October 10th 2018 Weekly Staff meeting

Staff Meeting Wednesday October 10^th

In attendance:  John Hong, Melinda Campbell, Leona Hoegsberg, Russ Wagner, Eric Marques, Richard Ford, Raymond Mendez, Kameshia Smith, Britney Scott, Nichole Lewis, Janice Gomez

Pitts:  Enter branch email, col.library@houstontx.gov and the Book password. Demonstration by john to allow staff to see what the dashboard looks like and how to create a report. Go to ‘incident report’ on top. Several options are presented,  click one and go on to description. Don’t use ‘other’ if possible. 

Date, Time, and Location should be recorded; remember to write in third person. Include the people involved and what the persons involved look like and what they are wearing. The save option is good to use for this. Remember to click ‘Role’ for the main problem.  Enter full name, auto populate option will help to fill the field. Unknown is also used if name is provided.  Height, age, and gender should be filled in, then click Add Person. Multiple persons involved can also be done. ‘Victim’ information should be added, then click ‘Add Victim’.

‘Called Support’ can be filled with police and HPD incident report number. Your name should be included. The ‘Notifications’ button can be skipped, as info will automatically be sent to management and admin. Included Add Follow Up Action.

 Non-management staff do have the authority to fill in for a Trespass warning, for example, if the managers are at lunch or are unavailable.

This is an excellent resource to keep track of past violations at different locations to get a perspective of multiple violations across the CoH system.

Staff Development Day, October 19th: Melinda mentions that John’s Saturday team members need to rearrange their days off for the SDD and Fall Festival. John also wants staff to select what restaurant we should order food from on SDD. John will send emails about SDD and keep staff informed.

Open Discussion:

Melinda mentioned that the ‘Spider- man’ needs to place his skateboard behind the front desk.

Weekly Schedule will soon be posted and accessible by all staff. Branch email account should be used, col.library@houstontx.gov to allow ease of access.

October 3rd 2018 staff meeting

Staff Meeting Notes October 3^rd 2018

In Attendance: Melinda Campbell, Leona Hoegsberg, Russ Wagner, Raymong Mendez, Eric Marques, Nichole Lewis, Kameshia Smith, Cyrano Machey, Britney Scott, Richard Ford, Robert Lewis, Janice Gomez

Hiring Freeze: We’re sitting on the jobs that are open at the moment. Flier from Communications. Staff are not allowed to voice any opinions, any should be sent to HarrisVotes. In November we will learn what is to happen.  The vote is for the Fire Dept’s increase in pay by 23% to align their pay to the Police Dept. AP-311 policy tells people about the campaigning rules. Angela’s position will not be filled yet.

Health Assessments:  due by November 30^th. Staff can get checks at free clinics and at CEN on certain days. Please notify Melinda of the schedule.

Red Shirts: Email from Laurie about red HPL shirts. Sizes you need are due by end of week. We also must decide when we wear the red shirts on certain days.

Hotspots: All grouped under one record in Sirsi. No one can have multiple holds. Everyone can now get on the catalog and place holds under  ‘Hotspot singular’. When hotspots are sent out in the small boxes in transit, they should be wrapped  in bubble wrap paper for safe care during transport.

Patron Incident Tracking System: this will replace  Incident forms, this will increase our capabilities for global suspensions. It is on Intranet, log in under ‘collibrary@houstonlibrary.net’ and use the Book password. October is a trial month for staff to learn how to enter the information to these new forms. Only malicious or inappropriate behavior of persons should be entered under ‘perpetrator,’ not injured or customers in need.

CMC and Fall Festival: Is on October 31^st. Collier will open at 2pm on the 26st^, for the Fall Festival; staff will be at CEN for this. Staff have the whole month for donations under the ESS site. Britney is the Collier coordinator for donations.

Mandatory training on the 21^st. Collier will do team building activities. 3 TED talks, 2 online videos. All have already been chosen for staff. Melinda should be updated as to if staff need more time for training. Cyber security training also should be done this week. Trainings should be completed and certificates sent to Melinda.  Time is assigned on Friday mornings for staff.

Open Discussion: 

Cyrano mentioned that newspapers should be stamped and checked in through Serials in Sirsi. Ask Cyrano for help if needed and instructions are on the blog.

