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#4 Reports A. Activities Report Hedberg Public Library Activity Report June 2009 Adult Services The Janesville Police Department and Leisure Services provided a booth for HPL at the Bike th Rodeo at Wilson School on June 13. René was invited to staff the booth to provide information about library services. An estimated 150 people attended the event. The biennial Manos Juntas (“Hands Together”) conference was held in Milwaukee June 18 and 19. René attended the conference to network with other agencies serving migrant and Latino communities. She has made many contacts at past Manos Juntas conferences which have led to increased/improved library services to our local Latino population. René is developing a webinar about public library outreach to Latinos in Wisconsin. Jamie Matczak from the Nicolet Federated Library System requested René’s expertise in preparation of the webinar which is scheduled for October 14, 2009. th The Rock County Health Assessment Planning Committee held its last meeting on June 9 at HPL. Two sessions were held; the morning session included participants from the winter 2009 community meeting and the evening session was open to the public. The Health Department is now compiling the data and will be filing a report with their county board. Karen Cain, Health Officer, thanked JY and HPL for providing the space to hold the meetings as the Job Center was not available on that day. JY’s book discussion groups continue to go well. The participants in the three separate groups enjoy reading and discussing the books read. The volunteer coordinator at Riverfront, Inc., the site where two of the groups meet, is very appreciative of the service the library provides to their clientele. The ladies at Riverview Heights, a senior apartment facility, say they look forward to the book group meeting every month. JY is providing reading materials for the Juvenile Detention Center again this summer. The teacher contacts JY during the summer months for books the youth have requested. The books are used by the students under the teacher’s supervision and remain in the day room after the students leave the room for the day. Two volunteers were trained/retrained in June for the Hedberg @ Home Materials Delivery Service. Both volunteers have been assigned patrons. One of the volunteers is a retired librarian who recently moved to Janesville. JY is working with the other ALS libraries on the Rock County Vision 2020 Committee’s book discussion program. The book, Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich was chosen as the book to be featured in the late summer/early fall discussions by the th libraries. Monday, September 28 is the date for the discussion at HPL. Facilitators will be provided by the Vision 2020 Committee. HPL and the other ALS libraries will also be participating in UW-Whitewater’s “Big Read” in 2010. The book, selected by UWW, is Sun, Stone, and Shadows, edited by Jorge F. Hernandez. th It is a collection of short stories by well-known 20 century Mexican authors. The Big Read is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and is designed to promote reading for pleasure and enlightenment. Central Services Circulation increased from last June. Increases were seen in most children’s collections especially Spanish fiction and non-fiction which more than doubled. YA fiction circulation went from 956 last June to 1589 this month. YA non-fiction use was also impressive. HPL loaned more materials to Edgerton, Evansville and Orfordville libraries and received more materials from Beloit, Clinton and Milton. Over 19,500 checkout/renewals occurred at three internal self-check locations. The children’s summer reading program and related activities affects circulation statistics. The two highest daily gate counts and checkout statistics for the month took place on Tuesdays, June 16 and June 30. Both days offered family programs in the afternoon and evening. The highest th gate count was on Tuesday, June 16 with 3,607 patrons entering the library and with 5,250 checkouts/renewals logged for the day. The second highest day was Tuesday June 30 showing a gate count of 3,448 and circulation of 4,892. Of the 8,102 reserve/overdue/billing notices sent 53% were delivered by phone, 42% by email followed by 5% mailed. Circulation clerks pulled and processed 89% of the 2,779 reserve requests for “on-shelf” materials . rd Two tornado drills were scheduled Wednesday June 3 and Thursday June 11 for staff prior to library opening. From staff in-put the tornado procedure was revised. An annual drill will be schedule each April. This staff training was put into motion when a tornado warning was issued rd for Rock County Tuesday June 23. The library closed from 8:05 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Collection Development The June mystery book discussion group hosted a visit to Hedberg Public Library by local author Jerry Peterson. Mr. Peterson discussed his new mystery, Early’s Fall, and provided anecdotes about his careers as journalist, teacher, and writer. He spoke about his approach to writing fiction, and stayed to answer questions from the audience. He noted in response to one question that he collects interesting names for his characters from graveyard headstones in cities he visits on his travels throughout the country. It was a fascinating evening for mystery readers. Human Resources/Accounting Nancy Murray received an “I Made a Difference” award for providing above-and-beyond-the- call assistance in locating interlibrary loan requests. The volunteer handbook has been finalized and distributed to staff supervisors and is available to existing volunteers on request. It will be distributed to new volunteers. Two new volunteer application forms have been created and both types are available at The Ground Floor (who now has its own separate application form), the Service Desk, and Checkout. The forms can also be downloaded from the HPL web page. With the close of the first half of 2009, 2008 accounts receivable amounts that had already been included in the 2009 beginning fund balance have now been reversed out of 2009 receipts, changing receipts shown in the 2009 operating statement from the amounts actually received in 2009 to the lower total of amounts attributable to 