#4 Reports A. Activities Report
Hedberg Public Library
Activity Report
May 2010
Adult Services
The June art wall exhibit features a “sneak peek” at upcoming exhibits for the next 12 months. Each
solo artist or group scheduled to show at HPL is represented with one or two pieces. On Thursday,
June 3, an opening reception for this exhibit allowed the artists to mingle and talk about art with
each other, guests and members of the public who stopped by, about 60 people total. Three
volunteer pianists from the MacDowell Music Club played popular songs on the spinet piano in the
Program Room. The Friends paid for refreshments and the art committee joined staff liaison Linda
Belknap in hosting this second annual event.
Ren é Bue, Bilingual Outreach Coordinator, presented Mango tutorials in May to Edgerton’s library
director, Sherry Machones, and a week later, did the same for The Literacy Connection’s tutors.
She taught three computer classes in Spanish, attended multiple meetings of organizations outside
the library, and hosted the Cinco de Mayo festival which drew 200 to the library. In addition to
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other library staff, Ren é participated in the school district’s co-Operation Read program on May 7.
Two Hedberg @ Home extension sites were added in the month of May, bringing our total up to 7
sites again. Riverview Heights and Harbor House are the newest extension sites.
Jean Yeomans and Sharon Alfano graduated from the 2009-2010 Leadership Development
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Academy on May 7. There were 27 in this year’s class; the first year Beloit and Janesville
combined the class.
The May Mondays are Murder and Reading on the Rock book discussion groups were very popular.
The former group of 10 had a lively discussion of Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger while the
latter group of 12 enjoyed a stimulating discussion of The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. Both
groups will meet in June and then take a two month hiatus before beginning fall discussion.
Everyone is welcome to attend these free discussions.
HPL programmers met in May to discuss changing the program room d é cor, among other things. A
letter will be sent to local art/craft community organizations that may be interested in creating
artwork that would become library property if selected. Linda Belknap, Adult Programming
Associate, is coordinating the project. It is anticipated that installation and a reception will take
place in January 2011.
Circulation
Circulation statistics including the number of reserves filled and the gate count were lower than
May 2009.
Circulation department has been busy with two major projects: shifting and RDIF.
Staff has been shifting the adult non-fiction collection from the 900s forward consolidating gaps left
from the creation of “neighborhood special collections.” Shifting progress in currently in the 700s
Linda Rogers, Circulation Department Head and circulation senior staff, Laurel Fant and Beth
Webb have been busy planning new RFID staff schedules and workflow changes to put in place
after RFID is implemented. A meeting was held for all circulation staff to present the above
details. Circulation staff is encouraged to provide input and suggestions. Circulation’s goal for
staff is a smooth transition to RFID.
Collection Development
One change that the new RFID system will have on the HPL collection is the return of the DVD kits
to the open shelves, something the public has been requesting for some time. It is one of the
library’s most popular collections, and the move should improve access. The collection team also
agreed that in addition to relocating the collection, it will be renamed ‘TV DVD’ as the DVDs that
make up this collection are primarily TV series.
Human Resources/Accounting
The Communication/Training Team met to plan several formats for training focused on a positive
approach to customer service. Sharon Alfano and Jean Yeomans graduated from the Leadership
Development Academy. Sharon Alfano’s group project includes sponsoring a Young Adult
Program at HPL next year – Hearts for Hearts. This program will reward participants with a small
heart-shaped box of chocolates in exchange for learning chest compression-only treatment of
cardiac arrest.
Public Information
The PIO spent most of May creating and producing the summer library program materials for Youth
Services, including logos, graphics, bulletin board posters, brochures for both teen and children’s
programs, program posters and other various signs needed, plus web pages and registration
databases. New this year to the YA program is an electronic slideshow with daily trivia on a big
screen TV in Teen Central – thanks to help from Computer Systems (Emrick).
Elizabeth Hough, Public Information Coordinator, and Rebecca Haefner, Graphic Designer, put
together the summer edition of the Library Matters newsletter that was inserted into the city’s Park
Place News, which was delivered to all Janesville households. The Friends of HPL sponsored this
printing.
Elizabeth responded to an issue with the Gazette’s event calendar and a few listings that caused
confusion. There was an event listed in the paper stating that there would be a showing of a
somewhat controversial movie (Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story”) at the library. This
was not a library-sponsored program, though that was not indicated in the listing. It turns out that
the movie was being shown in our Public Meeting Room by a local non-profit organization, which
was not named in the listing. Due to the set-up of the online event registration through the Gazette,
organizations had only the option to choose a location (in this case, HPL) and not the sponsoring
organization. In response to this issue, Elizabeth spoke with the Gazette and suggested a separate
listing for the Public Meeting Room at HPL to clear up the confusion. The Gazette agreed to the
change, and the new information will be included in our PMR reservation brochure and procedure
updates.
The PIO created materials for patrons regarding the change to RFID. Circ staff has been handing
them to all patrons at checkout.
Elizabeth accepted an invitation to be a part of the Janesville Mile committee to enhance the
awareness and participation of the library in Janesville Mile activities. The committee will meet
monthly to brainstorm ideas to attract the community to downtown establishments.
Elizabeth accepted the nomination for VP of the United Arts Alliance and will continue to use that
connection to promote the library as a cultural establishment interested in featuring local artists.
