#4 Reports A. Activities Report
Hedberg Public Library
Activity Report
Adult Services
During December, Linda Belknap’s plans for early 2010 Nancy Parker programs were underway.
New in 2010, patrons will be able to sign up on the HPL web site for email notification of
upcoming programs. Ideas for future programming will also be invited at this site. Depending on
the response to this new service, the traditional twice-or more snail mailings per year to the
Nancy Parker mailing list may be reduced.
The new season of Parker programs will kick off Tuesday, January 12, with "Timber Wolf
Recovery in Wisconsin." Other upcoming presentation topics include Hockey 101, The Truth
about Paul Bunyan, How To Tell Your Story on Local Access TV, and "Stay for Lunch: A Story
of Faith and Friendship" with Beloit author Anne Goodwin.
The 2010 Las Posadas celebration was held on December 12, drawing a crowd of 75 attendees.
Parents and children raved about the event.
Ren é began the planning process for the 2010 Cinco de mayo celebration at a meeting in
December. Seven representatives of six local agencies attended the meeting.
Two computer classes in Spanish were offered this month. Ren é reported that six students
attended the introductory class and that no one participated in the second class. Ren é calls
everyone who has signed up for the classes to remind them of the date and time.
Rene é attended the School District of Janesville’s Latino Family Posadas event at Wilson
School, the Diversity Action Team monthly meeting, and co-hosted the Service Coordination
meeting with Rock County Human Services.
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December was the 2 month that HPL has “hosted” two ECHO donation barrels. November’s
donation amounts were ok…several big rubbermaid bins full. December donations filled the
back of Jean Yeomans’ truck with five bins and several shopping bags! HPL will continue to
“host” the barrels for several more months.
The St. Elizabeth’s library program for December featured a “Christmas in 1909 Janesville”
theme. Great research material in our circulating, reference collections as well as our online
databases (local history database and state historical society web site provided Jean with plenty
of materials to share with the residents.
The Leadership Development Academy session for December featured area health care facilities.
Jean and Sharon Alfano visited Beloit Memorial Hospital’s North Pointe campus in Rockton and
Mercy Hospital in Janesville to learn more about Rock County health care resources.
Central Services
Circulation for the month was down as well as the number of new registered borrowers which
may be related to economic issues in Rock County. However circulation for the year is up
compared to 2008.
Circulation by adult females is 40% higher than adult males. Circulation by HPL staff is 2,125 or
about 7 checkouts/renewals per week per staff.
Of the 188 new library patrons, 85 opted to have electronic photos added to the circulation
database. Of the 6, 647 holds filled, 1,939 were for DVDs and 3,217 for books.
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The library remained open Wednesday, December 9 when the first big snow storm of the
season hit the area. Less than half of the number of patrons visited the library that day compared
to other December 2009 Wednesdays.
Linda Rogers coordinated a staff training session presented by Tomas Lipinski, J.D. – Marquette
University, Masters of Law – John Marshall Law School and Ph.D. – University of Illinois –
Urbana/Champaign and currently professor at UW-Milwaukee who addressed privacy and
confidentiality issues in libraries. The topic was selected by HPL persons-in-charge and security
at their annual spring meeting. Professor Lipinski reviewed HPL privacy and confidentiality
policy making recommendations which the Management Team will discuss in January.
Linda Rogers and Reference Staff provided department overview for Elkhorn Public Library
staff.
On December 22, library staff pulled VHS video formats for withdrawal due to the inability to
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acquire replacements or new titles. VHS tapes will be offered for public sale January 29 and
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30 by HPL Friends of the Library.
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RFID conversion started December 2 with staff circulation working over 300 hours in addition
to hours worked by technical services staff, averaging 150 items per hour. Total items converted
this month was 58,977.
Effective January 1, 2010, library customers can only check out a total of fifteen (15) DVDs
from all Rock County Public Libraries and no more than six (6) from Clinton, Eager Free, and
Orfordville Public Libraries at any one time. DVDs have become a very popular selection for
many library users. The checkouts are being limited to make sure that there is a good selection of
DVDs available at each member library.
Circulation for the system this month was 146,755.
Collection Development
End-of-year collection statistics reflect a real effort on the part of selectors to weed the collection
of dated, little used materials, with over 30,500 titles withdrawn. This was done at the same time
that 25,775 were added to the collection. One area that grew dramatically was the DVD
collection, partly due to their popularity and partly as part of a project to replace VHS titles with
copies in the newer format. This will be an ongoing project in 2010.
Collection materials budget figures show a reduction in the electronic database expenditures,
with much of the savings going to audiovisual purchases. The DVD collection benefited, with
many titles selected to replace VHS format or lost and missing items.
Human Resources/Accounting
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Reference/Adult Services won the 4 Annual “Jazz the Jolly Juniper” contest with “A Mad Tea
Party” an extended display that needed to be seen to be fully appreciated. At the annual staff
breakfast, Linda Rogers was recognized for 25 years of service; Sandie Gilbert, Theresa Biele
and Guynith Thompson for 20 years; Rebecca Diedrick for 15 years; Duane Brewer, Susan
Braden and Jennifer Spangler for 10 years; and Eileen Juhl for 5 years of service.
The expenditure approval list of 1/20/10 includes $56,327.86 of expense for December 2009 and
$54,147.74 for January 2010. The December operating statement is preliminary. Accounts
receivable are approximately $20,000 and have not yet been posted. A final statement will be
distributed when complete.
