My kids love going to our local public library. Besides the really cool Thomas train set, they always want to check out a slew of books. While I encourage reading, a part of me cringes every time I take a stack up to the circulation desk. How on earth am I going to keep track of all these books?
Well, I guess I was a good girl this year because Santa has sent me a little elf to help. Library Elf is actually a neat reminder service for your public library account. Just enter your library card number, and Elf will send you an alert via email or RSS before your books are due. And if you place holds on library materials, Elf can track that, too.
Several Wisconsin public libraries are participating, including Madison and Milwaukee public libraries. You can monitor more than one library card, including those belonging to others if you know their library card number (and pin if required). (Hmm – could be some privacy concerns there.)
Now if I just had a little elf to keep my toddler from tearing up the books, I’d be all set.
————
Update 12/29/05: Mary Minow of LibraryLaw Blog did some investigating and learned that Library Elf feeds were not private with some RSS readers such as Bloglines — that means anyone could view your library account. Elf has fixed the problem by disallowing feeds via Bloglines – subscribers will just received “Error” messages instead.