Staff Meeting Notes 2/10/2016

Summary: Tax Forms, Training Trainees, Counterfeit Pen Procedures, Signing Up for Training, Database Training, PBS Kids Writing Contest, 2016 Bluebonnets, Shifting, Toy Box, Open Discussion

Written by: James Diederich

In attendance: Angela Barratt, Julia Bradley (presiding), Melinda Campell, James Diederich, Teresa Eshelman, Djuina Hammett, Cyrano Machey, Rose Siegel, Isabel Veloz

1. Tax Forms 

• Tax forms are located in the blue bin under the desk. We have the 1040, 1040A, & 1040EZ. Instructions only for the A & EZ. Two forms per person and only on demand due to limited supply.

2. Training Trainees

• Be aware and ready for two new trainees coming to Collier on Monday, 2/15/16. 

3. Counterfeit Pen Procedures

• Please use counterfeit pen for bill denominations $5 and up. The pen will be attached to the register scanner for convenient access.  

4. Signing Up for Training

• Sign up for official City training opportunities (such as at the E. B. Cape Training Center) as you see them and then notify Julia about your registration. This will expedite the process and make it more likely that you be able to get a slot in the class. 

5. Database Training

• In two to three weeks we will start internal database training. 
• There are assigned teams with assigned databases: Teresa, Rose, and Kameshia- Newspapers! Angela and Cyrano- Brainfuse. Isabel and Melinda- Novelists. James and Julia- Ebsco Medline.

6.  PBS Kids Writing Contest

• Registration is now through March. Entry forms are in the kid's section on the mini-display. Angela has more details about the contest on a sheet at her desk. 

7. 2016 Bluebonnets

• 2015/2016 Bluebonnets have been selected. Please file these new ones in their designated section and shelve the older ones with the regular books. 

8.  Shifting

• Make sure to not over-stuff a shelf and to shift if necessary. Shifting will definitely occur due to the addition of the new Bluebonnet books.     

9. Toy Box

• The toy box (treasure chest) containing prizes for children that clean up their toys is located under the desk. Remember: one prize per child per day. 

10. Open Discussion

• When patrons get a computer card, be sure to emphasize that there is a $1.00 replacement fee if they lose that card. 

• Collier will be used as a democratic primary polling site on Tuesday, March 1st. They will be arriving at Collier 6am to set up and will need to stay after we close to pack up. 

Staff Meeting Notes 1/27/2016

Summary: Wellness Documentation, Overdue Items, Upcoming Gatherings, Shifting Update, Displays + Room 455, Cell Phones, Test Prep Guides, Tax Help; From the Youth Meeting: FLIP Kit Tickets, Children’s Book Celebration, Seuss-a-Palooza, SRP; Open Discussion

Written by: Melinda Campbell

In attendance: Angela Barratt, Julia Bradley (presiding), Melinda Campell (note-taking), James Diederich, Teresa Eshelman, Djuina Hammett, Cyrano Machey, Rose Siegel, Isabel Veloz


1. Wellness Documentation

• Option A requires two preventive care activities
• To receive the discount for health insurance if Plan A was chosen, visits must be documented by January 31^st.
• Able to use dental visits, vision screening or flu injections not done through Cigna but these visits must be manually reported.
• You may, of course, use wellness time for visits
• Other plans include: telephone coaching, onsite health education or my health assistant online program
• Visit the COH wellness website for more information.

2. Overdue Items

• Please check accounts when checking in items to see whether they have other items out or overdue items on the account and let the customer know at that time, including any preexisting fines that the account may have. Please make this a habit for better customer service.
• One tip for a friendly way to let the customer know: “The record shows that there is an overdue fine ….”

3. Upcoming Gatherings

• Brandon Cofield of MBK is coming to lunch at Collier on Friday to familiarize us with their service to the community and to answer any of our questions.
• Also we have Hiawatha Henry from Programming coming on Monday at 11:15. Hiawatha works with Jennifer Schwartz and they are in charge of setting up outside programs and performers in the Library. She wants to hear your ideas regarding programs that we could have at the library. Rose and Kameshia, Julia will get together with you for your input as you are not here at that time.
• James suggested “How to use my library card”

4. Shifting Update

• The large project is almost done and a big thank you for all the work that everyone has done. It looks amazing.

5. Displays and Room 455

• Cyrano has been doing some great displays! If anyone wants to join in and do some displays or collaborate with others, Central Library now has a room (455) set up with materials such as colored paper, fancy scissors, die cuts, Cricut, butcher paper etc.
  We can organize a field trip to see what is available and get supplies together for a display. Also, in the future, we can use the Central Library volunteers to assemble some simple pieces for our display and send them our way.

