NOTICE: 2016 Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement is Online

From COH Payroll:

Your 2016 Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement is available online at the ESS portal at https://portal.houstontx.gov/irj/portall. A hard copy will be distributed later this month. Although the online version and the distributed hard copy may not appear exactly the same, both versions meet all IRS filing requirements and can be used as documentation for your income tax filing.

Please be aware that you must have a PDF document viewer, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, installed on your computer in order to view your statement.

Once logged into ESS:

• Click on the 'Employee Self Service' tab located next to the 'Home' tab.
• On the next screen, click on the tab titled 'My Pay'.
• A new window will appear displaying your most recent paychecks. You may close this window.
• On the original web browser window, click on menu item to the left labeled 'View Your W-2 Online'. [Note: If you do not see this link, click on 'Detailed Navigation'/ and the link should appear. - MR]
• The selection window on the next screen should default to your 2016 W-2 statement. Select your 2016 statement so that it is highlighted and then click the button 'Display'.
• Scroll down the page and your W-2 statement should appear in a window at the bottom of the screen. Hovering over the statement will make links for saving and printing your statement available. Please save a local copy or print your statement.

Employees who fail to receive their W-2 form by January 31 and are unable to print one from ESS should contact Payroll Services at 832-393-8900 to obtain a duplicate copy.

MR

NOTICE: 2016 Form W-2 and Form 1095-C

From COH Payroll:

2016 Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statements, will be provided to all employees in paper hard-copy. This form will be distributed to you by your departmental management. Online access to the 2016 Form W-2 will also be provided to all current employees via the ESS website at https://portal.houstontx.gov/irj/portal. An email communication will be issued notifying you when W-2 statements are available online.

For the second year, employees will be provided Form 1095-C, Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage. This report reflects your City of Houston-provided health benefits coverage for calendar year 2016 for yourself and any dependents and is required as documentation for your 2016 U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. This form will also be distributed to you by your departmental management. Online access to this form will be unavailable.

The statutory deadline for distributing or postmarking Form W-2 is January 31, 2017. The statutory The statutory deadline or postmarking Form 1095-C is March 2, 2017. Payroll Services will meet these deadlines and will provide your statements as soon as possible prior to the statutory deadlines.

Employees who fail to receive either their W-2 or 1095-C form by the statutory deadline should contact Payroll Services at 832.393.8900 to obtain a duplicate copy.

MR

2017 Biweekly Pay Schedule

Hello,

Here is the 2017 Biweekly Pay Schedule.

Thanks,

MR

New Library Cards and Overdrive Accounts

From Marianne Lorio:

Hello:

This is a friendly reminder that when a patron is replacing an old library card with a new library card number please ask them if they are using OverDrive. If they are and they have titles checked out, on hold, or on a wish list, someone needs to be notified to merge the two accounts. Otherwise the patron will lose all of his old account information. The best course is to either help the patron fill out an E-mail Reference form or show them where it can be found. Send the patron's name, old library card number, and new library card number. If there are any issues, you may always contact me.

MR

UPDATE: Recycling Bins

From Mary Wagoner:

In the next few months, the green recycling bins/dumpsters will be removed from neighborhood library parking lots. Please direct customers to Paper Retriever's website and they can search by zip code: http://paperretriever.com/binlocator/index.html

Thanks!

Please note: Though we do not have any recycling dumpsters, we might have customers that are looking for a place to recycle. - MR

2017 Holiday Schedule

Hello,

Please click on the link to view a list of City of Houston and Houston Public Library holiday closures for January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017.

2017 Holiday Schedule

Thanks,

MR

EBSCO Discovery Service Implementation Timeline

From Judith Hiott:

Dear Customer Service Staff,

Staff in Digital Strategies have been working for the last few months to implement Ebsco Discovery Service at Houston Public Library. The following is the timeline for training and Go Live:

December 8, 2016: That's today! Provided below is a link to one of two Ebsco Discovery Service platforms. We call this platform the Ebsco Platform. It consists of a search box that searches multiple databases at once. On the search results page are fulltext and filtering options. Please familiarize yourself with the search features using the link provided.

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?authtype=ip,shib&profile=eds&custID=s8492860&groupid=main[search.ebscohost.com

December 14, 2016: The Virtual Services team will put a link to the Ebsco Platform on the research page. The link will be labelled Search All Databases as a fourth bullet under the heading Search Online Databases

December 16, 2016: Ebsco will be conducting a half hour training webinar to introduce staff to the service. All staff should view the training. It will be part of the CE Managers meeting on Friday, other staff can dial in next Friday at 9:00 AM using the access information at the end of this email, or you can view a recording of the training the following week on the HPL training portal.

January 2017: In January, we will be implementing the second Ebsco Discovery Service platform that performs a catalog and a database search when a customer searches the catalog. Results will be presented in two different tabs. We will send you additional information when we have a go-live date for this platform.

As you use the new service, if you have questions or suggestions, feel free to call or email me or the Digital Strategies Helpdesk. We hope you like the new service.

MR