One catalog is available
August 27, 2009
As of Thursday, Aug. 27, you can now access the entire 5-million-item collection of books, DVDs, CDs and more with one click. Use your current library card, whether it is a Minneapolis or suburban card.
What happened and why?
As part of the merger between Hennepin County and the former Minneapolis Public libraries, our two catalogs became one on August 27. This not only reduces operating costs, it also gives customers and staff access to the entire 5-million-item collection in one place, the current suburban catalog. Thank you for your patience during the transition.
Can I request items from any of the 41 libraries now that the catalogs are combined?
Yes! As of August 27, you can place a request on any circulating ("request-able") item in our combined catalog for pick up at any Hennepin County Library.
What about my account in the Minneapolis catalog and does my library card still work?
All customer accounts have been moved to the combined catalog and, yes, your Minneapolis library card works in the combined catalog.
- If you had two accounts (and library cards), one in the former Minneapolis Public Library system and a different one in the suburban Hennepin County Library, they both still work. They are still two separate accounts. These will be combined at a later date.
- If your Minneapolis library card was also registered in the suburban Hennepin County Library catalog, we have combined your two accounts and preserved the information in both of them.
Were my holds/requests and checked out items transferred from my Minneapolis account?
Yes, all the activity on your account was transferred to the combined catalog. Requests from both catalogs have been combined, so your place in the “queue” may change if there are also requests on that title in the suburban catalog. In order to reorder the combined request queues fairly, all requests were ordered by when they got into the queue, relative to when the title became available to request.
What if I had fines or fees on my Minneapolis account?
- Any fines or fees on your Minneapolis account have been transferred to your new account in the combined catalog.
- If you had accounts in both the Minneapolis and suburban Hennepin County Library catalogs, the accounts were combined and any fees or fines were combined as well. If that combination puts you over the limit for borrowing items, you will need to pay down the balance so you can borrow items again.
How do I log into my account in the combined catalog?
- Log in with your library barcode and PIN
- Your PIN has been changed if you had a Minneapolis account only.
- PINs in the combined catalog are four digits long, numbers only.
- Your new PIN is the last 4 digits of your phone number.
- If there was no phone number in your account, the PIN is '0000'.
- You can change your PIN when you log in to your account.
How do I pick up my holds?
- If you had a Minneapolis account, you will be assigned a "pickup number" which a staff member will write on your library card. This number is used to locate your held items on the holds shelf.
- When you go to pick up your held items in a Minneapolis library for the first time after August 26, please see a staff member to get your pickup number.
- You may also look up your pickup number yourself by logging in to your account and clicking on the Personal Information tab;
- If you had accounts in both catalogs, you already have a pickup number, and that stays the same.
How do I designate my holds pickup location?
- If you had a Minneapolis and suburban Hennepin County Library account, your default pickup location is the one that was in your suburban account. You can choose and change your regular pickup location by going to My Account and clicking on the Personal Information tab. Choose your library from the regular pickup location dropdown menu.
Why am I having trouble getting the right items when I order a TV series on DVD, a boxed CD set or other multi-volume items? 
After consolidating the city and suburban catalogs, a problem cropped up regarding the way DVD sets, boxed CD sets and other multi-volume items were catalogued. This means that when you place holds on these items, you may get an entire series or set or only portions of them. In the combined catalog, you place a hold on the title (“Lost Season 1”), not on the item itself (Lost Season 1, disks 1-3”), so you won’t know if “Lost Season 1, disks 1-3” will show up for you, or some other set of disks for ”Lost Season 1”, or the entire season.
Fixing this is a top priority, and we have already started working to standardize these items in our catalog so that every item listed under a title is uniform. So if you place a request on the title “Lost Season 1”, or "Lost Season 1 disks 1-4", or "Lost Season 1 disks 5-8", you`ll always get the full set of disks listed for that title. If you currently have a request on a specific item or disk, your request will be automatically expanded so that you`ll receive the first available copy of the full set of disks for that title once you reach the front of the line.
I had turned on "Reading History" in my Minneapolis account. Did that come over?
