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• Web Tools (4)

Requesting an Item Online

As a patron of the Chelmsford Library, you have access to the books, movies, magazines and other materials of the 36 member libraries of the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium.

You can request items in Chelmsford and/or from other libraries, and these items will be sent to Chelmsford for you to pickup.

To request an item through our online catalog, first search for the title you’re looking for. Then, on either the search results screen or the item details screen, you should see a “Request Item” button on the right side.

When you click that you’ll be prompted to enter your library card number (no spaces) and your PIN. Your PIN should be the last four digits of the telephone number you gave us when you signed up for your library card.

If that doesn’t work, please call us at 978-256-5521 x211 and we can reset your PIN.

New Library Calendar

With the start of the new year, the Chelmsford Library is also launching a new events calendar!

The new calendar is easier to read, will have more events and activities on it, and offers new features for patrons. These include:

• Year, month, and day views for events
• Sign up for RSS feeds of all events, or just certain kinds:
  • All Events
  • Childrens & Teen Events
  • Adult Programs & Events
  • Clubs & Organizations meeting at the library
• View just certain types of events (ie, Kids, Adults, MacKay events, etc.)
• Send yourself email reminders from the calendar

The new calendar also has a new web address: http://calendar.chelmsfordlibrary.org. Be sure to bookmark it, or subscribe to an RSS feed, to keep up to date with what is going on at the library.

Another feature of this calendar is that is allows library events to automatically show up on the Chelmsford Community Calendar, hosted by Chelmsford Telemedia. Bookmarking the Community Calendar lets you see what’s going on around town.

Soon we’ll also have an automatic way for groups to reserve rooms at the library. In the meantime, please refer to our website for meeting room reservations. If you have questions about the new calendar or booking a meeting room, please contact the Library’s Administrative Office at 978-256-5521 x100 or nrager@mvlc.org.

Read the Chelmsford Independent Online

In addition to reading a print copy every Thursday, there are two other ways to access the Chelmsford’s newspaper, the Chelmsford Independent.

Chelmsford Independent’s Website
The Chelmsford Independent is online at http://www.townonline.com/chelmsford/. All the sections of the printed paper are available, plus extras such as blogs, current weather, email alerts, and a keyword search. Top stories are also available via rss (click for feed).

Chelmsford Independent Database
The Chelmsford Library subscribes to an online database archive of the Chelmsford Independent. This database is available through the Library’s Reference website, and covers from 12/2005 to present. This database can be searched by keyword or browsed by date, and is available from within the Library, your home computer, or any other computer with internet access.

For older issues, the Library has a microfilm archive of the Chelmsford Independent from 1986 to present. We also have the Chelmsford Newsweekly, from 1940-1993. The microfilm is located on the lower level of the library, near the Reference Desk.

For more information, or help with their website, please contact the Chelmsford Independent. For assistance using any of these resources, please contact the Library’s Reference Desk.

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Do you Twitter?

There are a lot of web tools that help people keep in touch. But Twitter is one for those people who absolutely, positively need to stay in touch.

Twitter is an instant messenger service, which has become popular because it allows people to easy post short message directly to a web page. You can send posts, in the form of a text message, from your from the Twitter website, an IM program, your cell phone, or other mobile device.

Since the messages must be short (at most, 140 characters), people tend to share everything from the mundane and trivial (“I just ordered a ham sandwich for lunch“) to the informative (“My flight just got delayed – now we’re scheduled to take off at 9:45am” ) to the poetic (“Highway driving means/speeding down an open road/but never swerving“).

Messages posted by a twitter user can be read on the twitter website. Or, if you subscribe to a person’s feed (say, a friend of yours), messages can be delivered to your RSS reader, cell phone, or other mobile device.

If you’d like to learn more about twitter, WebJunction has created a Beginner’s Guide to get you started. Or, you can sign up for a twitter account and give it a try.

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