At the end of May, the PIO received a request from Rebecca Smith, Management Assistant for the
City of Janesville, to assist with a graphic for their upcoming Budget Scorecard. Elizabeth was able
to gather the necessary information and create a functioning logo for the City to use on all of their
materials, which was very much appreciated by Rebecca. ?
Reference Services
Total Patron Questions:
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Patron questions asked at Reference Desk – 2470
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Patron questions asked at Service Desk – 2421
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Asked at Youth Services 1794
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Asked at Bilingual Desk (when staffed) 2
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Asked at Teen Central (when staffed) 2
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Asked via email 36
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Total patron questions 6725
Reportable Reference Questions:
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Asked at the Reference Desk 1151
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Asked at Service Desk 261
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Asked at Youth Services 779
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Asked at Bilingual Desk (when staffed) 0
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Asked at Teen Central (when staffed) 1
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Asked via email 11
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Total for all service points 2203
Statistics from InterLibrary Loan:
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Items requested from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 324
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Items received from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 367
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Requests received from other libraries to borrow Hedberg materials – 575
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Items lent to other libraries from the Hedberg collection – 496
The Value Line database is now available to patrons at their home computers. Formerly it was only
available on library computers. Patrons can search Value Line for information on companies and
stocks for investment purposes.
We offered a RockCat instruction class in May – the first time we had done so in a year. We
receive regular feedback from the public that they would like more information on searching
RockCat, yet the last few times we had offered the class we had few to no people sign up. This time
the Public Information Office experimented with the publicity, giving the RockCat class its own
signs and handouts, instead of listing it as one computer class among many. The changes helped;
we had nine people sign up and six attended.
Question of the month:
Patron was looking for a muffin recipe that had “Post Selects Blueberry morning” cereal as the
major ingredient. It was her son’s favorite kind of muffin, and she’d misplaced the recipe. She
thought she might have originally found the recipe in Real Simple magazine. The librarian checked
the web sites for Post Cereals and Real Simple, with no success. She then searched the EBSCOHost
magazine article database. She found 40 possible blueberry muffin recipes, but none were the right
one. She tried various keyword searches in Google with no luck. The librarian consulted her
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coworkers for more ideas. A second librarian was more successful with Google. She typed in
"post selects blueberry morning cereal" muffins
and a recipe that looked promising came up in
the results list. She emailed the link http://www.recipelink.com/mf/31/40648 to the patron who
wrote back “THIS IS THE ONE!! Thank you to you and other staff for going to so much trouble!
We really appreciate your efforts!”
Technical Services
The last week of May members of the technical services staff visited the regional office of Baker &
Taylor, located in Momence, Illinois. B&T supplies HPL with most of the books and audiovisual
materials that go in the library collection. Those on the field trip were impressed with the scope of
B&T’s operation, including:
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The size of the operation—it’s the largest book and audiovisual distributor in the world.
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The size of the building, 575,000 square feet.
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The number of materials handled—375,000 titles in stock and 1.5 million titles for ordering.
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The nine miles of overhead conveyor belt transporting books, DVDs, and audio books
throughout the warehouse.
The staff came away with new respect for the skill and efficiency of a B&T crew that annually ships
approximately 20,000 items to HPL, with few errors and on schedule.
Youth Services
Children’s Services
Regular programming ended the second week of May so that Children’s Room staff could visit the
schools to promote the summer reading program: “Make a Splash – Read!” To that end, Children’s
Room staff did 24 presentations and saw 3,333 students and teachers.
May was also a great month for field trips to the public library. Five groups (131 students, teachers,
and parent-chaperones) enjoyed stories and tours with Children’s Room staff.
Sharon Grover was invited to Van Buren Elementary School to participate in the School District of
Janesville’s “Cooperation Read.” Twenty-two wonderful first graders listened attentively (and
helped to “read”) two Caldecott Award-winning books: The Three Pigs, by David Wiesner and The
Lion & the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney. Laurie Bartz was invited to read at Roosevelt Elementary
School, where she shared Rhyming Dust Bunnies, by Jan Thomas and One Duck Stuck, by Phyllis
Root with the P4J (Preschool for Janesville) classes.
Children’s Librarian, Julie Westby, and Young Adult Librarian, Laurie Bartz, participated in a
televised panel discussion and live call-in show on the School District of Janesville’s public access
channel, sponsored by the Janesville Area PTA. The topic was summer opportunities for young
people and Julie and Laurie talked about the summer reading programs for children and teens. Julie
and Laurie were also interviewed by Beth Wheelock on WCLO about the summer reading programs
and the “Read and Ride Free” initiative sponsored by WCLO, WJVL, and the Blackhawk
Community Credit Union.
Young Adult Services
Laurie Bartz, Julie Westby, and Sharon Grover met with Kari Klebba of Wildwood Theaters to
discuss the Eclipse writing and movie contest as well as future partnerships. The relationship with
Kari Klebba is proof of the importance of a good teen program. Kari initially approached HPL for a
partnership three years ago because she remembered how much she had enjoyed HPL when she was
a teen.
Laurie Bartz, Julie Westby, Karin Timmermann, and Sharon Grover met and revamped the teen
volunteer program. First we determined that we would only use teen volunteers this summer in
order to maximize the number of volunteer opportunities for teens. Additional tasks were also added
to the list of things we would ask teens to do for the library. Letters were sent to those teens who
had participated successfully in past summer volunteer efforts, inviting them to call and schedule an
interview. Forty-nine students were interviewed and invited to the two mandatory training sessions
at the beginning of June. We’re very excited to work with the fine group of students who came to
these sessions.