We have been working with a company for the last few months to have them develop a new Online Borrower Registration (OBR) process that can validate the identity of the person registering for a library card. 

Our current online borrower form does the following:

• Validates the address is a valid address
• Validates that the address is in the service area based on zip code
• Puts a note in the member’s record if a duplicate is detected based on name/birthdate

In addition to doing the above validation, including detecting duplicates, the new process will do the following:

• Verifies the person’s ID
• Validates if the address entered is their most current address
• Provides more precise service area matching as it can also validate addresses that are in Oklahoma City but not Oklahoma County

Once this new process is in place, the member can continue using the number assigned as their card number without needing to visit a library or, if they want a physical card, they can request it and staff can issue the card without seeing ID as their ID has already been validated. The card numbers assigned with the new online process will start with the word “ECARD” followed by 7 digits. The member can obtain a barcode of their number on their mobile device by logging in to the mobile catalog at http://catalog.metrolibrary.org [1] and choosing “Library Card” from the menu. 

Our plans are to also use this in the library. Our goal is to get some experience with potential members from home but if you want to use it in your library, it will be able to be used from any catalog computer once it goes live. (The current OBR form is what is linked to on the catalog computers now.)

The new form is ready to go but we would like to give you the opportunity to play with it, report any problems you see, and provide feedback on the process. We plan to make it live on March 7^th.  Please do not use it right now for any actual cards as we will delete all “test” cards on March 6^th and make it “live” on March 7^th.

Here is the link to the new form: http://www.metrolibrary.org/library-cards/apply [2]

Thanks for your input and we look forward to receiving your feedback! You can e-mail me at [email protected] [3] with any feedback or questions on the new form.