Library email notifications
Receiving library email instead of postal mail

HCPL can send out notifications to your email when the items you have requested are ready for pick up or an item you have on loan is about due.  There are two ways to add an email address to your account:

• Call or visit your local branch
• Add an email address through My Account
  • Log in
  • Click Profile
  • Enter your email address and click update

  Note: It takes a few days to take effect

Problems with library email notifications

If you suspect that you are not receiving email notices that you should be getting, please try the following:

1. Check your email spam folder and/or junk mail folder in case your email client is miscoding library email as junk mail or spam.  Library email notification messages are sent from the sender circ@hcpl.net.
   
   Library overdue notifications have
   From: Library Central Circulation 
   Subject: Your HCPL item will be due on DATE
   
   The request hold notifications have
   From: THE BRANCH NAME that holds your item 
   Subject: Harris County Public Library Email Notification
   
2. Check your email settings, allowing emails coming from circ@hcpl.net.
3. Check your Windows security levels, antivirus program and firewall settings, etc.
4. If you still can’t receive the notification, contact your Internet and email service provider.  The emails sent from the library might have been filtered out by your service provider as spam and have never made it to your mailbox.  Find out want they can do for you. Let them know that anything from the hcpl.net domain is important email and is not spam.
5. If everything you try fails, consider signing up for a web based email service such as Yahoo! mail, Hotmail, gMail, etc. and use it to receive the notification from the library.  To change your library email preference setting, go to the library home page at http://www.hcpl.net , click on “My Account”, log on to your account, and click on “Profile.”  Then simply replace your email address with your Hotmail (or whatever) email address.
6. Another alternative is using Library Elf, a free web-based library notification service.  You can manage multiple library cards in one Library Elf account for both holds and due notifications.  To sign up, go to http://www.libraryelf.com/?library=HCPL. This is an independent service and HCPL does not maintain the site. Library Elf delivers notifications by email, RSS feed, and Text message.