Author: Kathy Lussier

Patron Card Self Renewal

Borrowers Cards, Executive Director's Report, Self-Services

NOBLE will enable eRenew for public library patrons to renew their own library cards on Wednesday, April 23.

The eRenew service will be available to public patrons only and will renew card privileges for three years. If a patron changes their address, eRenew will utilize address/name checking to make sure the patron is associated with the address provided. Renewals that do not have address changes will go through unchallenged.

The eRenew feature will appear when a patron is logged into their account and the card’s expire date is within 30 days or beyond the expire date. Patrons will receive on screen and email confirmation when the renewal goes through.

The text on card expiration courtesy notices will be updated to direct patrons to online card renewal.

The eRenew software is provided by Quipu, the same vendor who provides eCard signup. When a patron renews their card, a name keyword will be added to their record, for example ‘quipu_renew_20264’ indicating that the card was renewed with the eRenew process along with a date stamp.

If address verification fails, patrons will be directed to contact a library to renew their library card privileges. Patrons must visit a NOBLE library and provide proof of address.

Let us know if you have any questions by sending a message to support@noblenet.org

April 1 Updates for Aspen

Aspen
The NOBLE Classic Catalog will be removed as of Wednesday, April 1. At that time, the View the classic catalog banner displaying at the top of most libraries’ Aspen page will disappear. Users will be redirected to the Select your library’s catalog page when using the https://classic.noblenet.org domain. It may take some time for the redirect to propagate on the Internet. If patrons happen to find a page with the native Evergreen catalog, they will be unable to log into their account. All patron access to NOBLE collections will now happen through Aspen.
The Electronic Resources and Databases Working Group (ERDWG) has approved some Aspen changes to improve the usability of the new catalog. These updates will also go live on Wednesday, April 1.
  • The font used throughout the catalog will change to the Atkinson Hyperlegible font. This font was developed by the Braille Institute of America to improve legibility and readability for individuals with low vision. Font sizes will also increase with this update.
  • The elements on the grouped work page and the record page will be re-ordered so that details about the group/title will appear above the NoveList content. See the below screenshots for an example.
  • The language facets on the search results page will function a little differently. Selecting two languages at the same time (e.g. English and Spanish) will result in a search that retrieves materials in both English AND Spanish. This change will assist in locating bilingual materials. Current behavior is to find materials in English OR Spanish.

Screenshots showing new font and order of elements

Current Catalog


Click image to see larger version

April 1 Update


Click image to see larger version

New Language Facet

If you have any questions, feel free to send an email to support@noblenet.org.

NOBLE staff update

Executive Director's Report, Jobs
I am sorry to share the news that Gabe Jayroe has left his position as NOBLE Member Services Support Associate as of January 1. I know many of you interacted with Gabe over support requests, which he always answered promptly and with good cheer. We wish Gabe the best of luck in his future endeavors.
NOBLE posted the Member Services Support Associate position today. More details are below:
The North of Boston Library Exchange Inc (NOBLE) has a job opening for a full time (37.5 hours per week) Member Services Support Associate.

Join a highly collaborative team to help support the needs of the NOBLE member libraries. NOBLE is an innovative, member-driven nonprofit organization founded to improve library service through automation. Our membership includes 17 public libraries, seven academic libraries, and one special library.

The Member Services Support Associate reports to the Member Services Manager and is a team-oriented individual providing high-quality customer support to NOBLE member library staff and assisting the NOBLE training program.

NOBLE is a hybrid office. After an initial onboarding period, the Member Services Support Associate will have the option to work remotely two days per week. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance; employer sponsored 403(b) retirement plan, optional tax-deferred annuity plan, and paid holidays, vacation, sick and personal time.

Please send a cover letter and resume to employment@noblenet.org by Friday, February 6.

View full job description.

Next Steps for Aspen

Aspen

It’s been nearly a month since the official “go live” date to Aspen. All but one NOBLE library is live on the platform, and we expect all libraries to be on Aspen in January.

We’ve received many support requests since “go live” to improve functionality and fix bugs. Please continue to report issues as they come up so that we can either address them right away, troubleshoot problems, or add them to the list of potential future development.

Below are some next steps we will be taking with the Aspen implementation.

Records for electronic resources

  • On November 3, 2025, we will start to remove some records for electronic resources from the Evergreen database.

    • All Hoopla MARC records will be removed. Aspen uses an improved method to retrieve those records using an API, ensuring that catalog search results will reflect real-time availability in Hoopla, even for titles that are new to Hoopla. With the previous method, libraries had to wait for our monthly Hoopla record load to see new titles and our monthly deletion process to remove old titles from search results.

    • Records for the following collections will also be removed. If you want the public to access them and they are not already being sideloaded directly into Aspen, please send an email to support@noblenet.org to ask that they be loaded.