Room 455 is a communal space for HPL staff to access craft supplies and tools (die cuts, Cricut machines, paper) and be able to spread out and create displays for their branches. Anyone can use the room whenever they like--it's not limited to youth stafff.

6.  Cell Phones

• Melinda has discussed the cell phones at the desk.
  Please do not have your cell phones at the desk.
  We do have a private line at the library that can be used for emergencies or if necessary you can speak to a Manager to discuss having your cell phone handy to take the call you are waiting on.
  Social media sites on the cell phone do not look professional.
• [Hit "Enter" for additional bullets]

7. Test Prep Books

• Check and use your judgement to shelf the Test Prep books in this area.
  Be careful with general help such as algebra help books.
  Make this area just for test taking help.

8. Tax Help

• Great news! We are getting our tax forms mid February as we have reactivated our account.
• We can remind the customer that they can ask for the tax forms to be sent to their home address or use irs.gov for printing of forms.
• We do not have the tax help printouts yet.
• Tax help form AARP Tax Aide is available at select HPL locations from Monday February 1^st through Friday April 15. Here's the HPL link to tax information, including AARP services.
• Closest Libraries for this service are:
• Oak Forest: Tuesday and Wednesday 11:30-3:30, Saturday 10-2
• Hillendahl: Wednesday 11-3 Thursday 1-5. Spanish speakers help at Hillendahl is on Thursday only.

Kids' Corner (Angela Barratt)

1. From the Youth Meeting

• FLIP Kit Tickets: When the survey and kit is returned the family can receive the free museum pass.
• The surveys should be returned completed at the time the kit is returned. If returning the kit without doing the survey, we can ask them to do it at that time.
• Our passes are in the grey metal box in the drawer to the right of the CSD. When we get down to the last 5 passes, please let Angela know so she can order more.
• Check expiration date on free pass and let patron know that it is time sensitive.

2. Childrens' Book Celebration Festival

We will have Dan Santat, author of The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend and winner of the 2015 Caldecott Award.

If you would like to work on the artwork for this festival, please see Angela.

3. Seuss-a-Palooza:

• We're hosting a special event for Dr. Seuss’s birthday. It will occur March 2^nd.
• We will have a bilingual story time and crafts for all ages.
• Please see Angela if you'd like to help with this program.

4. SRP

• We will host a teen event every Wednesday at 4PM.
• Please help Angela with thoughts on programs to entice teens into the library. SRP theme for this year is "Aim for the stars." May be interpreted as the summer Olympics or astronomy. Ideas suggested for programs: old fashioned field day, mini Olympics, lip-sync battles, make your own short podcast.

Open Discussion

Teresa: Please do not add float items in the discard bin as there has been several items in there recently.

Cyrano: Send back to LMS Brotherhood in Death /Robb and Honky Tonk Samurai Lansdale. We should be receiving them in shipment today or tomorrow.

Julia: We now have flowers in the staff area. Let's try to keep them alive!

Djuina:

• Jungman Library should be up and running in two months.
• City of Houston is facing between 120-150 million dollars in deficit so we may have a budget reduction.
• Staff Development Day will be occurring in October this year.
• Read to the Final Four: Dr. Lawson attended a White House meeting last week with other Library and School leaders.
• All HISD students from K-12 will be provided the “Learning Link” card, probably to commence at the beginning of the next school year.
• We are up to the Elite 8 and the pep rally where the Final Four will be announced is on February 5^th.
• Hoping everyone has attended to the Cyber training.
• The HEAR quarterly assessments are being completed.
• Renderings of Robinson-Westchase and Central Libraries were available in break room. Central will have their plaza updated to have movies and performers.
• Djuina suggested “Paint with a twist’, Laser Tag, Paintball, bowling, or Top Golf for staff extra curricular activity. Julia will send out a google survey form for voting.

Tax Forms

Hey, y'all!

If a customer calls for tax forms and doesn't want to print them or says "but they don't come with instuctions!," you can help them order them from this site.

Just have them give you their info and it's free for them. You can even order them a couple copies in case they mess up. The site says that it should take 10 business days to arrive.

