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#4 Reports A. Activities Report Hedberg Public Library Activity Report March 2009 Building Operations Standing water is starting to recede on the floor in the boiler room. When the floor dries completely, it will be sanitized and scrubbed by custodial staff. The water heater in the children’s work room was repaired. All of the air supply vents and air return vents in the ceilings throughout the library have been cleaned by custodian Steve Wenzel. The air supply vents and the ceiling tiles surrounding those vents were all vacuumed. The air return vents, numbering 50 plus, were all removed and washed by hand. Building tech Dave Peters has applied new stain and varnish on the railings and wood seats in the lobby. He has also done touch-up stain and varnish applications to all of the square accent tables that are used in the public areas. Central Services It has been a busy month for checkout staff with circulation up and the number of holds filled increasing by 1,464 compared to last March; however library registration of new patrons were down by 40. Over a thousand more notices (overdue, reserves and billing) were sent either by phone, email or mail this month. Seventy-five percent of the total March circulation was from city of Janesville residents, High circulation from Rock County townships was from adjacent townships, Janesville and Harmony, followed by Beloit and Milton townships. DVD circulation was 4.6 times higher than video. Circulation for feature videos was 2,638 with non-fiction videos at 580. Job Resource Center circulation for the month was 157 and the newly established neighborhood in Youth Services, “Illustrated Fiction” was 54. Hedberg’s net lender status last month was short-lived since this month HPL borrowed more than loaned. More users from other ALS libraries continue to visit and use materials at HPL than HPL visits to other libraries. Circulation staff took 128 new electronic patron photos for the database. Collection Development After reading several mainstream magazine articles extolling the merits of the new electronic reader, the Kindle 2, Collection Manager Carol Kuntzelman asked the collection team if they would be interested in using some of the materials budget to purchase a Kindle, the purpose being to evaluate it as a possible new format at Hedberg Library. The authors of the articles, one of whom is a rare books librarian, believe the Kindle 2 signals a cultural revolution, with books joining newspapers and magazines in the move from print to electronic format. Although the reviewers note that the technology has its limitations; for example, you wouldn’t want to read an art book or a picture book on a Kindle, they point out its ease of use and accessibility. Collection team members (not a Luddite among them) all were eager to try it. Their reactions to it will be included in a future report, but, after we placed the order and amidst questions regarding whether library loans are in compliance with Amazon’s policy, word came that the Weyenberg Library in Mequon has already begun loaning Kindles. Human Resources/Accounting Beth Webb received an “I Made a Difference” award for providing volunteer help during a period when ILL was short-staffed. The library’s Trivia for Literacy Team, the InfoManiacs, included captain Emrick Gunderson, Mary Buelow, Sharon Alfano, Elizabeth Hough, Theresa th Biele and Anita Day, along with alternate Barb Luster. The team came in a respectable 8 out of 21 teams. In accounting, the financial statement reflects a refund of $7,111 in Electronic Information for a database subscription overbilling. Reference Services Statistics from the Reference Department: ? Patron questions asked at Reference Desk – 4061 ? Patron questions asked at Service Desk – 3122 ? Combined total of questions at both Desks – 7183 Statistics from InterLibrary Loan: ? Items requested from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 571 ? Items received from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 498 ? Requests received from other libraries to borrow Hedberg materials – 847 ? Items lent to other libraries from the Hedberg collection – 586 Our new Reference Librarian, Kate Hull, started work on April 6. Kate graduated from University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill school of Information and Library Science in 2007, and has previously worked at Orange County Public Library in North Carolina, University of North Carolina Libraries, and the Rosemary Garfoot Public Library in Cross Plains, WI. She is a Wisconsin native and resides in Stoughton. Kate has already attended her first Janesville Young Professionals function. The HPL department has a new blog about Janesville history. Posts so far include: how Rock County and the Rock River got their names; why Rock County is the only county in Wisconsin that had two courthouses at the same time (with illustrations of all 5 Rock County courthouses); the surprising link between George S. Parker and Frank Lloyd Wright; and a memoir of a teenager’s after-school job in a local grocery store in 1922. The blog is at janesvillehistory.blogspot.com. Question of the month: A patron had