Changes are coming to the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library’s online presence.

A search on Google will show that the library’s website no longer exists, but that is because better things are on the way.

“The state library, the Mississippi Library Commission, hosts our website,” library director Katrina Stokes said. “They are moving to a new platform that is Wordpress and unfortunately we don’t have the training or staff available to dedicate that much time to working on a website … What we in the end decided to do was hire a third party with far more experience with Wordpress than we have. They are working on it as we speak.”

The library was forced to take down its old website while the new one is being built because the inability to make changes to the old site was causing issues for patrons.

“Our old website for whatever reason is not updating like it is supposed to. We went with a new online catalogue system as of Dec. 1., which we are excited about,” Stokes said. “The problem was, because our website wouldn’t let us make changes, it wouldn’t let us replace the old web link with our new catalogue web link.”

The new catalogue can be accesses at wcvpl.biblionix.com/catalog/. To renew, request or search for books the new catalogue should be used as changes made on the old system will no longer be recognized.

“Our patrons were going to the old one and thinking they were updating their information when they in fact were not,” Stokes said. “We had to make amends for that with people who wound up with late fees. To help solve that problem, I had to ask the state library please disable our website for the time being.”

There is no timeline for the new website, but Stokes said it is in the works.

Customer’s account log-ins are the exact same on the new system. The new catalogue comes with multiple new features that Stokes said the library is very excited about.

“The one I am most excited about is the author subscription,” Stokes said. “We can choose certain authors that we know are very popular among our patrons and they can go on the catalogue and log-in under their information. They can choose which authors they wish to subscribe to and when we get a new book by that author, it will automatically place a hold on that book for that patron.”

There is also a deferment feature, where patrons can make sure books they are waiting on don’t become available while they are either out of town or in the middle of another book.

“If a person is on that waiting list and knows they are going to be out town about the time their turn is, they can log-in and put in the dates they will be out of town and the system will automatically switch them out with the next person in place so they don’t lose their place,” Stokes said.

The library is also working to increase its options of Ebooks, which can be checked out along with digital audiobooks and digital magazines through the free RBdigital app.

“We have a new staff member who is our collection management librarian,” Stokes said. “I have turned over ordering books, selecting books and maintaining the collection to him. I told him one of the tasks I have set for him is to identify the popular books, the ones that are circulating the most, and lets get digital copies of those.”

For questions about the new catalogue or about fines incurred because of the change, call the library at 601-636-6411.