      • A&AePortal MON, PAN

      • ABC Clio/Bloomsbury PAN

      • Comics Plus LFD

      • Credo Reference GOR, PAN

      • Ebook Central PAN

      • Films on Demand PAN

      • Gale PAN

      • History Makers WAK

      • Infobase DAN, RDG, LYN, PAN

      • Kanopy BEV, DAN, RDG, STO, WAK, MAR

      • Marshall Cavendish STO

      • Medici.TV LFD, WAK

      • Oxford GOR, PAN

      • Salem Press GOR, PAN, STO

    • NOBLE staff is working with EBSCO to identify the best method for getting MARC records for electronic resources, previously available in the Evergreen database, into EDS for those academic libraries that use EDS. When we are sure those libraries have a new method to get those records into EDS, we will also remove those MARC records from the Evergreen database.

    • We are aware that some academic libraries have encountered difficulty obtaining MARC records for their EBSCO eBook collections to be loaded into Aspen. NOBLE has reached out to our reps at EBSCO and hopes to have a solution to that problem soon.

    • NOBLE will hold off on removing OverDrive records from the Evergreen database until January when all NOBLE libraries have moved to Aspen. As is the case with Hoopla,  Aspen uses an improved method to retrieve those records using an API, ensuring that catalog search results will reflect real-time availability in OverDrive, even for titles that are newly added to the collection.

Classic Catalog

  • To ease the transition for reluctant adopters, most Aspen catalogs provide an option for users to continue to use the Classic Catalog. This option will bring users to the old Evergreen public catalog. Libraries may elect to remove this banner from their Aspen instance at any time.

  • We will remove access to the Classic Catalog on March 31, 2026 for all NOBLE libraries.

  • We have removed the ability to pay bills with a credit card from the Classic Catalog for all libraries that have adopted Aspen. This removal will mitigate occurrences of an occasional bug where a payment made from the Evergreen catalog was not properly applied to the patron’s bill. Online bill payment will continue to be available in Aspen and in the mobile app.

New Features

  • Starting in January, NOBLE will begin implementing Aspen functionality that was not available in the Evergreen catalog. We plan to begin with event calendar integration and the genealogy tool, which can be used to support the local obituary databases NOBLE has been hosting for a handful of libraries.

  • In January, we will also begin identifying enhancements and/or bug fixes that NOBLE should fund to best support the needs of our libraries.

Miscellaneous

  • Over the fall, we will start adding permissions for local admins to make small changes to Aspen, such as updating hours, changing navigation links and updating banners.

  • The ability to import lists from the Evergreen catalog will be removed on September 30, 2026. As a patron privacy safeguard, we will purge those lists from the Evergreen database on December 31, 2026.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to let us know by sending an email to support@noblenet.org.

E-rate Pilot Program

E-Rate, Executive Director's Report

NOBLE held an informational session on Tuesday, March 18 about an e-rate and filtering pilot program that we are kicking off this spring.

NOBLE members voted in 2001 to decline E-rate Internet funding if it means staying in compliance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act. A key component of the Act is that e-rate recipients must provide a content filter on all library-owned computers, including those used by staff, to block visual depictions that are “harmful to minors.”

NOBLE is implementing a pilot program with two or three libraries to test a filtering solution with the ultimate goal to 1) add a Cybersecurity measure against web sites with malware and 2) realize some cost savings in telecommunications services by supporting filtering at the CIPA level. Filtering technology has seen many changes over the past 20 years and the amount of money NOBLE could save has increased.

The session included presentations from e-rate consultant Aleck Johnson, who provided an overview of the e-rate program and its requirements; librarian Carrie Sherman of the Attleboro Public Library, who talked about her library’s implementation of filtering in preparation for e-rate participation, and NOBLE Systems Manager Martha Driscoll, who demonstrated the SafeDNS filter we are considering trying in pilot libraries.

For those who missed the informational session, the recording is now available.

Slides from Aleck Johnson’s e-rate presentation

Libraries interested in participating in the e-rate pilot should send an email to Kathy at klussier@noblenet.org by Wednesday, March 26.

NOBLE to move to Aspen Discovery System

Aspen, Catalog, Executive Director's Report

NOBLE patrons, students, and users will soon have a new way to access materials in NOBLE libraries and to manage their Evergreen accounts.

NOBLE members voted in January to approve a move to the Aspen Discovery System, which will replace the NOBLE public catalog to provide patron access to NOBLE libraries’ collections. The Evergreen staff client will continue to use the native Evergreen staff catalog.

NOBLE will join three other Massachusetts networks – CW MARS, CLAMS and Minuteman – that have already implemented Aspen. The discovery system will provide a more modern and dynamic entry point to our collections with a speedy search and tools to allow libraries to better highlight their collections.

We are still working out details with our support vendor, including a timeline, but we expect the implementation to happen this spring. We will be offering an introductory Aspen session in our upcoming workshop schedule and will schedule more in-depth workshops once a timeline is set.

In the meantime, if you want to take a peek at how Aspen works for other networks, I encourage you to visit the other Massachusetts Aspen implementations:

Much more information will be forthcoming. Feel free to let us know if you have questions.