Alternatively, if you have someone who would prefer to call and order forms themselves, they can call this number: 1-800-829-3676

-Angela

Staff Meeting Notes 1/13/2016

Summary: Meeting Notes Standards, Monthly Reports, Shifting in the Adult Area, Closing Announcements, "Pop-Up" Open Job Lab Pilot, Stuff and Where it Lives, COL Media Team, Laptop Updates, MBK Lunch, Treasure Chest, Backup Storytime, Open Discussion

Written by: Angela

In Attendance: Angela Barratt (note-taking), Julia Bradley (presiding), James Diederich, Teresa Eshelman, Djuina Hammett, Cyrano Machey, Rose Siegel, Isabel Veloz

1. Meeting Notes Standards

• Meeting notes will now be a shared responsibility, and we will rotate in alphabetical order (so Angela is taking first shift) 
• Standards for thoroughness: since not everyone will be at any given staff meeting, we want them to know exactly what happened
• From Julia's Email: The person who takes meeting notes will be scheduled a planning hour directly afterwards in order to have ample time to write up notes. The template is now on the blog. If you click on the “Posts” tab, you will see it in draft form at the very top. Copy the text and paste it into a new post, making sure that you also add the date after the title of the post in the same format as the draft. (i.e. “Staff Meeting Notes x/x/2016”)
• Ideally the meeting notes will get put up same-day but if you are pressed for time or in the middle of another project, talk to Julia.
• Julia will also make sure that whatever handouts were provided will also be available to you on the blog. By the time you go to enter your notes, they’ll be there in a link at the bottom of the post under “Handouts.” (FYI, they link to a new folder in our Google Drive named “Collier staff meeting handouts.”)

2. Monthly Reports 

• Do them (thanks to the person who sent theirs in for January!) 
• Please send them in by the 5th of each month 

3. Shifting in the Adult Area: Map and Scheduling

• See map linked at the bottom of this post; we are shifting to match the map
• Reference has already moved to the back wall, thanks to our lovely volunteers
• We will be putting in more shelves for audiobooks, and swapping out the nasty display shelves for the clean ones that are in the closet in the children's area
• You may be scheduled to shift, particularly during hours before we open

4. Closing Announcements

• We will start bilingual closing announcements on Tuesday, January 19th (after the MLK holiday). If you would like to practice your Spanish pronunciation, Isabel has agreed to help train
• "CP" (Closing Procedures) people will coordinate to ensure that the announcements are done

5. "Pop-Up" Open Job Lab Pilot

• Open Job Lab numbers are low, but we all know it's not for lack of people who need help
• At Julia's Workforce Development meeting, they came up with the idea for a more flexible Open Job Lab concept: 
• A OJL-trained staff member will be scheduled to be available at the public computers for help with resumes, applications, etc
• Starts February 1st, pilot project initially scheduled to last 2 weeks
• For the time being, will not replace our regularly scheduled OJL
• It will be important to collect feedback from everyone on this project, regarding what works and what doesn't

6. Stuff and Where it Lives! 

• Let's encourage a general spirit of putting things away where they go
• The fridge is full; please make sure we are throwing things away on a regular basis
• This is a team effort! 
• We did get compliments from Jason from SPACES on how organized our staff workroom is

7. COL Media Team

• If you haven't submitted your staff bio to Julia, please do so ASAP 
• New COL blog/site coming soon
• If you are interested in blogging at all (even only once in a blue moon), let Julia know
• Remember, this blog is to keep us all in the loop but also to show off the awesome stuff we are doing here 

8. Laptop Updates on the Schedule

• Laptop updates are pushed out every week by IT on Thursday nights
• We will now have someone on the schedule as "Laptop Updates"
• When you are scheduled to do laptop updates ,you will restart all of the laptops (both carts) 

9. My Brother's Keeper Lunch at Collier on 1/29

• We will be hosting Brandon Cofield and other representatives from My Brother's Keeper on January 29th from 11-12. 
• There will be pizza! 
• This will not take the place of your scheduled lunch hour, it will be in addition. 

10. Kids' Corner (AB) 

• Treasure Chest 

• Incentive for kids to clean up the toys in the children's area
• Talk it up! 
• Is anyone interested in being a backup storytime person? (Angela will plan to make programs-in-a-box so they are ready to go) 

11. Open Discussion 

• Ms. Rose has shifted the DVDs so that English language DVDs have 3 shelves now
• James says don't be afraid to tidy up the magazines. It will serve our customers better to have them put away in the right place even if he is not here
• Holds wrappers: we are currently on threat level orange (that's very high) 
• Make sure that you check items to make sure that the label corresponds with the title/item number
• There is a milk crate behind the front desk where you can put items with holds if we are very busy and you don't have time to print a holds wrapper (until we get our cute wire basket) 
• Lines at the Customer Service Desk: one line.
• Should we have a sign? Line guides? 
• We can help people pay fines online at the self check/roaming station if they are using a credit card
• Updates from Djuina
• Check-in on Open Carry (no one has appeared to be packing heat) 
• Sally Swanson is the new Executive Director of the HPL Foundation
• PIN numbers: keep doin' what you're doin'
• New stamps coming soon for discards to improve resale value (they will say something like "Friends!" instead of "DISCARD")
• Passport Services for Collier- conversation is ongoing

Handouts:

Shifting map

Condensed version of Spanish closing announcement coming soon!

