SPARK, our new catalog & library management system, is up and running! Browse the catalog and explore the options in your account, like placing holds, opting to receive email or text messages when items are due, creating reading lists, and more! Click here for a tutorial on the basics. Read on for answers to some important questions you might have…
- To access your account, click “my account” in the upper right of the catalog home page. Enter your 14-digit library card number (no spaces or dashes). If you have a library card barcode that starts with “P,” please stop in or call to update your card, or click here to fill out a library card update form.
- ALL PIN/PASSWORDS HAVE BEEN RESET to the last four digits of the phone number on your library account. You can change your password once you access your account.
- Hoopla & Overdrive now require a 14-digit library card number. Your PIN in Overdrive has been reset to the last four digits of the phone number on your library account.
- AUTO-RENEWAL: This new feature automatically renews the items on your account when they’re due, but just once (as long as no one else has requested the item). You can renew most items once more either online or by contacting the Library.
If your email address is on your library account, you will receive notices a few days before items are due, when items are auto-renewed, and periodically if they are overdue by 2 weeks or more. You can select to receive notices when holds are ready, too. Some notices are also available by text. IMPORTANT! Some email providers have very strict spam monitoring–you may receive scary looking “WARNING” alerts on the messages. The notices are sent from one of the following addresses, bpflibrary@gmail.com or pails@custsmtp.esilibrary.com, if you want to add these to your safe senders list in your email settings. UPDATE (Aug 15, 2022): Notices will start coming from “no-reply@sparkpa.net.” Hopefully this will reduce or stop the “warning” messages that many have received.
We’ve changed some of our lending periods, too. Most of our items now have a 3 week checkout period with a few exceptions. New Books still check out for 2 weeks & DVDs for 7 days.
When you check out items at the Library now, you’ll get a receipt showing the due dates of all the items (instead of each item getting a due date stamp). No need to bring the receipt back to us–use it as a bookmark or keep it handy to easily see when all your materials are due. If you’d like to get the receipt emailed or texted to you instead of, or in addition to, the printed receipt, let us know and we’ll set that up for you. You can make that change in your online account settings, too.
SPARK now makes it possible to use your BPFL 14-digit library card at Clymer, Eastern Monroe, Pocono Mountain Public, and Western Pocono Community libraries! For now, it requires a visit to these libraries. We now have “resource sharing” in place so you can request materials from those libraries and pick them up here at BPFL within a day or two! When you search the catalog, you can either select an individual library or select Monroe County Libraries to search all of the catalogs at once. Log into your account to place a hold. Staff are glad to show you how it all works; we’re also glad to place the hold for you, if you prefer.
Check back once in a while–we’ll add more information as needed. Please bear with us as we get used to using the new system and all the changes it brings. We still have a few kinks to iron out so we appreciate your patience. We’re happy to help you learn how to use the new online catalog and the features in your patron account.