Hello!  One feature of the online Diamond catalogue I love is the ability to send a library record to my phone via a text message. This is very convenient and I do it constantly. However: if the title or other information is too long, the text message that comes through does not include the call number, probably because it gets cut off — and that is the most important part of the message! Is there a way to ensure that the call number is always transmitted in those texts, even for books with a very long title?

UPDATE: As of 2/16/15 we have modified the structure of the catalog text messages so that the call number always appears at the top of the message. That way, if the bibliographic information exceeds the SMS message character limitation, the call number will always be transmitted in the text message. Thanks for your suggestion!

Thank you for using Temple Libraries. We are glad to hear that you appreciate the text messaging feature in the Diamond Catalog. It’s a convenient way to keep track of the information you need to locate the book once you get to the library stacks.

Unfortunately there are going to be records with significantly long titles or many authors and when that is the case you may not receive all the necessary information (such as the call number) owing to the character limitation of a text message – which happens to be 160 characters. When this happens some of the information you need will be left out of the message.

We currently do not have an immediate solution, but out library technology team is looking into the problem to determine if they can come up with one. If they do it will be reported here.

Please keep in mind an alternate, albeit not quite as convenient, option. You can also save a catalog record to your “My Library Account” – everyone at Temple has one in our catalog system. You can access your account by clicking on “Renew My Books” in the upper right corner of the library homepage.

When you find a record in your catalog search you can elect to save it to a “list”. You can have multiple lists with any number of books in the folder. The list feature works quite well with our mobile site, so any book you save to a list can be retrieved on your phone. This will allow you to have a more permanent record of your books that is also retrievable on your phone. Admittedly, it takes a few more steps than the text message feature. It may be an option you wish to explore.