Summer Reading!

Hi everyone,

I'm pleased to inform you that we now have our SRP calendars! Yay! Please note there are 2 calendars: 1 for adults and 1 for kids. They look different (the adult calendar looks like the standard calendar we have every month, and the kids calendar is on yellow paper). I've put a stack of the SRP calendars on the desk in front of the bag sign.

We are now letting kids do their rocket for SRP! When you sign up a child for SRP, let them select a rocket from the small basket at the desk. There are markers for them to write their name on the rocket, and they can decorate it if they wish. Place a small bit of sticky tack (also in the basket) on the back of the rocket, and direct the child to place it on the window that says "Start!" They will move their rocket along the windows as they read this summer. If it isn't busy, please walk them to the window to stick up their rockets.

Reminder-Summer Reading actually starts June 1st, even though we are signing up kids now. That means you should not be logging books for anyone until June 1st.

If you have any questions about SRP, please ask me!

Thanks!

Sara

Collier Staff Meeting Notes

Present: D. Hammett, S. Pope, J. Bradley, C. Machey, T. Eshelman, A. McClendon, J. Diederich, I.     Veloz

Not Present: R. Siegel

·         Customer Warnings

1.      When doing customer warning, just warn them. We will hold off on suspension.

2.      Any questions about suspension and banning please see Policies and Procedures>Planning and Facilities> 2.30 Library Security.  Here is the link https://hplnet.houstonlibrary.org/polandpro/pol-2_3.pdf

·         Displays

1.      Thanks to Julia and Sara for the wonderful displays that can be seen throughout the building.

2.      Any ideas or suggestions, please speak up!

·         MyLink Stories

1.      Let’s get customer to give their stories on how that have benefited from the use of library resources (book clubs, geology, etc.).

2.      Let customers know that they can be featured on a poster to have their story shared.

3.      If you do not want to interview them yourself, let them know that someone from communications will contact them.

4.      Be sure to get their current contact information

5.      Lastly, all entries must be submitted by June 5.

·         Holds\Bins

1.      There are two new labels on the wall. One is titled Central, and the other is titled Holds

a.       The Central bin will just be for items that are returning to the shelves at Central library.

b.      The bin labeled Holds will be for all items that are in transit for holds for customers at branches as well as at Central.

·         Open Discussion

1.       When supplies are delivered, please let Theresa know. If she is absent, place them by     her desk

2.      Kids Shifting

a.       Graphic Novels have been shifted to be between fiction and non-fiction

b.      The empty shelf close to encyclopedias have been designated for new non-fiction items

3.      SRP

a.       To help the SRP signup go faster, we have a clipboard to write down information

b.      Books cannot be logged nor can prizes be claimed until June 1.

c.       There will be additional prizes for kids that attend five or more programs

d.      Camp Wonderopolos can substitute for program attendance.

e.       There are two SRP calendars; one for children and one for adults

4.      There will be Cam Wonderpolos on Thursdays

5.      Camp Stream will take place here August 3-August 7

6.      Summer Food Program will begin June 1

7.      Tea Time Tournament will be held every other Saturday. It is basically a game night that will serve tea.

8.      Customer Service Clerk (FT) position will post soon.

9.      Customer Service Supervisor Position will also post soon.

Collier Staff Meeting 4/29/2015

Present: Djuina Hammett, Julia Bradley, Rose Siegal, Teresa Eshelman, James Diederich, Amanda McClendon

1. Staff Development Day

Options for parking are: 1. Discovery Green (carpool only; you had to request a parking pass); 2. Lot H (you had to request a parking pass); 3. Central Library (if you did not request a parking pass and need to park, you should plan to arrive here very early since parking is first come, first served.

2. Training

a. The new training portal is up; please visit it if you haven’t already.

b. Just for clarification, formal training includes trainings such as Defensive Driving, NEO, and webinars. The training department keeps track of these hours and gives official training credit. Informal training is training that is done internally; it’s up to the manager to keep track of these trainings, since the training department does not. You can still receive training hours for your HEAR plan, at your manager’s discretion.

c. There will be a training called “Hispanics in the Library” on Thursday, May 21^st. It will be held at Central, but you can also view the archived webinar at a later date. Let Djuina know if you’d like to receive that training and she’ll put it on the schedule.