Britney asked staff what we’d like to do for Fall Festival. Pumpkin carvings? Costume contest and 

Talent show on plaza.  Raymond mentioned we should have an adequate amount of fliers to give out. Britney is working with Communications for this.

Outreaches also have been ramped up for outreaches; other staff should consider participating in. Staff can comp this time out if wanted.  Melinda also wants an activity taken on these, the button maker or an easy STEM activity.

Melinda and Russ mentioned that a number of items are still not being checked in correctly. Russ mentioned that a laptop was not checked in. Staff need to discharge laptops twice and customers’ account checked to make sure. 

Staff Meeting September 26th 2018

COLLIER REGIONAL LIBRARY

STAFF MEETING SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

9:20-9:50AM

In Attendance: John Hong, Cyrano Machey, Teresa Eshelman, Kameshia Smith, Nichole Lewis, Richard Ford, Britney Scott, Janice Gomez

Birthday: Congratulations Nichole and Eric.  We will celebrate lunch with tacos.

Staff Meeting Activity: The purpose of the activity is to build leadership skills in our staff.  Staff can develop public speaking and planning skills.  One group will lead a meeting once a month.  Cyrano and Raymond will go first on October 24.  John shared the format for the activity to all staff.  Format would be either an ice breaker or team activity, discuss 2 library topics and 10 min open discussion.  Examples of library topics were; properly processing meeting room reservations or discussing solutions to keeping stats.  John said that staff will develop their own topics but it would be a good idea to request topics from staff for consideration (at least a week before the meeting).  Each partner should share the duties for each component of the meeting agenda.

Staff Appreciation Fund:We have $220 to spend for the upcoming holidays. Last year funds were split for two pizza parties.  Staff suggested purchasing a fried turkey for Thanksgiving and Mexican enchiladas in December.  John responded that funds would expire by March but it would be best to spend the funds earlier.  Janice suggested hosting Secret Santa or White Elephant this year.  Janice agreed to email the choices for staff voting and to handle the activity.  Staff agreed that it would be good to have a staff Halloween party where we would share spooky snacks.

Open Discussion: Kameshia said that Sam was no longer volunteering as a shelver.  She is currently interviewing a student volunteer as a replacement.  She mentioned that Doreene doesn’t shelve due to health issues.  Staff will have to pick up the shelving in the meantime.

Cyrano requested that staff enter their stats.  He has noticed that stats are down despite our busy days.  Teresa added that it is okay to record multiple questions from the same customer.  John said HPL uses stats to justify its budget to the City.  Library staff are only hurting themselves by not recording their stats.  Cyrano credited the passport agents for keeping up their stats.

John mentioned that we want to make a good impression with our visitors such as the new hires.  Thus, it was important that the Learning Lab is organized and clean.  Anti-clutter will be assigned on the schedule for staff to clean their desks and the surrounding workstations.  However, staff should start right away today when they are at their desks.

Thanks!

September 19th Staff Meeting

Staff meeting September 19^th, 2018

In attendance: John Hong, Russ Wagner, Leona Hoegsberg, Richard Ford, Eric Marques, Edith Partida, Nichole Lewis, Teresa Eshelman, Kameshia Smith, Cyrano Machey, Britney Scott

Living Room pics September 14th : displayed during meeting.        

Living Room: November 3^rd; Refugees discussion,  John welcomes ideas and input from Collier staff. John will also bring in guest speakers for event.

Staff led Meetings:  staff will get more involved in meetings, with discussions, trainings, exercises. Staff will be paired in groups of two. These will occur every other week on Wednesdays, and it will be an opportunity to add a skill to staff resumes. This will be a lot of work, but it is meant to benefit the staff with experience in leading meetings and encourage group participation.

Collection Development: LMS will come this Friday, staff should be ready to assist them. Stacks and lists of books have been compiled for their review.  Staff is only to be on hand to assist the LMS.

Open Discussion:

                Central Parking will go to metered parking under the CoH.  Planned travels and meetings to CEN will require several days of notice to get approval for using Central’s parking garage.

                Movie on Saturday: Movie instead of STEM. Equipment has been ordered for AV displays.

                Art Out Loud will start this week: for Clifton students only. Every Tuesday afternoon in the meeting room.

