#4 Reports A. Activities Report
Hedberg Public Library
Activity Report
November 2009
Adult Services
HPL joined with Rock Environmental Network to host its second Environmental Cafe on
November 10. Speaker Ryan Schryver presented "Wisconsin's Inconvenient Truth" about the
changes global warming is causing in the state. 32 people attended the presentation and followup
discussion. On November 12, popular family practice doctor Zorba Paster of Madison spoke to
an appreciaitve audience of 101. His talk, "How To Live a Long, Sweet Life," kicked off the
Friends of HPL 2010 membership drive. The fall 2009 Parker series ended on November 23 with
a talk by Lori Schneider, a Janesville native who has scaled the highest summits in seven
continents in spite of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 10 years ago. 100 people came to
meet Lori and hear her inspiring tale.
Also in November, the HPL art committee held its annual preview of sample works by local
artists interested in exhibiting their work at the library. Based on this preview, the committee and
staff liaison Linda Belknap scheduled art exhibits for 2010 and part of 2011.
Ren é Bue had a busy month with a variety of bilingual outreach activities. The highlight of her
month, and her time at HPL to date, was the success of the Faces of the World multicultural
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celebration on November 14. Between 250 and 300 people attended the event. Vendors and
attendees alike asked about next year’s event before they left the Program Room that day.
Computer classes for Spanish speakers are going well but need some review. Ren é and Jean
have been discussing other options for these classes to increase attendance and better serve the
needs of this population. Ren é did several presentations this month (TAGOS, Craig High
School, and Diversity Action Team) and met with a representative of the UW Extension office to
plan HPL’s health and fitness programs for Spanish speakers in the spring. She also talked with
the Census 2010 for Latinos committee members at their meeting.
Jean and Cathy Jennings were the only members who attended the first Rock County Literacy
Alliance committee meeting on November 3. The two discussed other related business. They
hope that more members of the group attend the next meeting in 2010.
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“Murder and Mayhem in Muskego” was held at the Muskego Public Library on November 14.
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Jean and Carol Kuntzelman attended the 5 annual murder mystery convention and were treated
to words of wisdom (and humor) from quite a few well-known mystery authors, including
Jeffrey Deaver, Cara Black, Marcus Sakey, C. J. Box, James O. Born, Julie Hyzy, Denise
Swanson, and many others. Jean and Carol both enjoyed listening to Joanna Campbell Slan who
writes the scrapbooking mystery series featuring Kiki Lowenstein as the sleuth.
The residents at St. Elizabeth’s Nursing Home were treated to a program featuring the music of
the “swing era” in November. Jean shared trivia about the bands, their leaders, and the music.
The residents’ toes were tapping in time to the music from the cds of Benny Goodman, Glenn
Miller and Tommy Dorsey that Jean brought from the library and played for them.
The Leadership Development Academy session in November featured information about the
works of groups promoting downtown Beloit and the Greater Beloit Chamber of Commerce.
Tours of downtown area and the new industrial/ residential development on the southeast side of
Beloit were given to the LDA class members.
Building Operations
Many special building projects were accomplished during the month of November. City engineer
Larry Buetzer coordinated arrangements for installation of an underground drain on the south
side of the building. The concrete that was used is a new state-of-the-art formula that allows
water to drain through it so water will no longer pool in the delivery area and by the staff
entrance to the building.
The semi-annual cleaning of the outside and inside of all perimeter windows was done
November 10 and 11. New energy efficient lights were installed in the ceiling of the rotunda.
The tile floor in the receiving room and the lower hallway were recoated with floor finish.
Building maintenance staff members Dave Peters and Steve Wenzel refinished the edges of the
wood floor in the Janesville Room. In order for them to do this the oriental carpet in the room
had to be rolled up and moved temporarily. The project of sanding and varnishing took two
days. Thanks to their expertise it looks better than new.
Central Services
Overall circulation was slightly down compared to last November. However, more adult
materials were checked-out and more circulation activity was seen by Janesville residents. The
number of reserves filled also increased this month.
Seventy-eight new electronic photos were added to the patron database.
HPL continues to borrow more materials from other ALS libraries than loaned. A circulation of
4,379 was the result of checkouts by ALS library patrons who came to HPL.
Circulation of adult and children’s feature and non-fiction videos decreased compared to
October. Youth service’s new neighborhood, “Biographies” circulation more than doubled from
last month. Use of YA fiction and new fiction increased from last month and from November
2008.
Preparations for Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) conversion project to take place in
December were discussed by members of the RFID team.
Jill Osmond, HPL circulation assistant was hired as interim Associate Academic Librarian at
UW-Rock County. Jill will continue to work at HPL since her position at UW-Rock County is
part time and will last until May 31, 2010.
Lynn Carlson, circulation clerk, has resigned. Her position will not be filled but hours and job
responsibilites will be offered to clerks and other part-time staff.
Collection Development
Collection Manager Carol Kuntzelman has been working with other staff to draw up a plan for
the next neighborhood, a Home Improvement or DIY collection. The collection will include
material in various formats—book, DVD, and magazine—on a variety of do-it-yourself topics,
from plumbing to electrical wiring to deck construction. Proposed date for the unveiling of the
new neighborhood is March 2010.
The collection manager has been working with Burdette Richter to plan a special sale of
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withdrawn videos, runs of magazines and music CDs, to be held the 30 of January, with a sale
to Friends and teachers planned for the previous evening.
