Loading...
#4 Reports A. Activities Report Hedberg Public Library Activity Report July 2010 Adult Services The fall adult program list is being developed at this time. Linda Belknap has been researching possible speakers on a variety of topics. In addition to her usual duties, Ren é Bue is working on a partnership with Second Harvest about educating Latinos about the Food Share and Second Harvest programs. She met with Michelle Kramer from Second Harvest this month. More information will be forthcoming about this project. Twenty-six people attended Mike Maddox’s gardening program on July 15. The audience came prepared with many questions about tomato wilt and other gardening issues. Watch th the program on JATV. Mike will be back for a second program on October 14. st Jean Yeomans worked at the Rock County 4-H Fair on Saturday, July 31. The evening shift was exciting as many children, remembering the tattoos they’d received in previous years, came to the Arrowhead Library System booth for more. Each one was asked which library they go to most often and what they are currently reading. In addition to the tattoos, bookmarks and coloring pages were given away. Circulation Circulation and the number of library visits decreased. However the number of reserves filled increased compared to July 2009. Reserves waiting pick-up tended to be higher the latter part of the week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Nine days this month, reserves being held on the reserve shelf numbered over 1,000. Circulation of adult DVD feature movies had increased by 1,300 from last July. The increase may be related to RFID immediate check-in and the elimination of DVD locked cases. Total DVD circulation for the month was 26,566 with book circulation more than doubling that number, 57,053. th The busiest day for the number of items (5,597) checked-out was Tuesday July 6 when the library reopened after a two day holiday closing. Staff has experienced shorter lines at the full service station since more patrons are using self-check. The average percent this month of items checked-out at four self-checks was thth 63% with the Saturday July 25 showing 70.2%, followed by Sunday July 11 with 69.9%. Patrons inducted (returned) 48,203 items via the RFID sorter. HPL continues to be a net borrower in the shared system rather than a lender. Of the total check-outs logged by the ALS libraries, HPL had 56% of the total. HPL loans the most to BPL, EPL, EFPL, MPL, OPL, and last, CPL. HPL represented 62.5% of total OverDrive users. Collection Development Budget matters occupied much of the collection team’s attention in July. Mid-year figures show we are on target with expenditures in most selection areas. Subject areas where funds were underspent, for example, medical science and law, show the impact of online resources. Laura Gottlieb provided the team with an overview of publishing trends for travel materials, a subject area that sees high circulation. Much of her budget is spent on travel guides, although a patron’s search for information may begin with travel DVDs. Patrons have a good selection of well-known publisher series to choose from, and materials are kept up-to- date with annual weeds. Human Resources/Accounting Travis Wood, summer library program assistant, received an “I Made a Difference” award for volunteering to mop up a very wet men’s bathroom in the absence of a custodian. In Accounting, a journal entry was made charging 2009 accounts receivable of $21,088 to revenues. Reference Services Total Patron Questions: July 2010 July 2009 ? Patron questions asked at Reference Desk – 2945 3286 ? Patron questions asked at Service Desk – 3033 2734 ? Asked at Youth Services 2877 3408 ? Asked at Bilingual Desk (when staffed) 4 4 ? Asked at Teen Central (when staffed) 435 781 ? Asked via email 40 46 ? Total patron questions 9334 10259 Reportable Reference Questions: July 2010 July 2009 ? Asked at the Reference Desk 1141 1807 ? Asked at Service Desk 378 444 ? Asked at Youth Services 992 680 ? Asked at Bilingual Desk (when staffed) 4 0 ? Asked at Teen Central (when staffed) 56 63 ? Asked via email 17 ? Total for all service points 2588 2994 Statistics from InterLibrary Loan: ? Items requested from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 391 ? Items received from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 383 ? Requests received from other libraries to borrow Hedberg materials – 696 ? Items lent to other libraries from the Hedberg collection – 490 July 2009, we shifted to a new way of tabulating reference statistics. As a consequence, for the subsequent twelve months we did not compare changes from reference statistics from the previous year, as this would be comparing “apples and oranges”. Now that a year has passed, we can once again make comparisons to reference activity in the previous year. Interlibrary Loan and Public Information Office staff are updating the Interlibrary Loan checkout cards and handouts to reflect the changes that were made to Board Policy - A502 Interlibrary Loan Service in the July Board Meeting. We should be ready to implement those changes in September. Reference Librarian Sue Braden presented a “Genealogy for Beginners” program at Milton’s Gatherin Place on July 20. Thirteen people attended. Mary Buelow did contact the Milton Library during the