2009. Operating statements are prepared at the library by the business manager in agreement with city accounting records at the time of preparation, so this is why, until the reverse entries were made in the city records, 2009 income was briefly overstated. Postage meter costs of $3,000 have not yet been posted to our accounts, but for budget purposes it should be noted that actual costs as of June 30 total $7,199, or 60% of the postage budget spent. The expenditure approval list shows a book purchase of $637.11 from AT&T. This is for the purchase of telephone directories for reference use. Reference Services Statistics from the Reference Department: ? Patron questions asked at Reference Desk – 3181 ? Patron questions asked at Service Desk – 2589 ? Combined total of questions at both Desks – 5770 Statistics from InterLibrary Loan: ? Items requested from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 482 ? Items received from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 472 ? Requests received from other libraries to borrow Hedberg materials – 640 ? Items lent to other libraries from the Hedberg collection – 481 The line of databases for BadgerLink has been updated. BadgerLink is a service funded by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction that provides online subscription databases free of charge to all libraries in Wisconsin. HPL includes the databases we get for free from Badgerlink with our regular list of “Free Research Databases”. BadgerLink’s database contracts run from July to July, so we frequently see changes to database availability in the summer. Changes for the July 2009-July 2010 contract are: ? New database - EBSCOHost’s Consumer Health Complete. This is a collection of articles, excerpts from reference books, diagrams and videos on health and medical topics. ? New database – Auto Repair Reference Center. “How to” auto repair information for Do-It-Yourselfers. This database complements our new subscription to AllData nicely. Auto Repair Reference Center covers information on “easy” repairs but does not cover more difficult procedures. AllData, which is used by professional mechanics, covers the difficult procedures and skips the easy ones. ? Access to newspaper articles, which we used to get through ProQuest, will now be through EBSCOHost’s Newspaper Source Plus. ? Expanded access to EBSCOHost’s magazine and journal article databases. ? We will now be getting a free subscription to Novelist through Badgerlink. We had been paying for it separately. Question of the month: Patron called and wanted to know where she could dispose of used cooking oil from her deep-fat fryer. Recycling options were preferred. Reference staff called around to the City’s solid waste department, the local food coop, and several major restaurants. No one was familiar with any service in the area that recycled used cooking oil. As a second option, the Solid Waste Department did give instructions for disposing of used cooking oil in the trash. Solid Waste said she could purchase Oil-Dri ( a product similar to clumping kitty litter, available at Farm and Fleet) and mix it with the oil so the oil turns into a solid. This mixture could then be disposed of in the regular trash. Technical Services Mid-year collection statistics reflect efforts to keep the collections up-to-date and accessible. Almost 13,000 items were added during the first half of 2009. Of that number, print titles comprised the majority of items (10,500), with audio-visual accounting for the remainder. Selectors were busy identifying titles for withdrawal at a comparable rate. Technical services staff withdrew over 13,000 items from the database. This included a major weed of the audio cassette collection, with selector Linda Rogers pulling many duplicates. The result has been some positive comments from both staff and patrons on their ability to locate material, particularly in the social sciences and crafts subject areas. Youth Services Children’s Services The summer reading program, Be Creative @ Your Library, got underway this month. Eighteen visits to area schools, where staff promoted the program to 2,570 children and 177 teachers, concluded the last week of public school. Julie Westby conducted three training sessions for adult and high school volunteers. Thirty-three children attended a balloon workshop for grades 3- 5. The first summer Library Explorers program showcased radio production with Beth Wheelock, from WCLO, showing children how they produce their radio programs. Attendees then acted out (complete with sound effects) two radio dramas based on familiar folktales. Fourteen outside groups, representing 166 children and 43 adults, made use of the services offered in the Children’s Room during this month. As of June 30, 1,638 children had registered for the summer program, reading for a total of 357,720 minutes. Young Adult Services Promotion for Teen Central’s 2009 Summer Library Program continued with six presentations at local middle schools in June reaching 598 students and teachers. Registration for the Summer Library Program began on June 8 with reporting opening the following week. As of June 30, 363 middle and high school students had signed up to participate in Teen Central’s Journey Through Time, having read 3018 hours. Bandanas were turned into bags and duct tape into wallets at a packed afternoon program for teens. Balloon-making was the topic of a second hands-on program in June. Four teen bands competed in our first Battle of the Bands on a Friday evening in the Riverfront Park adjacent to the library. Over 125 teens, parents and families attended the event. Judges Brian Bartz, Steve Wenzel and Allie Moore deliberated and came to a close but unanimous st decision. The band Space Hardware walked away with the 1 place prize, a gift certificate to Voigt Music courtesy of the Friends of Hedberg Public Library. The second place Knapton Musik Knotes gift certificate prize went to Village Idiot. Sound equipment was provided by Greg Napert, manager for Village Idiot. Photos of the event can be found by linking to Facebook from our Web page. Plan to join the fun at Battle 2010—date to be determined!! Two additional teen volunteer training sessions were conducted in June. Middle and high school students volunteered for 208 hours in the Children’s Room in June.