Yes and no. Reading History is not currently available in this version of the combined catalog, but will be in the near future. By September 21, your Reading History will be migrated to a MyList on your new account titled "My Reading History from Minneapolis Catalog." Each MyList can have up to 200 titles. If you have more than 200 titles on your Reading History, multiple MyLists will be created on your account. You can continue adding titles to your new MyList(s), keeping your reading history up to date if you wish. The date each title was checked out will not migrate to the MyList.
When the combined catalog has a Reading History feature in the future, your MyList (Reading History) can be transferred to that feature, still connected to your account.
I had turned on "Ratings" in my Minneapolis account. Did that come over?
Ratings you entered were NOT migrated. That feature is not available in this version of the combined catalog, and there are no plans at this time to develop that feature for this catalog.
I have an account in the suburban catalog only, will I notice any differences?
You now have access to an additional 1.3 million unique titles in the combined catalog. Other than access to this new wealth of resources, your account and catalog looks much the same. (see “Why do some catalog entries look different in the combined catalog?”).
Why do some catalog entries look different in the combined catalog?
- The combined catalog has entries from two formerly separate library systems, each with slightly different cataloging procedures, so you will see some titles where the copies may have different descriptions of where to find them on the shelf, or different kinds of call numbers (Dewey, Library of Congress).
- All the information you need to find your item is in the catalog entry. If you are looking for an item on the shelf, take note of the information for the item that’s in the library you’re visiting.
On Aug 28, 2009 at 8:55 AM, Anna wrote:
So now I can requst a 100 items at once?
On Aug 28, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Meg C. wrote:
Anna, That's correct, customers may have up to
100 items on request at a time.
On Aug 28, 2009 at 11:14 AM, John wrote:
When looking thru the Magazine/Newspaper search section, I notice that NO entries are for the Mpls library collection. How come?
On Aug 28, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Meg C. wrote:
John, Sorry for any inconvenience. We expect to load the Magazine/Newspaper data by Monday.
On Aug 28, 2009 at 12:38 PM, John wrote:
How do I reserve a specific copy of an item? Mpls broke up many CD boxed sets into individually orderable copies but they appear in the catalog as the same entry (with v1,v2,.. designators).
On Aug 28, 2009 at 12:55 PM, Meg C. wrote:
John, You are right, this was handled differently in each catalog. For now please contact your local library to reserve a specific copy.
On Aug 28, 2009 at 1:41 PM, angye wrote:
im lost
On Aug 28, 2009 at 1:41 PM, ERICK MENDOZA RIVEROS wrote:
im confuse how can i check my holds and the stuff i been checking out?
On Aug 28, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Meg C. wrote:
Angye and Erick, you can see your account, information about your holds, items out and fees or fines by clicking on the "My Account" link on the upper right hand corner of the page. If you are having trouble feel fee to
Ask Us for more assistance.
On Aug 28, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Emily wrote:
How soon will 'Reading History' be available? I'm looking forward to such a great feature.
Thanks
On Aug 28, 2009 at 6:40 PM, Junita Bognanni wrote:
I'm happy that the library system merge allows for access to more books. I'm not happy that you chose the Hennepin County Library system's website over the extremely usable, streamlined and attractive Minneapolis library site. Design matters, too.
On Aug 31, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Meg C. wrote:
Emily, Using MyList we were able to
retain Reading History. You can continue adding titles to your new MyList, keeping your reading history up to date if you wish. We don't have a timeline yet, but are working on adding this as a feature to the current catalog.
On Sep 2, 2009 at 5:38 AM, Xan wrote:
I am sad you put the Minneapolis catalog into the Hennepin catalog and not the other way around. The Minneapolis website was much better designed, more usable, and easier to read. It was one of the nicest library websites I have seen. (Sometimes less is more.)
On Sep 2, 2009 at 3:45 PM, npb wrote:
I lost at least one hold on an order record that was in the Minneapolis catalog. There may have been more. Has anyone else reported this. I replaced the hold on "Alias Betty" if you want to locate me.
On Sep 2, 2009 at 3:50 PM, Meg C. wrote:
npb, Feel free to contact us
here with any lost holds so we can contact you and help you get your place back.
On Sep 3, 2009 at 2:09 PM, Sara wrote:
I have a book checked out and the status says- no renewals, waiting list. When I click on the book title I see 1 request- however, there are 17 copies of the book and only 2 are checked out. The other 15 are checked in. It does not make sense to me that I cannot renew a book with 15 copies checked in. I do not remember this happening with the old Mpls system.