planning stages of the program. The Milton librarian said that as HPL has a larger genealogy collection and more experience handling genealogy questions, we would not be stepping on anyone’s toes by proceeding with such a program in Milton. Question of the month A patron told us the following story: “My son-in-law is redoing his kitchen. A carpenter installed the new countertops and garbage disposal, but my son-in-law wanted to save money and do the plumbing for the sink himself. He asked my husband to help. But my husband has never done any plumbing! So I came down to the library and checked out some books from the Do It Yourself collection. My husband and son in law followed the pictures in one of the books, hooked everything up, and it works great!” Technical Services RFID tagging continues apace, with the DVD collections basically completed and a third of the 5000 adult music CDs tagged. Youth Services Children’s Services Summer Library Program continued in full swing during July, with a full complement of storytimes, weekly Library Explorers and special performer programs, as well as two programs targeting children in grades 3-5. In addition to the children who came to check in their reading passes, 184 children in group situations came to use the materials (games, computers, books) in the Children’s Room. The new format for SLP proved very successful with 1837 children registering and 1219 (66%) completing a minimum of 200 minutes of reading. Five hundred ninety-four children (32%) completed all four of the reading voyages for a total of 800 minutes, or approximately 13 hours of reading. Having teen volunteers as our “Harbor Masters” was very popular with the under-12 crowd who seemed to appreciate the special attention from the teens. “Make a Splash – Read!” ended with a full day of crafts and activities both inside and outside the library. Children enjoyed playing several Wii games in the program room and were heard shrieking with laughter at the water carnival (chalk drawing, “fishing” for ice pops, and assorted wet games) in the library’s back yard. The all-day finale would not have been possible without the assistance of many wonderful teen volunteers. Young Adult Services Programming for the Summer Library Program continued into July with a showing of the newly released Lightning Thief DVD. A local art teacher provided the supplies and expertise for a very popular Tie-Dye T-Shirts program and book reviews written by children and teens were videotaped and shown during the Children’s Finale. They will also be posted on our Web page. Other programs in July included a Gaming Day and nature/habitats program featuring Welty Environmental Center. Movies 10 held a private showing of Eclipse for teens that entered the joint HPL/Wildwood Theatres writing/poster contest. Posters were on display in the theatre during the month of July. Summer Splash 2010 concluded on August 4 with an outdoor finale that included a sidewalk chalk contest, games and a dunk tank, courtesy of the Boy Scouts of America. Names for final prizes were drawn just before teens let fly the remaining water balloons! Five hundred eight middle and high school students signed up for Summer Splash with 303 (60%) turning in at least one Reading Card requiring seven hours of reading; 185 (36%) teens completed all four reading cards. In addition, teens submitted 185 online book reviews that can be viewed on our Web page. Our Public Information Coordinator, Graphic Designer and Computer Systems Manager created all publicity and public and staff databases for Summer Splash. Summer Splash 2010 will go down as one of our most popular summer reading programs. Teen volunteers contributed 300 hours in July, staffing the Hedberg Harbor (children’s check-in station) and cleaning and stickering hundreds of picture books in preparation for shelving this collection in strict alphabet order by author (it is currently shelved by the first two letters of the author’s last name). Other Youth Services News: ? A representative from the Wisconsin Foundation for Independent Colleges (the group that funds our summer intern) visited HPL to discuss the project with Youth Services staff and the intern. ? Laurie Bartz participated in a College Goal Sunday Development Committee conference call. ? Staffing the desk in Teen Central on a regular basis resulted in higher customer service to teens and others using the material in that room. ? Laurie Bartz expanded our video game collection by ordering a large quantity of PS2 games, including some duplicates of popular games. ? Youth Services was thrilled to have two college student workers from Janesville this summer. Angela Meadows was our WFIC intern and Travis Wood was our temporary summer employee. Both proved to be very hard workers who interacted spectacularly with the children and teens. ? Laurie Bartz, Sharon Grover, Elizabeth Hough, and Julie Westby met with Kari Klebba of Janesville’s Wildwood Theatres to begin planning a fall reading rewards program, initiated by Ms. Klebba, which will be called “Box Office Books.” The grand prize raffle drawing for this program, provided by Wildwood Theatres, will be two private movie parties: one for children in grades K-5 and one for teens in grades 6-12. Other incentive prizes, including books, will be offered as various reading goals are achieved.