Georgia Public Library Service will upgrade its PINES catalog, used at more than 275 participating libraries around the state, this coming weekend.

PINES — short for Public Information Network for Electronic Services — offers Georgia citizens a shared catalog of almost 10 million items, with a single library card welcomed in all member libraries.

“We hope that PINES library card holders will find this to be a more modern and more user-friendly interface,” said PINES Program Director Elizabeth McKinney. “This upgrade will bring many improvements and new features to the PINES catalog; chief among them improved compatibility with most mobile devices and with more web browsers, including the most recent versions of Internet Explorer and Safari.”

Pages should load faster with fewer display problems.

Navigation from within the catalog back to initial search results and to the new search page will also be easier following the upgrade.

“The former ‘Bookbags’ feature will now be called ‘My Lists,’” McKinney explained. “It will enable users to sort materials lists by title, author and publication date as well as to place holds directly from the list and move items from one list to another.”

More improvements, including a dedicated PINES catalog for children, are in the pipeline and will be added to the service in the near future, McKinney said.

The PINES catalog upgrade is scheduled to take place between 6 p.m. Thursday, March 21, and 6 a.m. Monday, March 25. Some, but not all, PINES libraries will be closed during this time.

Please check with your local public library system for possible closures during the coming weekend.