online service in advance, then you will be able to use them that day.  Patrons just won’t be able to checkout, stream or download NEW items during the outage. E-resources with access set up via a library barcode, such as the BadgerLink databases, Creativebug (Wauwatosa, West Allis), AtoZ databases (Shorewood), Gale Virtual Reference Books (West Allis) are available at this time.  Go to the Databases by Library page to access individual resources.

The Milwaukee County Federated Library System apologizes for this great inconvenience.