“Most of the libraries in the Metro area will be switching in quarter 1 of 2019,” said Andrew Wylie, collection strategies manger for the library. “It’s kind of exciting (Anoka County) gets to pioneer that path . Usually, Anoka County is not the first in the nation for things, so that’s very exciting for us.”
The original cloudLibrary app has been around for about eight years, but Wylie said the new version will be a lot easier for people to use.
"The first major upgrade is how the user interface looks. There's going to be a UI overhaul that's going to be a lot fresher," said Wylie. "There's also going to be a lot more features that make it a very nice experience."
Some of those features include predictive searching, which allows the app to complete titles and phrases that customers enter into the search parameters, similar to many other online and app-based search engines.
"It's the same back-end for us, which is nice," said Wylie. The app will allow customers to check out titles for up to three weeks, and at the end of the three weeks, the titles will either automatically renew or go back into circulation. The customer doesn't have to actually check out what he or she had borrowed digitally.
It also allows for easier searching for titles and materials from different languages.
"We are trying to be more inclusive," said Wylie about the Anoka County Library.
Wylie also said the updated technology will pair well with existing customer service technology in the county library branches, including the Centennial branch, which will re-open in 2019.
