Export: What is it?!
Patrons often ask me what the “Export” button in the library catalog does. If you are confused, this post is for you!
Export adds an item to your cart, “My Book Cart” in the upper right hand corner of the screen, just like adding a book to your cart on Amazon. Put as many items as you need in your cart. Once you have them in your cart you can do three things with them:
Request - This places all the items in your cart on hold for you to be delivered to the branch of your choice. Like Amazon, except you enter your library card number, not your credit card number. OMG, the library is awesome.
Save to list - This saves items to lists that you can manage when signed in to your account. You can save items to lists you have already created or create new ones. Some examples of lists you could create: “Books I Want to Read” or “mysteries series I like” or “Books for Tommy’s Project” or “Books Recommended by that Handsome Librarian with the Nerdy Glasses” or, well, you get the picture.
Email – This will email a list of the items in your cart to a specified an email address. This is useful if you need to print the list out or share it with other people. This is especially handy if you need to keep track of bibliographies for school projects. You can also print your list and hand it to a handsome library staff member with nerdy glasses and say, “Can you help me find these?” which they will proceed to do with aplomb.
Why is it called “Export” and not “Add to Cart” or “Add to List” or “Anything Less Confusing Than Export”? I’m not sure. They didn’t teach us that at Hogwarts School for Bookscraft and Libraridy, but they did teach us how to use it so hopefully this post helped a little.
Now to test our magic we could:
1) Check out a copy of Jo Walton‘s Hugo and Nebula Award winning Among Others. It tells the story of Morwenna Phelps, who can talk to fairies but is forced to go to a horrible school after her twin sister is killed in an accident. Set in Wales during the 1970s, Morwenna survives by immersing herself in the vibrant science fiction and fantasy of the time. Like many of the arts, SF was an algae bloom of creativity during the 1970s. Among Others is a love letter/curatorial bibliography of the most mind-altering 70s SF wonderfulness.
2) Create a list using Export called “All the Gnarly Novels Mentioned in Among Others.” Now put the whole list on hold all at once and start reading fast! Titles that the library does not own you could interlibrary loan, the glories of which Among Others also chronicles.
- Bryan
Themocracy
Thanks for training us up, Bryan!