Friends of Montclair Library

We have a guest post today from Branch Manager Lynne Cutler, about the library’s exciting new LinkPlus offering:

LinkPlus (or Link+) is a network of 52 other public, academic, and special libraries in California and Nevada. OPL has paid an annual fee to join, so patrons with OPL library cards can now search the holdings for these libraries and request books from them for free. Oakland Public Library owns 600,000 items. With LinkPlus, there is an eighteen-fold increase in materials available to our patrons.

Only print items can be borrowed. Check-out time is three weeks with one renewal allowed, the same as for OPL materials, and books received at a branch will be held the usual ten days for pick up. The books are sent overnight by courier, but take 2 to 4 days to be processed and sent to branches.

LinkPlus only checks available items, so an item could become available the next week — just check again. You can even place multiple holds, if you need several copies for a book club.

To use LinkPlus, go ahead and search the library’s online Encore catalog like always, and look for the LinkPlus results under “Other Sources” in the left column, below the lists of locations, languages, etc.

Late fees are $1 a day for LinkPlus books, and replacement fees are $115 — so do keep good care of the borrowed items.

Unlike with InterLibrary Loan, you can borrow new items. (InterLibrary Loan requests can still be made, in person, for any materials not owned by OPL or the partner libraries and over a year old.)

Try these new features out — and feel free to ask the library staff at Montclair if you have any questions.