ROPL is now accepting credit card payment for overdue fines, replacement fees, auditorium rentals, and the sale of ear buds, computer discs and other equipment. Cards bearing the Visa or MasterCard logo are accepted.

We have been answering your email questions for some time. Now we added a "chat" or "instant message" service to our website. If you are on your computer or another browser enabled device, and have a quick question for us, just look for the green Online button in the right column of www.ropl.org. You are promised a real-time response from our professional library staff. If for some reason we are not available and you see the red Offline, don't hesitate to e-mail your question to us. We will respond as soon as possible. And as always, let us know what you think.

The Royal Oak Public Library's services continue to be highly valued by the community in these trying economic times. The Library is open six days a week, 60 hours a week, providing a variety of services to more than 30,000 ROPL library cardholders who check out more than 400,000 items a year. The Library hosted more than 550 programs attended by 16,000 people. Library usage has increased significantly over the past several years and continues to grow.

1998 Nobel Prize winning Portugese author José de Sousa Saramago has died at the age of 87. Though often a controversial figure, Saramago’s works transcended the language they were originally written in.