Peaeater

LibraryElf is a free service that hooks you up to your library and sends you notices by email, RSS or text message about overdues before they're overdue. A simple but powerful concept, and one that I have asked of my local public library (Greater Victoria Public Library) more than once. I was told one time by a circulation clerk that it would tax the system too greatly to send out that many emails.

Uh-huh.

I actually held my tongue. I *could* have unleashed the lion-headed snake-beast of derision to bite her face off, but I have the patience of a saint. It's not her fault she had no idea of the technical grounds whereof she spoke. Or that, let's see, everyone somehow gets an email after the item's due date.

I guess we don't want to confuse the system by sending an overdue notice before the item is overdue. It wouldn't *be* an overdue notice then, would it? I can see how the system would get its knickers twisted into a Gordian wad over such a paradox in logic.

Left: Captain James T. Kirk convinces the NOMAD probe to destroy itself by forcing it to confront its own lapse in logic. You! Are! Illogical!

Star Trek Ep. 32 "The Changeling"

So, LibraryElf. Awesome! You can link in different library cards from different libraries into one account to get a consolidated list of the family's loans, set your notification preferences to any combination of email, RSS, and SMS, and adjust notification periodicity, so once a day, once a week, or whatever.

It's brilliant, it's what public libraries should already have on offer, and damn it, I wish I'd thought of it first.