Overdrive for Kindle

Courtesy of Sandy Farmer, we have a video demonstrating the use of Overdrive ebooks with a Kindle.

New ILL

Please be aware that the barcodes on ILL items are temporary and require a "b" for correct entry. For example, if the barcode is 12345678, type b and scan the barcode or type b12345678.

Thanks,
Erin

Periodicals Update

Hi.

As you know, this year, we are doing periodical adds and drops.  In conjunction with this, it seems useful to remind you of circulating do’s and don’ts.  The attached documents touch on what periodicals may or may not be circulated, FAQ’s regarding circulation of periodicals, and actual procedures for doing so.  Should you have questions regarding the FAQ’s or procedures, please contact Pat Ogea (31608) or Shirley Mattox (31610).  I will be happy to respond to any questions regarding what can and can’t be circulated.  Thanks.

Lin Swalley

Coordinator of Collection Development

Houston Public Library

*** Please Note***

Three documents were attached to this message: (select link to be taken to online copy of document)

CIRCULATING PERIODICALS 8/2011
Circulating Periodicals FAQs

CHECKING IN CIRCULATING MAGAZINES USING MIL-SER

Smart Money - End of Day Procedures

Hello,

Financial Services has decided that they DO want 2 envelopes (one for booksale/earphones, one for everything else). Please click here for deposit procedures.

Thanks,

Erin

How to adjust sound on public PC's

2011 Water Conservation

Please see Greg Simpson's email below. The attachment he refers to can be found here. - Erin

Good afternoon, all-

Mayor Parker and Dan Krueger, the director of the Public Works Department, have asked us to distribute information sheets regarding the recently enacted Stage Two of the Water Conservation Plan.

The Print Shop is currently printing copies of the information sheet for distribution to our customers. Each location should see the first of these packets tomorrow. Please display them prominently for your customers when you receive them.

In the meantime, please print the attached and post in your public area.

Thanks. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Greg

Greg Simpson, Assistant Director

Communications Division

Houston Public Library

(O) 832-393-1333

(C) 713-851-8390

Please note my new email address: greg.simpson@houstontx.gov

If you would like to receive periodic emails from Mayor Annise D. Parker and the City of Houston on topics of interest to you and your neighborhood, please go to www.houstontx.gov and register with CitizensNet.

Program Survey

Hello everyone, in an effort to give our community great customer service, we have created small surveys for customers to fill out regarding programming. These surveys can be found at both desks. If you could, when you are given one, please place it in one of the boxes I have set up. Desk 1's is on top of the laptop cart, Desk 2's is on top of the filing cabinet behind the desk chairs. Thank you Erik

Staff Meeting Summary 8-15-11

Just a few things to keep in mind:

• If there is a blank on your schedule, use your judgment to fill the time with something that needs to be done. Edit the schedule to indicate what you have accomplished (If you need assistance, please ask). Brief notes are acceptable. This keeps everyone accountable and on task.
• Kronos goes live Saturday, August 20th. If you were not able to attend this morning's staff meeting, a copy of the user manual was placed in your mailbox. All staff members have been scheduled to attend one of the training sessions being held Tuesday, August 16th, at Oak Forest.
• If you would like to give us the pleasure of sharing your birthday celebration, please email your date to me. Near the date, I will announce acceptance of donations and purchase a cake. Celebrations will be held Wednesday mornings (11:15ish) to allow all staff to participate prior to opening to the public.

Erin

Staff Meeting on Tuesday Aug. 2nd

Please get any agenda items to me, so I can include them. I'll invite Erin to give you all a chance to meet her. Of course, Kendall is so busy she may not be able to make it.
Thank you, John

Remember Potluck Aug. 3rd!

NOTE: WE MOVED IT TO WEDNESDAY!!!!

We'll have a pot luck on Wednesday August 3rd. This will be a good chance to pat ourselves on the back for the great job everyone is doing. I know this isn't an easy time, but let's make this a real celebration for all of our hard work.
Sign up is in the work room.
See you there!
John

Remember Gate Count

We are doing the gate count starting on Monday! The sheets are on the circ desk. We need to do an hourly gate count and count everything we pick up too. Please be sure to write it all down!
Thank you, John

OOPS!!! New Hours Postponed

Update: Mike sent an email that said "Due to logistical issues, the implementation for the hour change has been delayed. As of right now, the tentative plan is to push the change back one week. This would make the implementation date August 8th."

I'm working on the schedule right now, so let me know if you have any changes you want to make.
Thank you, John

Cleaning up the building

Hi everyone, Hopefully everyone is noticing the little changes that we're implementing here at Collier. I'll try to keep you all abreast of the changes so you don't miss anything.
*We moved one of the new book displays by the Reference desk and the New Books, this opened up the lobby so we could draw more attention to the self-check computers. (Which are really starting to be used!)
*We also moved the table from the work room to the foyer and now have all of the fliers (which were on the Reference desk) on it. This allowed us to clean off the Reference Desk counter top. (BTW,the volunteer/meeting room sign up sheets are now under the counter on the gold colored book cart.)
*We also moved all of the display books off the top of the Children's shelving. All posters have been removed from the end of shelves and shelves have been cleaned. (Please remember NO tape to hold up posters.)

