I received an overdue notice a little while back. I’ve received them many times. But I looked at it and I realized it was pretty complicated.

overdue-existing

  • Did I really need to know the Barcode number?
  • The date and time I originally took it out.
  • Why was the title so buried?
  • etc…

So here’s just an idea, implementing such a thing into our ILS would be difficult and demand sign-off all the way up the food chain.

But what if it could be simple HTML?

over-due-improved

Maybe we could add a 1-click renew button. Or, maybe a courtesy auto-renew. Perhaps in the future we could add opt-in events listings or book recommendations, etc.

Overdue notices are the primary correspondence between the library and its community. We should give them their due attention.