                Emergency Contact Information: due this Friday, and mention your contact preference of text or phone. John reminded us all that the group text conversations worked very well last year during and after Hurricane Harvey.

                Outreach Calendar: please enter outreaches onto online calendar. Britney will update, Russ uploaded new link to new Excel Online sheets on Collier’s blog.

Staff Meeting September 12th 2018

Staff Meeting Wednesday, September 12^th, 2001

In Attendance: John Hong, Russ Wagner, Eric Marques, Britney Scott, Teresa Eshelman, Richard Ford, Kameshia Smith, Nichole Lewis, Edith Partida

Living Room on Saturday:

Assignments: Britney is picking up food from the caterer.

                Need People to setup and serve Food: Melinda

                Need people to setup meeting room, Friday and Saturday: Russ

                Staff who will operate normal duties: Kameshia and Nichole in Passport office.

                Crafts: Volunteers assigned to this with Teresa.

MECCA will begin around 12pm: Need Ushers; John and Eric and Britney.

-          Dance performance begins at 12pm, Crafting afterwards.

-          Mexican Bingo in meeting room at 1pm.  Janice will assist with this.

-          Pin the Tail on the Burrito, for kids;

-          Photo Booth: Edith will setup at 10am.

Outreaches for Living Room: Last week staff went to Clifton.  This week Melinda and Britney will go to Dean, Wainright, Bane, and Clifton schools again. Outreach staff will try to go to many of the schools in the area, to promote ASZ and other events we have at Collier. Schools want more info on how kids can learn and research outside of school. Britney also has done outreach at Jersey City schools, the farthest school in the area. Any possible outreaches to help Britney should let her or John know.

Emergency Contact Info: During Harvey, we participated in group texts, which worked very well. Form will circulate for staff to circulate and fill out with contact information.

USB Thumbdrives: Kameshia reminds staff not to use new USB Thumbdrives for sale to help computer users. We do have a staff use thumbdrive for this purpose that is black and labelled.

Hours of Operation: In the next few days vendor will come to correct the hours on the front door glass.

LSM Collection Development: Next Friday, LMS will come and weed collection.

Alarm Code Access: Anyone without a code should tell John so that a code can obtained.

August 29th Staff Meeting

Staff Meeting August 29^th 2018

In attendance: John Hong, Melinda Campbell, Russ Wagner, Cyrano Machey, Edith Partida, Kameshia Smith, Britney Scott, Richard Ford, Eric Marques, Leona Hoegsberg, Teresa Eshelman, Sandra Cortez, Carlette Evans.

1.       5 Team Expectations: Group activity of 3 staff members each, to come up with five typical expectations that staff are required to show.

Example:

a.       Professionalism

b.      Respect

c.       Helping out where you can

d.      Punctuality

e.      Timely Communication

2.       Living Room Update: John showed a video compilation of Living Room events from many different HPL locations, including some shots of Collier. Edith and Eric want to make sure photos of Collier’s events get uploaded and shown in following videos by International Services.

Edith updated staff on MECCA confirmation of performers for Sept 15^th, and will come to Collier by the end of next week. A team of volunteers will assist with the crafts for the Living Room, freeing up staff to focus on other tasks for the event. Goal is to put up decorations by next week. Youth librarians will incorporate. Committees that need extra help should tell Edith. Advertisements of the event will be given to library customers today.

Melinda informed staff that anyone who wishes to help with the event should inform her to be  scheduled to assist in short two hour shifts. Regularly scheduled staff off that day are NOT required to attend, however.

3.       Attendance and Punctuality: Policy has changed a little. 3 minute rule in writing; anything after 9:18 or before 9:12 is not permitted. Coworkers that switch Saturdays are responsible for these switches.

4.       Open Discussion:  

Outreaches coming up at Clifton Elementary at the end of September. Other opportunities will be given at other schools in the community. Two open houses will occur on September 12^th and 13^th. The outreach calendar is on the staff Collier blog; anyone interested should type their on it or tell Britney. Clifton has allowed us to put up our fliers and other library advertisements.

Any new home address should be changed and updated through Employee Self Service, located on the intranet.

Copy machine will now take 5 dollar bills, but at the advice of Coin Copier we should encourage coin use, as the machine gives out change from bills into coins.