heard that the City Council had voted against having the Brewer’s minor league baseball team hare in Janesville. The patron wanted to verify this information before he posted it to his blog. Staff checked the library’s Local History Database (compiled by the Reference Department), and found the following listing: “When promoter Terry Campbell fails to convince Janesville’s city council to establish a minor league baseball facility east of Palmer Park, and the Rock county Board to allow a team to play on the fairgrounds, the way is opened for Beloit to get the franchise to the Milwaukee Brewers Class A Midwest League.” The Local History Database also gave a reference to Century of Stories: A 100 year selection of Janesville and Surrounding Communities, the original source for this information. Technical Services Weeding of the HPL collection picked up in March, with Technical Services staff members Laura Fitzsimons and Barb Luster withdrawing over 2000 worn and dated items. Included in the batch were titles in the area of the social services published in the 1980’s. These were discovered through a review of materials in the stacks by members of the collection team. Of course, selectors continue to replace withdrawn titles with more current, appropriate titles in the various subject disciplines. Youth Services Children’s Services There’s a new neighborhood in the Children’s Room called Illustrated Fiction. It’s a small section composed of picture books for older readers – those with longer texts or more complicated and sophisticated story lines. Traditionally, these books have either been housed with regular picture books or with chapter book fiction and circulate poorly in either place. Carol Kuntzelman and her staff worked hard to make this happen, as did Dave Peters and Steve Wenzel. Linda Hermans and Julie Westby diligently culled books from their respective collection areas to create this new neighborhood. We’re looking forward to doing some promotion so that our patrons discover these wonderful books. We tested the waters for a school-year reading program by partnering with the Beloit Snappers for a Spring Training Reading Program introduced at the Library Explorers program on March 16. Shannon Murphy-Tollefsrud planned a wonderful time of baseball stories, games, crafts, and bubble bum blowing. She was joined in the activities by Snappy D. Turtle and our own Bryan McCormick, who led the crowd in singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame. “ We had determined that we would count the program successful if 100 children signed up; we now have 194 children registered for the program. We believe this is the first partnership the Snappers have had with a public library. Prizes are provided by McDonald’s and the Snappers. Regular Children’s Room programs continue to draw good crowds. Ninety-two people enjoyed the fun at Irish Fest, the Family Fun Night program, and 182 participated in the Learning Through Play flower shop. Julie Westby provided at P4J training experience for the families at Kindercare and Linda Hermans did a P4J storytime for the families of Creative Children’s Learning Center. Our combination of in-library and outside the library programs reached 2,135 children, teachers, and parents in March. Young Adult Services Teen Advisory Board and RuneScape Club continued in March with good participation. The Teen Tech Week theme for 2009 was Press Play @ Your Library. Teens wrote playlists for their favorite book characters and received coupons for free Culver’s cones. A playlist created by one student was for popular series character Alex Rider. Song titles included “Mission Impossible Theme Song,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” and several others. As part of the We the People Bookshelf Grant, a bilingual book discussion group was held through the cooperative efforts of Rene Bue and Laurie Bartz. Copies of the book Breaking Through by Francisco Jimenez were available for check-out in both English and Spanish prior to the program. The interesting and thoughtful discussion focused on literacy and common life experiences. Teen Central hosted a Teen Job Fair with well over 100 students and parents in attendance, many arriving early. Rock County Job Center employees Sandra Bier and Amber Culver provided numerous useful handouts covering topics such as job applications, interviewing, resumes, work permits, careers and employment guidelines for minors. Sandra and Amber were able to identify individual needs through one-on-one interaction and offer appropriate advice. Local employers and volunteer coordinators had booths and displays where students could introduce themselves, complete applications and obtain information about job openings. Employers included representatives from fast food, agriculture, fitness, retail, military and paper carriers. In addition, computers were available for accessing the library’s Job Resource Center site as well as Job Center’s many online sources. A list of area businesses accepting online applications was also provided as a handout. Reference librarian Diana McDonald was on hand to offer assistance to those seeking information from our library catalog and databases.