UPDATE 1/15/2016: Shorter version of English and Spanish closing announcements are here! Isabel will meet with you briefly this coming Tuesday to prepare for our Spanish announcement-making beginning Tuesday evening. 

Meeting Notes 12/30/2015

Weekly Staff Meeting

Wednesday, 12.30.2015

─

Attendees

J. Bradley

M. Campbell

A.   Barratt

C. Machey

T. Eshelman

J. Diederich

I.Veloz

R. Siegel

Agenda

ADA Refresher

1.       If it's not clear what service a dog accompanying a library patron provides, there are only two questions staff may ask: 

• "Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?"
• "What task has the dog been trained to perform?" 

If you have already approached a patron and asked these questions, please inform your fellow staff so another one of us doesn't ask them again.
2. Staff may not ask about the patron's disability, ask for documentation, or ask the animal to perform the task it is trained to do.
3. Under the ADA, emotional support animals are not considered service animals. 

4. There's an ADA FAQ handout in the break room if you wish to consult it. The handout may also be found here. 

Pinpad

1.       Not a replacement for Telecheck machine

2.       The pin pad will provide instructions on how to execute the payment

3.       Telecheck will work as usual

a.       You will still enter the amount of the payment and your employee code

Ill Returns

1.       Return ILL items in ILL envelopes

Staff Profiles

1.       Our blog is under current renovation

2.       Staff profiles will be featured with little known facts

Open Discussion

●        Keep date labels on Bluebonnet books

●        There is some shifting needed in kids

Next Meeting Agenda Items

Next meeting will be held Wednesday January 6th 

Meeting Notes 12/23

• Alief Manager
• Official welcome to Marcia Cameron-Denton, new manager of Alief! She will be here training with us today and Monday (12/28). Say hi if you haven't met her yet. 
• De-Escalation Tips
• Djuina will send these out as an email; please read through them and think about situations you could apply them to
• Active listening is usually the most important thing
• Remember: They are affected by factors outside of the library
• Remember: QTIP (Quit Taking It Personally) 
• (if you have any tips for this, let me know -Angela)
• Phone-a-friend: "Let me find someone who can better assist you"
• Obamacare Referral Issues
• Apparently our address has been advertised as the "Northwest Houston Enrollment Center" and people are coming here for appointments they have paid for. We are not involved in any way.
• If anyone asks about an appointment with a healthcare adviser, you can give them the phone number of Stacy Wilson, with Gateway to Care. Her numbers are: 832-557-8253 or 832-273-5710. The numbers are also taped to the phones at the front. 
• Holds
• Some of the books on our hold shelf were from other branches, and some were wrapped wrong. Remember that since we are the training library, it is very important that we get things like this right. 
• For now, volunteers are no longer allowed to shelve holds. Holds should be shelved as soon as they are ready. 
• Per Djuina and Melinda, delivery people will be scheduled in 2-week blocks so that everyone has sufficient time to master the delivery process. 
• Melinda has been scheduling delivery later in the day so that we aren't sitting around waiting for it to get here. 
• Updates from Manager's Meeting (Melinda)
• The psychologist from the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) came to visit the manager's meeting. The initial consultation is free, and the first one can be done on work time. As per the City of Houston website, "The EAP offers internal counseling for employees who experience problems with work relationships or work performance. Appointments with the internal counselors are available by calling 713-964-9906. The external EAP Guidance Resources counselors are available for employees who experience problems with personal issues, planning for life events or simply managing daily life. The Guidance Resources is the single source for confidential support, expert information and valuable resources, when you need it the most.  Call 855-378-7485 anytime, 24 hours a day – 7 days each week."
• Base Pay: base rates will increase about .50 per hour. You should see this change on January 22nd paycheck. Ask Melinda for more specifics if you want to see your personal numbers. 
• Reminders
• Do not use cell phones at the front desk. If you really need to take a call, talk to the person in charge and take it to the back. Please use professionalism when you are out in the public area. 
• Please check all A/V before you check it in or put it out on the holds shelf. Ensure that each CD/DVD/Audiobook has the correct discs inside. When processing delivery, you can remove the label to check, and then restick it. 
• Dates to Know
• Open Carry goes into effect January 1st
• New Mayor Sylvester Turner takes office January 4th


• Michele Gorman will host a director's chat here at Collier on February 3rd 
• (so you know that means everything's gotta be ship-shape)

We HOLD it down!

Collier continues to show why we are the best. This is the perfect demonstration for all locations showing how our hold shelves should look.