I want to share with you how to gain access to the wonderful Birds of North America Online Database (or at least as far as I have gotten) without suffering the slings and arrows that I have over the last month. Bottom Line - make sure you go to a Minneapolis Public Library to get the appropriate access numbers.
I live in Anoka County and was (I am now) not very familiar with how the metro area library system works. I went to the library in Brooklyn Center to get a library card so I could access the database (Oops - the Brooklyn Center Library is a Hennepin County Library - not a Mpls library!). They gave me a temporary MELSA card but told me that they couldn't issue me a library card because I live in Anoka County. They said I could use the temporary card to access the database until I got my card - then I would get a library card number over the internet and then a formal Anoka County Library card in the mail. I got home and could not access the database with the MELSA temporary card. I waited and got the email with my library card number. I still couldn't access the database. I waited and got my formal card in the mail. I still couldn't access the database. I made many phone calls to Hennepin County and Anoka County libraries and got various degrees of help and suggestions on how to go about gaining access. None worked. I finally got hold of a Minneapolis Library. (A big problem was that I didn't understand that only specific libraries were Mpls and that they did not communicate or link their library card information from any other libraries except Mpls..) Bottom line- I now have to go to a Mpls library with picture ID and my Anoka library card to get something so that I can get access to the Birds of North America Online database. They said it would be only a minute and it would be easy. I have faith that by day's end I will have access to it. (I also have faith that I will see a Chestnut-sided Warbler today.) If you don't hear back from me on this assume one of the following: 1) Everything worked out and I got access; 2) Something happened and I never made it to the library and had to suddenly leave Minnesota; 3) Aliens got me; 4) The food at the vegetarian restaurant I am going to before I go to the library was ill prepared and my constitution too weak to handle it; or 5) All of the above. Please send your answer on a brand new pair of very expensive binoculars and a new field book to me in care of the Hennepin County Library System. Answers submitted after 10:50 a.m. on May 18, 2006 will not be accepted. Winners will get to hear me squeal with joy as I peruse the BofNA database online. Bottom Line - make sure you go to a Minneapolis Public Library to get the appropriate access numbers to access the Birds of North America Online Database. Thank you for playing our game and I hope this saves anyone from a similar ordeal. Thomas Maiello Spring Lake Park Anoka County Library System participant and hopefully soon to be Mpls library participant
