Is email notification not happening for you at all, or does it seem to be hit-or-miss?
It could be just timing
Email notices of holds available for pickup are batch processed twice per day, in the morning and afternoon. This means that, theoretically, there may be several hours between the time a hold item becomes available for you to pick up, and when the email pickup notice is generated. When you check your account online and see a hold available for pickup but you have not received an email, the hold probably just became available since the last email batch was produced. There's not necessarily a problem unless another day goes by with no notice. If you borrow the item before the next email batch is produced, no notice will be generated.
Most other kinds of email notices are sent once per day, in the morning.
Troubleshoot notices that are generated by the catalog:
- Sign in, go to My Account and check Contact Information to see that we have your best email address. If you need to change it, call the library.
- Search your junk/spam folder for messages from ask-a-librarian@knoxlib.org; if you find one such message, you can mark it as not-junk, mark it as important or priority, or whatever your email system provides as a solution for this problem.
- Add ask-a-librarian@knoxlib.org to your safe-senders list, contacts list, and/or address book (different email systems handle this differently).
- Open a help ticket, and we can check that you are subscribed for notices generated by the catalog. Please use the "submit a question" form below and provide your library card number and email address. We will look up your email notices status. We suggest a help ticket because it cannot be done on demand at every service location.
For notices from Libby/OverDrive:
Libby/OverDrive ebooks and audiobooks run on an independent system, so those notices are not related to the library's catalog and newsletters. See the linked FAQ article about OverDrive holds.
Did you mark our email as spam?
If an email from the library was marked as spam (by you or someone else using the same email account), our notification email partner respects the "spam" report and will not send any more email messages until you request to have the block removed. Library staff will remove the email address from any library accounts that use it, and notices will go by postal mail. A note will be added to your My Account page: "We’re currently unable to email your library notices due to a spam block on our email address. To restore service, please complete this quick form." This message links to a form providing consent to reverse the spam block. This message will not appear in library apps.
Library staff cannot directly remove a block due to a spam report. The request will be processed by our notification email partner. When that is complete, then library staff can add the email address to your account.