Reference Services
Total Patron Questions:
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Patron questions asked at Reference Desk – 2475
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Patron questions asked at Service Desk – 2506
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Asked at Youth Services 1477
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Asked at Bilingual Desk (when staffed) 6
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Asked at Teen Central (when staffed) 35
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Total patron questions 6499
Reportable Reference Questions:
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Asked at the Reference Desk 1173
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Asked at Service Desk 187
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Asked at Youth Services 534
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Asked at Bilingual Desk (when staffed) 0
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Asked at Teen Central (when staffed) 12
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Total for all service points 1906
Statistics from InterLibrary Loan:
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Items requested from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 505
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Items received from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 521
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Requests received from other libraries to borrow Hedberg materials – 546
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Items lent to other libraries from the Hedberg collection – 387
The library has received their shipments of free tax forms (both federal and state) and instruction
booklets for public distribution. This includes the Federal 1040, 1040A, 1040EZ and related
schedules, and Wisconsin 1, 1A, WI-Z, and Homestead Credit Forms are located on two tables
next to the Service Desk. . The less popular forms will be available to print off from web sites,
or to photocopy from acollection of reproducible tax forms which is still on order. We have
added links to frequently used tax web sites to HPL’s web site. Click on “Research Tools” at the
top of the home page and scroll to the bottom of the page. “Tax Information” is listed under
“Popular Subjects.”
HPL will be hosting an official from the state Department of Revenue every-other-week on
Mondays (or Tuesdays when a national holiday falls on a Monday) from 9:00-2:30 during tax
season to answer people’s tax questions. This service is available to libraries in communities
where the local Department of Revenue offices was closed in the past two years. (Janesville’s
office closed October 2009.) The official will be in the group study room starting on January 19,
the Tuesday after Martin Luther King’s birthday holiday. Other dates are: Feb 1 & 16, March 1,
15, & 29, April 5 & 15. All consultation is face-to-face (no phone calls) and no appointment
needed.
HPL Reference staff started a new project with the Janesville Gazette in mid-December. Over
the past ten years, Reference has been indexing Gazette articles into our Local History Database,
in addition to indexing books, photographs, and pamphlets. The LHD coverage of articles of
local interest is fairly complete from 1996 to the present. We recently learned that the Gazette
has an extensive newspaper clippings file dating from the 1960s to about 1994. Reference
librarians Sue Braden and Laura Gottlieb arranged with Cathy Idzerda to borrow a box worth of
clippings at a time from the JG offices and take it to the library for indexing. In January, Laura
and Sue also visited the Gazette and demonstrated the Local History Database to about 15
members of the Gazette staff.
Mary Buelow presented information about Reference USA at the December “Business 101”
class series sponsored by the Rock County Development Alliance, Forward Janesville and the
SBDC.
Question of the month:
Patron needed a copy of a Gazette article from the 1960s. It was about
Jill Brawner, a young girl who was hit by a car and killed after visiting a Mr Softee Ice Cream
truck. Librarians checked the Local History Database, but there were no listings. Librarians
then checked the “Access Newspaper Archive” database which is available through Badgerlink.
The article came up in the search results, but the database did not have a scan of the relevant
page. It did, however, list the article date, so staff checked the Gazette on microfilm and found
the article.
Technical Services
Many technical services staff pulled extra duty during the month of December, some to assist
with the RFID project, and others to fill in while one of the staff was on maternity leave.
Technical services staff have been working on tagging some of the more specialized collections
as well as youth services materials. They also managed to complete the annual magazine
withdrawal and assist with the combined video and audiotape withdrawal, assuring that the items
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would be ready for the January 30 Friends sale.
Youth Services
Children’s Services
December is a wind-down month in the Children’s Room, with only two weeks of regularly
scheduled programming. Being hit by the winter’s first big snowstorm, followed by some very
cold weather, our numbers at storytime were lower than expected – 302 children and care givers
at 14 storytime programs.
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Julie Westby and Karin Timmermann hosted 14 very excited 3 – 5 grade girls at a
“Scraparama” program where they turned family photos into a scrap book page. Forty-five
minutes after the scheduled end of the program, Julie and Karin were still shooing the girls out so
that the room could be re-set for the teen scrapbooking program. They were just having so much
fun.
The Children’s Room hosted 4 school visits in the library this month for 42 children and 24 staff.
For the second year in a row, we were asked to provide a parent/child/staff training event for the
P4J (Preschool for Janesville) classes from the Children’s Learning Center at Blackhawk
Technical College. Camille Rammer and Sharon Grover told stories and provided crafts that
showcased what the library has to offer parents, children, and early childhood education staff.
Unfortunately, the bitter cold weather kept the group very small this year – five children and 11
adults.
Young Adult Services
The Teen Central mobile desk was in full use during winter break. Computers were often full
and teens were searching for books, movies and games for use during their free time or for future
assignments.
Programs included our monthly Teen Advisory Board Meeting, Scraparama and a PS2/Wii
Gaming Day. TAGOS Leadership Academy students were introduced to RockCat, our Web site
and several subscription databases during a class visit in December. Youth Services and
Reference staff provided tours of the library which included Teen Central, the Job Resource
Center, Reference and the Janesville Room.
Laurie Bartz and Diana McDonald took part in a FAFSA training webinar in preparation for
College Goal Sunday: Weekend Edition to be held at HPL in February. Event coordinators and
staff from UW-Rock County and HPL met for a joint planning meeting at the library.