Thursday evening, on the 30^th, the meeting room will be cleared out of tables and chairs for GSD to clean in the morning.

Staff Meeting Notes  Wednesday August 22^nd 2018

In attendance: John Hong, Djuina Hammet, Russ Wagner, Angela Barratt, Richard Ford, Kameshia Smith, Eric Marques, Teresa Eshelman, Leona Hoegsberg,

Fairly short meeting today

1.       Incident Report Activity: 

Group activity reports were shown during meeting, staff read and commented on the  proper guidelines, and whether the reports were filed correctly and accurately, with all relevant detail possible. Reports should be sent to supervisors first for review of proper spelling and grammar and that reports are written in the past tense and in third person.

2.       Living Room updates:  Melinda and Edith are planning this event. Anyone who wishes to work the event for a few hours that day should notify John. If you haven’t volunteered to help with a committee, they could use the help.

3.       The Refugee Living room event: Photo display is up already, event will be held in November.

4.       Collection Development visit: LMS will visit Collier on September 21st. They will look at the collections and help with collection maintenance. Staff will be available to help with discards. Angela mentioned that extra book carts should be requested for this.

5.       Open Discussion:  

a.       Wand training is available through Eric if needed.

b.      Phones forwarded in the middle of the day on Tuesday due to a system glitch.

c.       Phone in staff work room at sticker label printer maybe not working right, and should be looked at by Russ, and if necessary IT.

d.      New toy placed in kids’ area; fishing pole and blue dish with laminated fish.

Staff Meeting August 15^th 2018

In attendance: Melinda Campell, Russ Wagner, Richard Ford, Alisa Baker, Teresa Eshelman, Eric Marques, Nichole Lewis, Kameshia Smith, Edith Partida, Angela Barratt

Scheduling and time at front Desk: Telephone duty? Sometimes phone calls get out of hand. Melinda asked staff to think about designating a telephone duty person per shift.

Melinda’s Book Club: May get passed on to some other staff member? Melinda’s duties are becoming heavy, and would like to pass it on.

Living Room September 15^th:  -

Guest speaker, graphic illustrator will show off art as well as photograph exhibit. Large painting to be hung in front lobby area. For now he’ll be the only guest speaker, geared towards getting kids interested in art at a young age.

 Crafts will be shifted around to direct towards guest speaker. Think about what crafts could be done for the event and pass them on to Melinda, who will tell them to Helen Chou at International Services.

                Caterer will provide enchiladas for everyone. Vegan types also will be served.

                Invitation cactuses will be handed out to invite everyone to living room part. Fliers for the event will come next week. Melinda and Edith want to invite more groups to attend and promote soccer or other sports.

Open Discussion:

Richard enquired if those scheduled to be off have to come. Melinda said attendance is optional for those scheduled to be off. Budget was $650, and food was estimated to be about $500 of that. Staff also should not use personal money or time to work on this event.

Eric is doing good work with scanning wand. It’s still giving him problems, however.

Angela has put in her two weeks  notice to leave HPL to work in South Sudan, then eventually to Dallas.

Kameshia mentions that she has only two volunteers left. She wants everyone to consider if there are any tasks to be done that new prospective volunteers can do.

Russ mentioned about laptops being turned in for staff to double check that they are shut down completely.

Teresa wants staff to be careful about current magazine copies to not be taken or damaged by customers.  Also, we should encourage people to use the xcheck machines as these will properly demagnetize the items they check out.

Staff Meeting: August 1^st, 2018

In Attendance:  Melinda Campbell, Sarah Siboldi, Malari Williams, Amber Fanning, Angela Barratt, Leona Hoegsberg, Edith Partida, Russ Wagner, Eric Marques, Alisa Baker, Kameshia Smith, Cyrano Machey, Aric Jackson, Richard Ford, Britney Scott.

No real agenda today, Celebration of Interns’ last day at Collier.

Summer almost over: SRP briefing by Angela.

-          SRP going well, kids like prizes so far.

-          Can no longer register for SRP, can still pick up prizes.

-          Family Prize packs, limited. Inform Angela when more are needed.

-          Summer lunch last day Aug 16^th,

Living Room- Saturday Day, Sep 15^th.  Celebrating Mexican Independence day.

                -Still confirming which companies to come to Collier for event.

                - Edith will distribute materials to staff for this to work on and familiarize.

                - Mexican banners will also be made and used

                - Ideas for Crafts? Inform Edith, planned for next week.

                - Artist coming next, a digital illustrator, will be a speaker for the event.

Open Discussion – Any issues to be discussed?

-          Shelves in staff area, where books are to be labelled or incomplete. Can be sent to LMS? We can label them here at Collier.

-          When checking items in, 3M pad box needs to be selected Green or Yellow, as proper. This is why items beep when customers leave the building through the gates.

-          Staff should keep track of how many items (discs) may be stolen.

-          Staff is also allowed to stop customers if we think they are taking items without checking them out at the stations.

-          Passport office beginning today will be closed every Friday due to the shortened hours (1-5).

-          Collier will be open on Mondays at 10am now.

-          Dept of State website still says no appointments needed at Collier by mistake. Richard will work on this.

-          Man who smokes weed is suspended for 90 days, and cannot be on our property.

-          Unwanted uncataloged Teen items have been removed by Angela.

Staff Meeting July 18^th 2018

In Attendance.: John Hong, Alisa Baker, Aysia Selders, Aric Jakcson, Leona Hoegsberg, Britney Scott, Edith Partida, Melinda Campbell, Kameshia Smith, Cyrano Machey, Angela Barratt, Nichole Lewis, Djuina Hammet, Russ Wagner, Eric Marques, Richard Ford, Teresa Eshelman.

1     Celebration:  Cyrano’s 30^th Birthday, Happy Birthday party and food served.

       Closure of customer interactions: Many situations around the library become almost hostage emergencies, particularly when people get our help and then spend more time rambling about non-question material

Example:

a.       Customer A requests assistance on the computer for printing documents, then talks about her chewing gum and how different the taste is now from the 1960’s, and keeps speaking about the quality and color of chewing gum.

b.       Customer B requests assistance making a passport appointment, then talks about how his bicuspid is bothering him, but how he’s too cheap to buy health insurance, plus his boss is a penny pinching crab that doesn’t pay him enough to afford it in the first place.

c.       In both cases, the library related problem is resolved, but the customers keep talking and cannot stop. Perhaps they are lonely, or paranoid, but keep talking in a more conversational way and waste staff’s time that could be better spent helping others’ needs on library related problems. A simple clean cut off is required. Staff may be able to step aside to help someone else, or refer the rambling customer to another staff member. Politeness and professionality is key to customers’ needs, but staff must also keep in mind the issue of time management.

3.       Consistency at Service Points:

a.       Drinks on the floor: water only, and should be kept under the desk.

b.       Slow times during the day: Roaming can be done, books picked up and marked as used, customers can be helped on computers, books can be shelved.

c.       Voceras: Larger locations, such as Regional libraries, are recommended to get these to call for service or for manager help in emergencies.

4.       Open Discussion:

a.       Refrigerators should be cleaned out every Friday.

b.       Security cameras? : John has requested them, but Collier is unlikely to get them. Djuina mentions that consistent incident reports filed can help to solve this.

c.       Stat Sheets: Cyrano mentions that only he should be the one to make them. If one for the assigned day is not there, he should be informed.

d.       Air Quality binder is present at the front desk if anyone asks.

e.       Collection Development wand is on the way as well.

Staff Meeting July 11^th 2018

In Attendance: Melinda Campbell, Leona Hoegsberg, Eric Marques, Russ Wagner, Aric Jackson, Aysia Selders, Britney Scott, Cyrano Machey, Nguyen, Edith Partida, Nichole Lewis, Richard Ford, Kameshia Smith.

Substance Abuse Policy:  Everyone should read and sign the substance abuse policy.

Computer Help, One to One: This is any interaction between yourself and computer users needing help. Any questions you answer should be entered according to this policy, and will be posted to the intranet by Mary Hammond in the next few days.

Examples include “Where?”, “How?”, and “What?”  “Where do I find the cookbooks?”  “How do I use the public computers?”  “Where is the Houston Chronicle online?”

All staff should read this and utilize these criteria for determining daily stats questions. These do not include tax or language based questions, these are duplicate questions also included as reference questions. Tax questions include such examples as “Where do I find the tax forms online?” This is a reference question, but not actually a computer based question.

Likewise, informing users about internet safety is a reference question, but not a computer one-to-one question.

Pay Raise:  3% pay increase beginning July 1^st pay period.

Server Room: The door to the server room should be closed at all times during operating hours, and opened up at the end of the workday.

Collier Kudos and Open Discussion:  Russ, Eric, Kameshia, Edith, and Cyrano.

-          SRP prizes: Prizes including Astros tickets. Astros tickets are for tomorrow’s game, so these should be given out today. Also, family pack prizes should be recorded, but problems have arisen while doing this. 

-          Russ will be doing a training class today and tomorrow on using Mobile Circ and Hotspots during outreaches.

-          Nichole wants staff to give any ideas and money for July birthdays, to be placed on Britney's desk in the fish box.

-          Cyrano encourages people to answer phone calls even when not on front desk.

-          Britney refers to community outreach events and the new calendar for outreach schedules on the Collier Blog on the right side under Helpful Links. Anyone who wishes to help with these events should tell Britney and put their names on these.

-          Qless is still giving issues on appointments. We should check the customers’ phones for appointments and take them back to the PP office. 

Staff Meeting June 27^th 2018

In attendance: John Hong, Richard Ford, Nichole Lewis, Aysia Selders, Aric Jackson, Alisa Baker, Teresa Eshelman, Eric Marques, Cyrano Machey, Krystal Smith, Melinda Campbell, Russ Wagner, Angela Barratt, Edith Partida, Britney Scott, Leona Hoegsberg, Kameshia Smith.

Celebration: Happy Birthday to Richard!

Novelist K-8 Plus Training:  done by Leona

                Resources exist to help advise staff and what books to recommend to kids. 

-          The Kids’ Book lists are on HPL homepage under Learn and Explore.

-          Accelerated Reader Bookfinder:

-          See Handout for more information

Time Policies:  The sign in sheet for this is required. It is between the two staff desktops in the back. All staff are required to review these guidelines and sign.Staff location surveys also due by June 30^th. All staff are also required to fill this out.

Open discussion: Please give all empty water bottles and sodas on Angela’s desk for a Kids’ craft on Friday.

Please remember to shelves mystery books in correct location.

Any damaged books found should be noted and emailed to John. We should also continue to shelf-read to prove that the damaged books are not a recurring problem at COL since Mr. Andrews ban from Collier. Mr. Andrews also has been banned from Oak Forest library, and is currently frequenting Hilendahl. 

Liftoff Houston starts July 26^th. Generally taking place on Mondays and Saturdays. All COL staff must concern ourselves with setups on the assigned days. Liftoff is a series of business workshops for start up businesses to develop and compete for prize money.

Passports: Customers should fill out their own forms. Staff are not to do it for them. Translated forms also are available if needed.

July 4^th: HPL locations are closed.

Staff Meeting June 20^th 2018

In Attendance: John Hong, Angela Barratt, Russ Wagner, Britney Scott, Edith Partida, Aysia Selders, Aric Jackson, Jiny Ung, Krystal Smith, Cyrano Machey, Kameshia Smith, Richard Ford, Eric Marques, Alisa Baker, Robert Vazquez, Teresa Eshelman.

Welcome New Employees:  We have many new faces in the meeting, including trainees and summer interns.  New faces introduce themselves.

Suitability Team Activity :  A fun activity, break off into groups of four. Come up with new questions for four different scenarios. Purpose being, we should be very open minded to get the best possible answers to suitable questions. John added that suitability would go both ways, and we should work to ask suitable questions if we wish to get suitable answers.

                Would you be qualified to be a CoPilot?

                Would you be suitable to go on a road 10 hours road trip?

                Would you be suitable to babysit a person’s only child?

                Would you be suitable to be a doctor/surgeon?

Customer Experience Location Survey:

Email sent out for libraries with extended hours. People should answer the survey attached to this email, due by Saturday June 30^th. Which locations would you prefer to work at if necessary? Some locations will have much shorter hours and others will have longer hours. Any questions, please see John. Collier should not be affected as it is one of the extended hours locations.

Time Keeping Policy: All city departments are having issues. John will send out an email about this issue.

Monthly Reports: John has not yet received all May reports from Collier staff. Reports should be detailed with some of your strengths, challenges, and accomplishments, like programs and customer service. Examples include helping to make displays, clean ups, decorations, etc.  These reports also help with your HEAR evaluations for your supervisors. Even staffers that do not actively engage in programs or activities can still add to these and include on their monthly reports.

Open Discussion:  

Angela thanks everyone for their SRP work, and inquiries about any possible issues, such as the Adult Reading program calendars. Also, please bring craft supplies for craft activities.

Kameshia brought up the issue of translating for PP customers. Please remind them that they must bring a translator with non-English speakers for certain things, such as the Oath, which they must be able to understand and affirm to.  It is a conflict of interest for staff members to affirm to the Oath for the non-English speakers. They may sign but not understand what they are swearing to.  The time slots for the PP Office allows for a brief length of time based on appointments, and any translations take extra time. PP documents exist in translations, already, but affirming the Oath and other parts of the DS-11 require verbal communications.  We must work for a solution for this.

Checking the shelves for damages: A form is available for marking the damaged books and will be placed on Eric’s desk. All staff should mark which shelves they have checked for damaged books of any kind.

Staff Meeting June 13^th 2018

In Attendance: John Hong, Melinda Campbell, Russ Wagner Cyrano Machey, Britney Scott, Edith Partida, Alisa Baker, Teresa Eshelman, Leona Hoegsberg, Nichole Lewis,  Aysia Selders, Aric Jackson, Kameshia Smith.

Scavenger Hunt: We will answer questions and take pictures of these answers in relation to them. We will then come back and work in groups of three to answer these questions. The idea is to take pictures of something you feel comfortable or uncomfortable with in the library. When we came back to the meeting room, we discussed our findings in groups of three.

Update on Mr. Andrews: Update, we are still working on him. We have no direct evidence against him yet, but we are working on building a case on him for messing up the Men’s bathroom and damaging books. We must keep on our guard to catch him in the act. People have been suspended for less, but we are working on a case to suspend him from the whole HPL system.

Food Training: Does everyone have a login for the lunch stats? If not, ask John. Generic: email address, password is held by Melinda. The part where it asks for organization type does not work. Lunch setup: signs and tables chairs setup. TV  or music should also be setup. Cleanup is to discard all the food and clean the tables when done.

Open discussion: 

Hotspots: These are very popular, there is a hold list for them.

SRP: Button machine working well, refer to Angela or Leona if it gets stuck.

June Birthday: will occur next meeting. Richard’s birthday

Teresa also recognized for her years of service.

Collier Staff Meeting June 6^th 2018

In Attendance: Melinda Campbell, Russ Wagner, Edith Partida, Angela Barratt, Teresa Eshelman, Britney Scott, Eric Marques, Richard Ford, Cyrano Machey, Nichole Lewis, Alisa Baker, Kameshia Smith

Passport Verbiage:   Answering the phones, please  try to answer them even though they are ringing off the hook. Answer the call and put them on hold when busy. If the Circ desk is very heavy, peak in the workroom and ask for help. Don’t send the calls back to the PP office, especially when there’s an agent up front and available. 

Appointments;  Passport customers  will ask how to make an appointment, so we should refer them to the website page, www.houstonlibrary.org/passports. We also should emphasize to them to come earlier than their scheduled appointment, and if late they may lose their place in the appointment line.  If they need to reschedule they must first cancel their appointment and make a new one. Encourage the PP customers to make the appointment themselves either at home or on our public computers, don’t do it for them. 

Kids’ shelves during Summer: Kids’ area gets very highly utilized during the summer, everyone will be assigned one particular shelf section to maintain and straighten.

Open Discussion: Richard’s birthday was today.

Kameshia suggested about reading levels for kids’ books. Angela mentioned she does this for new hires, she will try to bring this into staff training as well.  Kids’ books are listed by grade level and Lexile rating.  Not all kids’ in the same grade read at the same level, however.

Kameshia also mentioned that available staff members should sign for delivery when present.

Summer interns are coming on Monday the 11^th. May get more volunteers as well, but only one summer intern for Collier.  Only a few volunteers are still available for the summer.

Cyrano mentioned that when marking items used it is not necessary to discharge items in Sirsi first. Marking items as used will show any alerts for the items in question, such as a hold at another branch.

Alisa pointed out that Collier’s book destroyer has moved into Adult fiction.  

Kudos: Melinda, Lubna ,Angela, John,  Leona, Teresa twice, Nicole, Kameshia, Janice, Eric,

Summer Food Training Sign Up

The link to this training is also posted on the right under 'Helpful Links.'

·             To create an account please go to https://houstonfoodbank.litmos.com/self-signup/

·              If you already have an account, please go to houstonfoodbank.litmos.com, enter your email and password and sign up from here

·             Please use the code Summer2018 (This is case sensitive)

May 30^th 2018 Staff Meeting Notes:

In Attendance: John Hong, Melinda Campbell, Angela Barratt, Russ Wagner, Alisa Baker, Cyrano Machey, Eric Marques, Richard Ford, Nichole Lewis, Janice Gomez, Kameshia Smith, Rene Villacis, Nadia Jackson

Happy Birthday to Kameshia (22nd), John (8th), Angela (20th), and Nadia (10th)!  We sang Happy Birthday to all of them.

True Colors Analysis: By Angela Barratt (click here to view the entire presentation)

 Blues: Janice, Richard, Nadia Go the Extra Mile for Others, Good at Reading People and Relationships. Appreciate honesty and feelings are respected, creates rapport with their team and likes an open and interactive culture. Make a CONNECTION. Ask how weekend went, relationships are before business.

Gold: Kameshia, Russ Work Ethic, Responsible and Loyal, Detail Oriented, Be Prepared. Appreciates clear and detailed process. Give CLARITY through details. Ask if they have any questions after a meeting/discussion.

Green: Melinda, Angela, Edith, Cyrano, Eric  Logical and Challenging, Preserve Wisdom, Like solving problems and are perfectionist, visionaries with long term strategies. Value the big picture and self improvement. Perform best when knowing what and why they are doing. Focus on COMPETENCE through information, skip the small talk and emotions. 

Orange: John, Alisa, Nichole, Britney, Rene Promote action, motivation and excitement. Seize the Moment, encourage playful atmosphere of activity and movement, Think of the flash of fire. Perform well in contests and competitive situations. COMPLIMENT and focus on them. Be to the point or they will lose interest.

SRP: Starts on Friday, June 1^st.

Private Line, #39571:  Still not working, IT is still working on this problem.

May 23^rd 2018 Staff Meeting Notes:

In attendance: John Hong, Melinda Campbell, Angela Barratt, Russ Wagner, Cyrano Machey, Nichole Lewis, Richard Ford, Teresa Eshelman, Kameshia Smith, Edith Partida, Rene Villacis, Janice Gomez, Lubna Qadri, Nadia Jackson, Shanelle Clay.

Introductions:  New staff trainees: Rene, Nadia, Janice, Nubna, and Shannelle.

Team Building Assessment: Angela and True Colors, a personality association game. To  be completed by next staff meeting on Wednesday May 30^th.

Schedule Updates: New things for summer weeks. A Pickup Hour will be included for picking up books, marking them as used, toys arranged, etc. Additional tasks will be assigned, such as XC $. Please tell Melinda any ideas for specific tasks to be done at the end of the day.

Summer Food Handling: Certificates passed out for Melinda, Russ, and Edith for completing the food training at Central.

Outreach Calendar: This will be posted on the Collier blog. Britney is our outreach coordinator. Any outreaches to be done from Collier should be added to the blog as ‘potential outreaches’ and date, time, location, and what kind. These are important, as not all HPL locations do outreaches. Adding to the outreach calendar is simple to do but also important. Outreaches will also be color coded.

Open Discussion: Kameshia mentions that old computer passes should be taken out and thrown away. Also, for new hires, please wait until staff show you how to shelve and shelf read.

Passports:   Most people are making appointments correctly, not many without.  Cyrano mentioned that it’s better if we tell people to have their forms filled out completely before they arrive at their scheduled time. This cuts down on Preprocessing time needed per customer.

SMM: Make sure the ‘Batch Closed’ slips from printer are included in the till, until morning when money is checked and included in the blue bag. Financial Services want us to send in all paperwork and receipts. This includes the PP SMM as well.

John will contact Dimitri to have her give a refresher course to go over all SMM procedures.