3. Beautifying Our Work Space

a. We really need to keep things neat in our workroom, especially since we will be having guests. We can do very simple things, like closing cabinets, that will dramatically improve the workroom’s appearance. Other efforts include picking up things we drop, lining up carts, and keeping the area near the paper cutter uncluttered. Let us also try to bring organization to our own personal spaces as well.

b. Once a week or so, enter the library from the public entrance and see how things look from that vantage point.

4. Customer Service

We received a great compliment for our customer service from one of our patrons yesterday.

5. Updates

a. Our new part-time employee, Isabel Veloz, will start at Collier on May 11^th. She will work every Saturday from 10:15-5:15.

b. We will host a new trainee, an Assistant Manager at Frank/Meyer,
next week.

c. The man who broke into some of the HPL branches and stole
computers has been caught.

d. In the ongoing effort to streamline NL procedures, Administration is looking for volunteers to identify processes (such as opening and closing procedures). This is a task that can be done remotely. Let Djuina know if you’d like to help out.

e. As part of the movement to de-cluster NLs, Johnson and Mancuso are officially no longer grouped.

f. Financial Services will be at Collier to provide trainings on SMM on Friday, June 5^th. The training will cover how to accept credit cards, checks, and will provide hands-on practice.

g. On this note, if there is an issue with money at the end of the evening that you are unable to solve, please make a very detailed note of it so Opening staff can call Financial Services.

h. Summer reading registration begins on Friday, May 1^st. If you’ve never registered participants for Summer Reading before or have questions, please ask Sara—it’s pretty simple. In the past we’ve had lots of registrants at Collier, so we are looking forward to a busy SRP.

i. We’ve gotten many donations for the Book Sale recently. If anyone would like to assist in organizing these, please let Rose know.

j. Walter is doing a weeding project this coming Monday, 5/4. If anyone would like to help out, let Djuina know.

6. Open Discussion

Julia: If a patron is checking out at Self-Check and needs an item tagged, after we are done tagging, let’s make sure the patron checks it out before leaving the building; sometimes they assume that you took the item from them in order to check it out at the desk.

James: When we’re wrapping holds for patrons with long last names, sometimes all the information cannot fit along the spine and the Hold expiration date gets wrapped beneath the item, making it harder to identify Holds that need to be cleared. Rather than obscuring the expiration date, we can instead fold over the top part that says “Houston Public Library.”

Amanda: There’s some shifting going on in the Kids section. Fiction will eventually have more space in the Kids area. Sara: Thanks to Amanda for taking on a lot of shifting projects. Graphic Novels will eventually be located between Fiction and Non-Fiction.

Sara: Please encourage children to produce art entries for the Children’s Book Celebration. Age limits are grades K-6. The deadline is currently May 1^st, but we will likely extend it another week or so. There are materials in the Kids section for this purpose, and if a child wants to make an entry, we can provide additional art supplies. Winners go to lunch with Jon Scieszka!

Teresa: Carts are often left in the workroom without labels. It would be great if we could go back to labeling them so we can either process or shelve them more efficiently.

Teresa: Please email Teresa if you need to order any more supplies. 

Collier Staff Meeting

Wednesday 04/22/2015

Present: Djuina Hammett, Julia Bradley, James Diederich, Amanda McClendon, Rose Seigal, Sara Pope, Cyrano Machey

Not Present: Amethyst Taylor, Teresa Eshelman

·         Clean Up

1.       Kitchen is now clean. Let’s keep it that way.

2.       Remember to clean any spills or crumbs you may have perpetrated.

3.       Remember GSD is not responsible for cleaning the kitchen

4.       Workroom needs to be tidied up a bit.

·         Smart Money

1.       There have been a few errors with smart money. These errors were due to not taking time with transactions.

2.       When verifying the deposit, it is okay to double check the money count.

3.       Financial Services will start smart money training.

·         Birthday\Cleaning\Coffee Fund

1.       We will begin taking up funds (few dollars a month) for birthdays, cleaning supplies, and coffee.

·         Stats Sheets

1.       We have a new stats sheet; which now includes delivery

2.       Upon meetings endings in our meeting rooms, be sure to as guests to check out at the Customer Service Desk

·         Mystery Items

1.       If a case is returned without a disc, check missing items

2.       Any discards, mystery items, etc., ask Teresa for assistance.

·         Open Discussion

1.       No item level holds (placing holds through Sirsi)

2.       Place holds through the catalog only

3.       Cyrano and Amanda will be shifting fiction Friday

4.       Missing DVD’s

a.       We’ve had a few DVD’s go missing. Please roam on your designated hour to discourage bad behavior.

