As part of the ongoing consolidation of the Minneapolis Public and Hennepin County library systems, phone numbers for Minneapolis libraries will change to Hennepin County Library's 952-847-#### numbers this year.

On Monday, Nov. 2, the phone number of Hennepin County Library - Franklin, 1314 East Franklin Ave., Minneapolis, will change to 952-847-2925. Customers who dial the old phone number will automatically be forwarded to the new number.

Phone numbers of Roosevelt, Southeast, Webber Park, Linden Hills, Pierre Bottineau, Washburn, Sumner, Walker, East Lake, and Hosmer libraries have already been changed. New phone numbers of the final four libraries will be announced as they become active.

The merger of the two library systems has provided opportunities to reduce overall operating costs and increase efficiencies by eliminating duplicate technology systems, such as the two websites, which converged into one on Jan. 1, 2009, and the two public catalogs, which merged in August. As of Oct. 1, there have been more than 11 million visits to the Hennepin County Library website since Jan. 1. Hennepin County Library now has the 12th largest public library collection in the U.S.

With one phone system, customers will be able to call one number and be transferred anywhere in the 41-library system. Customers can expect to hear standardized voice messaging at the libraries and staff will be able to communicate more easily with each other.

There will be other improvements to libraries in Minneapolis as the network consolidation continues, such as replacing black-and-white public printers with color printers, as is standard in most Hennepin County libraries.

For library names, locations, phone numbers, hours, access to the catalog and online databases, and other information about Hennepin County Library: