Here's to a new year!

 

Cheers, Team!

-M

Book Sale Sign & Price Changes

Dear Team,

Our new book sale sign has been approved (Thank you to Mike for generating!). I’ve printed copies and left one in each of your mailboxes. The signs have been posted on the end of the wooden shelving carts that currently hold the items for sale. I’ve also updated the small 2 inch by 2 inch sign on the monitors of the CSD. Note! The price of A/V (DVDs, CDs, Audiobooks, etc.) have been increased to $1.00 each. The price of magazines have decreased to $0.25 each.

 

I hope you find these numbers fair and reasonable.

Thank you,

Marcos Martinez, Lib II, Manager

Collier Team Meeting 12/18/2013

COL Team Meeting
12/18/13
11:15am-11:40am
Meeting called by: Marcos Martinez

1. Holiday Celebration, Friday, 12/20/13: For those scheduled to work, report first to COL and finish assigned opening duties. Permitted to leave from COL to CEN at or around 9:30am for Celebration at JIB. Be sure to print out parking permit and map in case CEN parking garage is full. Lunch hour is included for those attending the celebration. I, Marcos, will enter the lunch hours for those attending; staff attending will only need to punch in at the start of your shift and at the end of your shift.
2. Monthly Program Calendar: ShaRhonda is drafting our program calendar for January and we plan to have it ready for print and distrubtion by first week of January. This will be available to hand out to customers at the CSD and at the entrance with the other promo materials. A plan will be devised to begin marketing our programs in the new year. I suggest you refer customers who need help with computers to one of our classes offered (that will be the opportunity to hand them the program calendar).
3. Statistics: Will be making slight modifications on the statistics sheet so columns are more clear. Please remember to record your stats while at the desk or before leaving the desk. Items that are received across the desk and are requested to be sent out for fulfilling holds will be counted and recorded when items in bin are taken to the work room. More details later.
4. Self Check-Out Machines: Promote the use of our self check out machines. If they are not used, they could be removed and installed at another location. Remember these machines will not replace staff, but will free up time for us to work on other projects/programs/reference questions. A sign will be created and placed at the CSD to help promote the machines.
5. Substitute Binder: A binder has been created containing blank subsitute timesheets, instructions, and copies of completed timesheets. This will be kept alongside the Smart Money (SMM) binder in the work room.

Questions?
Feel free to email me or stop by my office.

Thank you,
-Marcos M.

Hoopla! New Digital Media Service

Hello, Team,

We are now offering a new service called Hoopla that allows for customers to stream videos, music and more. Please visit the link to the Training Portal for more information and review Marianne Lorio's email message below.

Thank you,
-Marcos M.

Link to Training: https://sites.google.com/site/hplstafftraining/learningresources/libraryfunctions/hoopla

Email message from Marianne Lorio:

Hello:

 

We are getting ready to launch a new digital media service for the public. It is called hoopla and will include streaming and downloadable movies, TV shows, audiobooks and music. Before you get too excited about the video I should let you know that it includes mainly older, non-blockbuster movies and nonfiction TV shows. The studios are still hesitant to work with public libraries so this is an experiment to see if this model will work for studios and libraries alike. Whether eventually we will be allowed to provide access to the more popular titles remains to be seen. The music studios, however, are very excited about the new model and all the major studios except for Sony are providing full catalogs. This means you can get current Billboard hits to checkout. Checkout periods for video is 72 hours, music is 7 days and audiobooks is 21 days. After that time period the customer will no longer have access to the title and any download will be “returned”.

 

We will start by offering customers 4 check outs, regardless of format, per a month. To understand why we are offering so few check outs, you have to know a bit about the hoopla model. Hoopla charges the library per check out. Prices range from $0.99 to $2.99 per title. We have set money aside for hoopla for the rest of the fiscal year and don’t want to go through all the hoopla deposit early on. Hopefully once we have been doing this for a few months we will get a better feel for the usage and be able to adjust the number of check outs accordingly.

 

We are planning to do a “soft” launch of hoopla next week. This means that we will put it on the website for customers to use, but won’t advertise it. Beginning of January we will start promoting the service among our customers. This week I would like you to explore hoopla and try using one of your check outs. The hoopla website is www.hoopladigital.com. You will need your library card to sign up and get started. While it would be nice for you to plunge straight into hoopla as the library customers will do, there is a hoopla webpage on the Staff Training Portal. The direct URL to the website is https://sites.google.com/site/hplstafftraining/learningresources/libraryfunctions/hoopla.  There are basic instructions, videos and FAQs. The webpage, especially the FAQs, are a work in progress so please be patient with us as we finish.

 

Sincerely,

 

Marianne Lorio

Multimedia Specialist

Houston Public Library

marianne.lorio@houstontx.gov

832-393-1514

New Databases

Effective immediately, TexShare member libraries can now access 11 new databases from EBSCO. Newly-added resources include 4 general interest databases, EBSCO’s Literary Reference Center^™, and 6 new, academic-focused databases from H.W. Wilson.
The new general interest databases are:

• Hobbies & Crafts Reference Center^™
• Home Improvement Reference Center^™
• Small Business Reference Center^™
• Small Engine Repair Reference Center^™

These new resources, from EBSCO’s “Do-It-Yourself Reference Center,” include illustrated articles, videos, and other full-text content. Whether you’re starting your own business, tackling your “To-Do” list around the house, or just relaxing with your hobbies, these resources have got you covered!
EBSCO’s Literary Reference Center provides information on thousands of authors and their works through an expansive collection of author biographies, plot summaries, poems, short stories, author interviews, and more!
From the long-respected H.W. Wilson collections, TexShare member libraries now also have full access to:

• Book Review Digest Plus^™
• Business Abstracts with Full Text^™
• Essay & General Literature Index^™
• Humanities Full Text^™
• Play Index^™
• Short Story Index

H.W. Wilson resources include content from quality sources such as magazines, journals, reference books and monographs, book reviews, videos, poems, short stories and much more.
Access Anytime, Anywhere
Just like all the other TexShare databases, these new resources are available to your staff and patrons 24/7 from your library’s computers or from your patrons’ homes or mobile devices.

Have questions about setting up access? See the FAQ here:
www.tsl.state.tx.us/texshare/ebfaq.html or contact EBSCO Support at (800) 758-5995.

New comment forms

Hello,

There is a revised comment form in English and Spanish on the Intranet under Forms and Misc.  The new form includes a place for customers to put an email address as well as indicate how they would like to be contacted.  Please start to use the new form from here on out.

Also, please remember that the staff member that accepts the form should initial the form and indicate what he/she might have said in response to the customer and whether or not follow-up is needed.

English Form
Spanish Form

If you have any questions, please contact your Team Leader.

Thanks,

Laurie

ACA

Hello,

We have been conducting the first of the ACA trainings and have had some questions.  Suzy asked me to post them in case other people have had similar questions.

1.            For those who are disabled/handicapped will we be filling out applications for them?

•             We will never fill out applications for customers. Our role is to link them to the resources as we do for taxes, immigration, housing, etc.

2.            Will the navigator organizations be working with HPL or ever available at HPL? Who are the navigators specifically?

•             Navigators have not been identified as of yet. They are still going through the interview process to select them. Our (HPL's) role is not to be a liaison for the ACA or its navigators. We only provide access to computers and point the public to the resources. Customers will need to reach out to navigators or community helpers independently.  We can, however, point them to contact information for these various services.

3.            When will the resource list handout for staff to handout be available?

•             Our Communications Dept. is currently looking at what (if anything) we should produce in terms of collateral (resource lists, handouts, bookmarks, etc). We very well may receive these items from IMLS, so we are waiting for more information at this time.

4.            When will the paper application be available?

•             The official application will be available to all on October 1st.  That is all we know at this point. No new information has been released.

5.            Should we ever be typing anything for people on their applications, preliminary questionnaire?

•             We should only assist with access to computers and the official website if needed. We never assist with typing applications/questionnaires. We should never handle customer confidential information such as insurance information, bank account information, social security #, etc. This has always been a department rule of thumb.

6.            Should we be walking people through enrollment or questionnaires in Telephone Reference?

•             No, we will not function in this capacity. Again, we are only pointing customers to the official website and ACA resources.

7.     Can staff answer questions about benefits or partial benefits that customers may be eligible for? 
•     Staff should NOT provide customers with information about possible benefits.  Our role is to provide access to computers and point customers to the ACA resources on the official website.  Customers would need to complete the questionnaire and/or application in order to find out what benefits they qualify for 

 

8.  Will there be a link on our website to the available resources

•    Virtual Services is working on adding a link.  We will let you know when it is available.  For now it is always best to refer questions to www.healthcare.gov.  They have live chat and telephone numbers for people who have questions.
 

  
Let us know if the are other questions.

Thanks,

Laurie