On Sep 8, 2009 at 9:30 PM, Susan wrote:
Yes, the Mpls catalog was the better of the two. Library IT staff just responded to my feedback about the glitchy "return to results" feature (not a problem in the MPLS catalog) with: "Unfortunately, this is a known bug in this version of our catalog software. We are going to design a new catalog interface in the next year or so, and we will make an effort to fix this problem with the new version." Known bug? The next year or so? It wasn't a problem 2 weeks ago. Ouch.
On Sep 11, 2009 at 4:40 PM, lori wrote:
I much prefer the Hennepin County site. I guess I'm alone in that, but I found the Minneapolis site to have a far less accurate search response.
Now if only, when checking out books, the receipt could be emailed instead of printed...it can be done in Dakota County, so surely it can't be that difficult.
On Sep 11, 2009 at 7:42 PM, Mary Beth wrote:
I noticed in the merged catalog that some of the magazines say "no reservable copies" such as Quilter's World. The catalog does show that copies of this magazine are currently checked out. Can you tell me why they cannot be reserved. The magazines in question seem to be the ones owned by former Minneapolis system libraries. Does that mean I must go to a particular library to check them out or will I some day be able to reserve them and have them sent to another library. Thank you for your answer.
On Sep 12, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Jan Baldwin wrote:
Being a former librarian and teacher, I couldn't be more happy, now that Hennepin County is IN CHARGE! I need to thank those librarians that have made so many CDs (and tapes) available.
Being disabled and often sleepless, it sure is wonderful to have the Audio Books at my fingertips. Thanks.
On Sep 12, 2009 at 9:27 PM, wrote:
Welcome Minneapolis users to the Hennepin County Library system, one of the finest in the nation. I'm sure you will begin to love it (and the website) as much as I do. And, additionally, it makes sense that the Mpls. web site was absorbed by Hennepin, as the Mpls. library system was absorbed into the HC system.
On Sep 13, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Jenny wrote:
How does sending holds to other libraries work. Back when it was Mpls it only took a day or two for a hold to get to Central now it takes a week or more.
On Sep 15, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Meg C. wrote:
Mary Beth, The magazines in question are actually items called "Adult Browsing Material". They are treated differently than magazine subscriptions in that they are not received on a regular basis, they are not shelved with the magazines, they float (they remain at the library to which they are returned, even if they were checked out somewhere else) and are not reservable.
On Sep 16, 2009 at 6:18 AM, Mary Beth wrote:
Meg, thank you for your comment on Sept. 15 regarding the "Adult Browsing Material." As a patron of the Hennepin County System I check out from the "Adult Browsing" section quite frequently thus I am familiar with how it works. As a librarian and patron I am concerned how these magazines were incorporated into the combined catalog. Currently you are giving the impression that these magazines do exist on the shelf of a given library. If I invest time and gas to travel to that library and found they were not there and in fact could be any where I would not be happy. I hope this is an issue the library will be looking into.
On Sep 16, 2009 at 7:21 PM, Shannon wrote:
I preferred the way Minneapolis handled TV on DVD sets--allowing you to check out one disc at a time. Fourteen episodes is a lot to watch in one week.
On Sep 18, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Meg C. wrote:
Mary Beth, The information regarding specific issues of these titles has be removed from the catalog. Thank you for your input!
On Sep 22, 2009 at 4:16 PM, brad wrote:
I noticed the issue with DVD sets also, but am curious about why you've decided to make the change announced above (to group all DVDs of a season together) for the following reasons: 1) it's not very feasible for anyone who works or has kids to get a whole season of a show and have one week to watch it, so 2) it's going to make request queues longer as people have to re-request the set. Separating the DVDs for requests allows more people to be watching more DVDs at any time. From my experience, I just request the next DVD or two when one comes in, and have a steady flow.
Regarding CD sets, I think those should be kept together, as each disc has more value as part of a set than on its own. (They're generally collections of an artist's work, as opposed to DVD sets, which usually have a narrative flow you need to follow). For example, how many people would request CD 1 vs. CD 2 of, say, the Complete Charlie Parker on Savoy? Do you have to request the booklet separately? Makes no sense.