Human Resources/Accounting
The Communication/Training Team finalized the first project rollouts for 2010. These are
designed to team-build, improve communications, and familiarize staff with other departments
without using large blocks of group time. Hedberg Hedliners will profile a staff member weekly
on the staff bulletin board. Partners of the Month will match staff members from different
departments to answer a short questionnaire together, email each other weekly for a month, and
very briefly (fifteen minutes to an hour) shadow each other to learn about each other and other
departments.
Reference Services
Total Patron Questions:
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Patron questions asked at Reference Desk – 2753
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Patron questions asked at Service Desk – 2767
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Asked at Youth Services 2007
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Asked at Bilingual Desk (when staffed) 9
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Asked at Teen Central (when staffed) 38
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Total patron questions 7488
Reportable Reference Questions:
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Asked at the Reference Desk 1243
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Asked at Service Desk 240
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Asked at Youth Services 736
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Asked at Bilingual Desk (when staffed) 2
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Asked at Teen Central (when staffed) 21
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Total for all service points 2242
Statistics from InterLibrary Loan:
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Items requested from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 514
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Items received from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 484
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Requests received from other libraries to borrow Hedberg materials – 544
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Items lent to other libraries from the Hedberg collection – 367
Inter-Library Loan “closed” for two weeks in November. Both ILL employees were gone for
several days – one was visiting with her son on home leave from Iraq, the other was out on sick
leave. During that time – and for a few days after, while staff played catch up – HPL’s status
was “turned off”. We did not receive requests from other libraries for our materials, and we did
not send requests to borrow materials for our patrons. Theresa Biele is training reference
librarians Kate Hull and Laura Gotlieb to be emergency backups for InterLibrary Loan.
Harris Reporting Company finished the transcriptions of the “GM” oral histories. These are
interviews of twelve local retired manufacturing employees; most worked for GM or Samson,
and one worked for Parker Pen. Interviews cover their experiences growing up in Janesville,
social life, union organizing activities, family background and work life in Janesville during the
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first half of the 20 century. We are currently in the process of having the transcripts bound, and
after that they will be processed for the collection. The Public Information Office and Computer
Services are also working to post these on the HPL web site under Community > Local History >
Digital Resources.
The Reference Department has a list of Janesville population statistics through time. Staff refer
to this list regularly to answer questions from the public. Reference hoped to add it to the new
HPL web site but when we posted it, it looked boring and out-of-place. Reference librarians
Laura Gottlieb and Sue Braden added a timeline of significant Janesville events, the Public
Information Office added graphics, and the result document is a better match for the look and
feel of the rest of the web site.
Question of the month:
A patron wanted to know who represented the City of Beloit in the
Wisconsin Senate and the Wisconsin Assembly in 1911. He had initially called the Beloit Public
Library. Beloit did not have the resources to answer the question, but checked Rockcat and
found that Hedberg has a collection of Wisconsin Blue Books going back to the nineteenth
century. Hedberg staff then checked the 1911 Blue Book. Beloit was represented by John M
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Whitehead in the 22 Senatorial District and Simon Smith in the Rock County 3 Assembly
District.
Technical Services
Technical Services began planning for RFID processing of materials, with staff signing up for
participation in the retrospective conversion of the collection. In addition to helping with the
print collection, they will be handling the processing of the audiovisual collections.
Youth Services
Children’s Services
Jamie Swenson and Camille Rammer presented a 75-minute workshop session on early literacy
for the Heartbeat of Child Care Conference on Saturday, November 7. Of the 13 sessions offered
to those attending, HPL’s session filled first. Designed to help child care providers with tips for
creating exciting circle time programs that promote early literacy skills, Jamie and Camille
created a wonderful PowerPoint to reinforce the six early literacy skills.
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Sharon Grover did a tour and storytime for 18 2-5 graders from the Jackson Action Club, an
afterschool program to help children build reading skills. We took a behind-the-scenes tour
(Bryan told them about children in Russia and Barb Luster showed them the more exciting parts
of Tech Services and Check-In)and then had a good time in the program room with stories and
silly songs for “big kids.”
November was also First Grade Visit month and staff went out to 12 public and parochial
schools to tell first graders what the public library has to offer them. Each child (667 children all
together) in the classes we visited received a special Arthur library bag with a pencil and a
library card application. As usual, Julie Westby did a terrific job of organizing all of the visits
and the materials we presented.
Young Adult Services
A report of Sixth Grade Class visits to the library was completed. Twenty-six individual
presentations were given in October for 467 sixth grade students and their teachers.
Teen Advisory Board members were busy in November. An officer’s meeting was held to
review existing guidelines for membership and officer eligibility. The Web Committee and
general TAB meetings were also held in November. TAB members joined area volunteers at the
ECHO Thanksgiving Basket Distribution. It was a great opportunity to help families in our
community that are facing needy times. We were pleased that TAB chose to take part in this
well-organized food distribution day.
The Program Room was abuzz with 35 excited teens during the Twilight Activity Night.
Students enjoyed playing Twilight BINGO, a Power Point version of Twilight Jeopardy, chatting
and competing in a trivia contest to win a New Moon board game. Participants were given free
vouchers to the movie New Moon that opened the following weekend. Kari Klebba at Wildwood
Theatres arranged a special showing for HPL teens and their guests. Giant movie posters, New
Moon hats and buttons and other memorabilia were given to winners of the October writing and
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poster contests. At least 75 attended the November 21 showing at Movies 10.