Do you remember the old-fashioned library card catalogs – huge wooden cabinets lined with long drawers full of index cards, listing all the books in the library by title, author, and subject? Back then, if we needed to move the card catalog to a different spot, we would need some strong arms and elbow grease to lift it up and put it down in its new spot. Now that the catalog is online, it still takes a lot of work to move the data and software that make up our online catalog, although we use a very different set of skills!

Starting on Wednesday, January 18, we will be moving our online catalog to a different server as we prepare for some future upgrades. In the very early morning on Wednesday – between 5 and 6 a.m. – the parts of our website that depend on the online catalog to run will be unavailable for a short period. This will include remote access to electronic resources like Overdrive and Freegal, since those resources rely on the online catalog’s database to validate your library card number and PIN.

After a short period on Wednesday morning, the online catalog will be available once again, although some functionality, like the ability to place holds or change your PIN, will remain unavailable. During this time, we will be working to migrate the data onto our new server, and this limited functionality will make that migration faster and ensure that we don’t lose anyone’s data along the way. (We would hate to have anyone lose their place in line for the new bestsellers!)

After 9 p.m. on Wednesday evening, the catalog and its attendant functions will be unavailable again for several hours while we finish our work. If everything goes smoothly, we expect to be back up and running on the new server by Thursday morning. 

We apologize for the inconvenience. Fortunately, this will be a temporary state, and we will be on our way to serving you better with a faster, more reliable catalog. Thank you for your patience!