I'll add things as I remember them. Thank you for all of your help in making Collier one of the gems of HPL!!!
John.

Door Count Next Week

Door Count starts on Monday and continues through the week. I will get the sheets out on Saturday to make sure that we are ready. Remember that this includes gate counts, and daily pick up.

Two quick clarifications concerning the up-coming Door Count:

1) Early Literacy Station will no longer be counted. We fulfilled the grant requirements.
Thanks again for your efforts in collecting this information!

2) In House Material use -- I am only interested in the daily counts. Some of you may still show hourly counts for in house materials on your template. If it is easier for you to count hourly, then please do so, but it is not required.

Thank you for your help on this!
John

Staff Meeting Wednesday Morning

Hi everyone, I'm back!!! In honor of my vacation I would like to call a staff meeting on Wednesday at 9:15. If anyone wants to volunteer for pastries etc.. let me know. If there's any thing you want to discuss please let me know ahead of time so I can add it to the agenda.
Thank you!! John.

Summer ESL Classes @ HPL

We will be offering ESL classes at Collier on Fridays from 1-5 pm beginning 7/8/2011. Carnegie, Flores, Ring, Scenic Woods and Walter will also offer classes this summer. Program flyers with dates and times are at the reference and circulation desks.

While the cat's away...

OK now, no parties!! ;-) I'll be on vacation until July 11th. While I'm gone Mike L. will be in charge. If you need to talk to me, I'll have my phone. I can't promise I'll always have a signal (ATT) but if you leave me a message, I'll get back as soon as possible. I think I have everything taken care of, but if there are any problems, Mike is very able to handle it.

I look forward to returning (but not enough that I will skip my vacation!)
Have a great couple of weeks!
John.

Monthly Schedule now posted

Look under Schedules and check out the Monthly Schedule. Let me know if I made any mistakes.
Thank you, John.

Sundays at Discovery Green

Sundays at Discovery Green

Discovery Green will be open on Sundays throughout the summer 2011 from 1 – 5 pm. If you would like to work at Discovery Green but have never worked at Discovery Green; basic training and orientation will be provided. You will be expected to work from 12:45 -5:15; the following Sundays are available :

July 10, 17, 24, 31
August 7, 14, 22, 29

Please E-mail: Yolanda Anguiano and specify which date(s) you are interested in working at Discovery Green. NL administration will work with your supervisor to ensure you get compensated for working the 4.5 hours at Discovery Green and your location gets coverage if needed.

Thank you,
Edward Melton

Quick Meeting Tuesday Morning

I would like to have a quick "getting to know you" meeting on Tuesday morning at 9:15
I'm sorry for such short notice, but it really is the best time to get most of us together.
The agenda is simple, updates from Manager Meeting, and a little about me.

I'll have the coffee on!
John.

Meeting Room

UPDATE!

Mike said to go ahead and schedule July, just alert people about the possibility of our hours changing. This is public information now, so it is OK to tell customers that we can schedule them, but let them know the hours may change.

Thank you, John

Neighborhood Libraries Directory

See https://hplnet.hpl.lib.tx.us/depts-neighborhood.html on the Intranet for a new roster of Neighborhood Libraries staff. The roster will be updated as staff changes occur.

Suzanne

Password for the Print Release Station

When the Print Release Station computer was replaced, it was set up to require a password to re-boot the computer. The password can be found in the Reference Notebook at the reference desk.

Suzanne

Print Cards

Because we are not able to exchange dollar bills for coins from the Smart Money drawer, the natural instinct is to want to find another way to help customers who do not have bills to purchase or add money to print cards. However, since doing this means staff will be using their own funds to change coins for bills, and it is not always possible to do this, it is probably not a good practice to get in the habit of doing.

Keeping the Circulation Desk neat

A reminder to everyone- please try to sort books that come in while you are at the circulation desk so that the desk will be neat for the next staff member.

Suzanne

Meeting Room bookings

As we all know, there frequently is some confusion with meeting room bookings. Following are a few things that should help:
* When putting a booking into the meeting room calendar, please indicate with the description of the event if we have a meeting room request form or if one still is needed. The easiest way of this is to put "needs form" if one has not yet been filled out. Make sure to delete "needs form" when one is filled out.
*Please put your initials with the description of the event in case there are any staff questions about the event.
*Due to heavy demand for the room on Saturdays, please ask groups to limit their bookings to two hours.

Michelle has volunteered to oversee the meeting room bookings now that Maria is no longer here; she may come to you if she has any questions.

Hopefully what is listed above should make the process run a bit smoother.
Thanks in advance.