5.       No more leaning against the counter or walls at Express Check. 

TeenBookCon

Check out our display for TeenBookCon! We got a lot of circulation from this one and all the flyers were taken. :)

Collier Staff Meeting

Wednesday 4/8/2015

Present: Djuina Hammett, Julia Bradley, Rose Siegal, Teresa Eshelman, James Diederich

1. Statistics

·         Please remember to record statistics for delivery, holds, paging, and bins. As a reminder, every question at the CSD gets a hash mark, even if the questions are coming from the same patron. These stats are important; they provide justification for our staff levels, and are reviewed every month by Mayor Parker.

o   One suggestion (Julia) is for there to be separate boxes on the stats sheets for each category (delivery/holds/paging/bins) so that it is obvious if one has inadvertently been left blank.

2. Self-Check

·         Last month, 97% of our materials were checked out using the machines. This is excellent. Thanks to everyone for the big effort in achieving this!

3. Cleanup

·         It’s not the responsibility of the GSD staff to wipe down kitchen counters and clean up the microwave. We need to wash our own dishes and art supplies. Within a week, the items in the sink should be gone or they will be removed permanently.

·         We can all do simple things to keep our staff room looking neat. These can be things like closing the cabinets and lining up carts. Every once in a while, give the staff room (and the library) a fresh eye. Ask yourself why we do things a certain way, and if there might be a better way of doing them.

·         If anyone has any ideas for storage or general organization, please bring them forward. We can always put things to a vote.

4. Staff Development Day

·         Everyone must be there.

·         We have a poster board we need to complete as a team before Staff Development Day.

o   After-the-fact note: Amethyst has provided a whiteboard in the staff room with questions to help us brainstorm content for the poster. Amethyst will compile and artistically express our ideas, so please contribute by Friday, April 17^th.

o    We can get up to four photos printed in color for the poster board.

5. Thanks-A-Lotto

·         Julia received a Thanks-A-Lotto card. Julia: thanks to staff for being awesome and supportive.

6. Library Card Campaign

·         Keep promoting our MyLink cards! If a patron still has a Power Card, we can gently steer them toward replacing it, even if it has not yet expired.

·         Please shred the Power Cards once they are exchanged for the MyLink cards.

·         Continue to solicit patrons’ stories for the MyLink Campaign. Programs like Open Job Lab are great places to recruit stories.

o   Feel free to solicit stories from patrons verbally, if you think they might not go submit the stories online after you’ve spoken with them. You can say something like, “Do you mind if I share that with the rest of the library?” Ask for their name and contact information or, if they’re unwilling to provide contact info, at least their first name.

7. Miscellaneous

·         For transparency, Djuina wanted to share with us just some of the things she does while she’s in her office:

o   Kronos maintenance

o   Trainings

o   Weekly, bi-monthly, and monthly meetings

o   Weekly and monthly reports

o   Reviews and evaluations

o   Responding to customer comments

o   Collection management

o   Mentoring

o   Consulting on previous locations

o   She tries to do at least a couple of hours on the floor daily, depending on staff levels.

o   If anybody would like to shadow Djuina for a half or full day, she is happy to accommodate that. If she is scheduled to be in a meeting on a particular day you’d like to shadow, and the meeting is appropriate for you to attend, she will try to seek approval for you to come along.

o   Teresa: Thanks and appreciation to Djuina for being very hands-on.

·         Laptops: Please do not lock them in your overhead compartments. All laptops need to be locked in the carts, inside their respective locked storage rooms. Djuina must file a police report for any laptops that are unaccounted for.

·         Passports: We may be starting passport services at Collier. If so, we’ll use the Conference Room for processing. James and Djuina have done passports before, so they will be the go-to staff for passport services at first.

o   James: From experience at a location that does passport services, we may have to address phone staffing, since we will get a lot more passport-processing-related calls.

·         After School Zone: We are discontinuing ASZ for the time being, as our numbers are consistently low. Our would-be feeder school, Clifton, already has an after-school program. If anyone has any suggestions for outreach that will draw participants to ASZ, Djuina is happy to open it back up again in the Fall.

Eggciting Eggsperiments!

We had a blast at the Eggciting Eggsperiments Eggstravaganza today! The highlight was definitely walking on eggshells-the kids loved it so much, and each kid wanted to walk across the eggs several times! We did end up with some broken eggs, but not as many as you'd think! Thanks Djuina for helping me out!