Suzanne

Computer Class Schedules

We are not able at this time to print multiple copies of the month's computer class schedules. Copies are posted on the bulletin board near the copiers, at the crculation desk,and there are two copies at the reference desk for customers to view.
I have printed out some copies of Collier's classes this month, and put them at the reference desk.

Suzanne

Summer Reading Registration

The following comes from Sandy Farmer-


"Registration for Summer Reading begins May 1st which is this Sunday. The password remains the usual staff password and you must now enter a User Name which will be Staff.



Please remember that children ages birth to 18 may register for the program. They will not be able to log their books until June 1st and you will not see a log for them until June 1st.



Two new features are available for our customers this year.



One is a mobile site that works well on smart phones. If the customer accesses the site through their phone or other mobile device they will get the mobile site automatically.
The reviews may have a link to Novelist giving a customer reading the review who wants more information and easy way to access it. I am working on making this work now. I may succeed…. Eventually. To that end I have added an ISBN field to the log. Customers do not have to fill this in at all but if they do it should make some things a lot easier for Craig Bertuglia who clears all of the reviews."



Suzanne

Warning from Mike VanCampen

The following was just sent to managers. He has been here.


Recently, it has come to light that one customer has booked at least four meeting rooms at different locations where thefts of equipment were discovered shortly after the customer used the rooms. Here are the details. The name given by the customer is Calvin Cook. The group name used is “DeVry Study Group” or simply “Study Group”. Mr. Cook is a clean shaven, African American male in his early 20s. In the event that this individual comes in to your facility, please do not allow him to use a meeting room or any private space in your facility and contact any available team leader immediately.


Suzanne

Trespass Warnings

I have printed out some copies of the library's "Notice of Trespass Warning" and put them in the drawer behind the desk below the drawer for Interlibrary Loans. These forms are used when someone is banned from the library. Hopefully they will not be needed.

Suzanne

NL Computer Classes

Just a reminder- the current month's computer class schedules for Central and Neighborhood Libraries can be found on the HPL website under "Services-Computer Classes"

Suzanne

Meeting Room

Hey folks,

I just discovered that someone has booked the meeting room already in May and June. Please stop!

I am only booking current month plus two months--so only through the end of April. We have no idea about possible hour changes and we are still waiting for final SRP schedules for summer so please don't book so far in advance.

LC

Visually Impaired Computer

IT has returned the visually impaired computer and the SARA.

I spoke with Heidi Miller who works with the Access Center at Central. She said that she always asks someone who wants to use the assistive equipment what software they are familiar with before she lets them use the computers. If they are familiar with JAWS (the software that reads the screen to them), then she shows them the computer and lets them use it. If they have never used it before, she is not certified to train them on it and they will have a very hard time using it.

There are two places in Houston that train folks to use JAWS and other assistive technologies.

The Lighthouse of Houston is located near Marston at 3602 West Dallas Street Houston, TX 77019-1704 (713) 527-9561

Houston Center for Independent Living is located at 6201 Bonhomme Rd # 150S Houston, TX 77036-4433
(713) 974-4621

Both places offer training on assistive technologies including JAWS.

We also have a laptop with Dragon Naturally Speaking on it but a customer would have to book the meeting room to be able to access the computer and not disturb the entire library.

GED Prep Classes

These are the Spring 2011 Adult Basic Education/GED Prep classes scheduled to launch next Monday, January 10, 2011, as part of WeCAN Works partnership with Houston Community College’s Adult Education Program. The classes are scheduled to run through Thursday, June 16, 2011, at the following HPL locations:

Carnegie Neighborhood Library
Monday – Tuesday, 10 am – 1 pm
Wednesday, 11 am – 2 pm

HPL Express Frank Library
Monday & Thursday, 11 am – 2 pm
Tuesday & Wednesday, 10 am – 1 pm

HPL Express Southwest Library
Tuesday – Thursday, 6 pm – 8:30 pm

Smith Neighborhood Library
Monday & Wednesday, 11 am – 3 pm
Tuesday, 10 am – 2 pm

Vinson Neighborhood Library
Monday – Wednesday, 9:30 am – 1:30 pm

Additionally, a class will be offered at the following WeCAN site:

Burnett Bayland Community Center| 6200 Chimney Rock – Houston, TX 77081
Tuesday – Wednesday, 9 am – 2:30 pm
Thursday, 9 am – 2 pm

Transfering Money from library cards to new print card

As of today, 1/5/11 the Pharos server is gone.

Use this link to look up old balances and take money off of the HPL card
https://hplnet.hpl.lib.tx.us/cgi-bin/database/pharos/current_funds.pl

You will need your HPL Intranet password to access this link. Please contact the HPL IT Helpdesk, at 832-393-1570, if you don’t know your password.

There is a word document on the reference desk computer that shows a screen shot of the new way to do it.

I have also bookmarked the site on both reference desk computers as hpl Pharos Balances.

Laurie