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#4 Reports A. Activities Report Hedberg Public Library Activity Report 2011 Adult Services Feria Internacional de Libros René went to the in Guadalajara, Mexico as a result of receiving Free Pass the from ALA and FIL. While there, she met with publishers, distributors and library staff from Mexico, USA and other countries. 612,474 people attended the FIL (compared to the estimated 150,000 attendees at the National Book Fair in DC this past summer). She will be presenting at either WAPL or WLA on her experiences at the book fair. René hosted both the Las Posadas event and the program with the Janesville Police Department. She also taught the 3 computer classes and attended the Latino Family Day (sponsored by the Janesville School District) at Jefferson School. Jean Yeomans and the other HPL programmers met in December (we have been meeting quarterly to coordinate the library’s program offerings) to discuss program evaluation information collected from other libraries and HPL’s evaluation needs. Our task lately has been developing evaluation tools to use in determining level of programming at HPL, etc. Our next meeting will be in March 2011. No adult programs were held at HPL this month due to the holidays. Three programs were held at nursing homes/senior apartment facilities in December. Cedar View (at Cedar Crest) is taking advantage of library programming as of 2010. January and February 2011 programs are set and feature a variety of topics, including the annual WIS-ILL railroad exhibit and a self defense class for women. One of the March programs will focus on Wisconsin women’s history, specifically that of women from Janesville and Rock County. Collection Development As Mary Buelow noted in her Reference Services report, with eBook devices being a popular Christmas gift in 2010, demand for downloadable eBook titles increased dramatically over the holiday season. Arrowhead Library System has been a member of a statewide OverDrive consortium providing downloadable audio for library patrons for over three years. As a member of the OverDrive Selection Committee, Carol Kuntzelman has represented Arrowhead in the selection of titles for circulation to consortium member library patrons. Late in 2010, the consortium elected to begin offering eBook titles to download. Over $26,000 in eBook titles were added just before the Christmas season, and the vendor reported that they were prepared for the anticipated increase in demand. However, eBook checkout activity exceeded all expectations and the OverDrive database experienced outages which continue into the new year. The popularity of the eBook format has raised questions for the consortium. Advantage, a new program allowing individual libraries to purchase added copies of popular eBook titles under the umbrella of their consortium membership, limits access to the added copies to their own patrons. There is a desire to offer patrons more e-books, but there are concerns at the state level with regard to building local collections that cannot be shared or offered to non-residents. A summit planned for Spring 2011 will address these issues. In the meantime, participation in the Advantage program will be on the HPL collection team agenda in January. Human Resources/Accounting David Peters and Emrick Gunderson received ‘I Made a Difference Awards” for their roles in the remodel of the Children’s workroom space. Dave’s design and management of the project made the process smooth and efficient, and Emrick’s efforts included the move and set up of computers, printers and phones, and the provision of temporary housing and storage space. Five-year increment service awards were distributed at the annual staff breakfast. Phyllis Osmond received an award for 20 years of service; Jenny Swales, Jean Yeomans, Linda Kerr, Tara Kilby, Maureen Birchfield, and Jamie Swenson received awards for 10 years of service; Renee Miller, Joei Jay, Evon Mitchell, Robert Brunner and Camille Rammer received awards for 5 years of service. The December 2010 Operating Statement is preliminary, and will not be finalized until sometime in February. The Expenditure Approval List includes $38,933.69 in expenditures for 2010, and $143,286.70 in 2011 expenditures for a total of $182,220.39. Reference Services Total Patron Questions: 2010 2009  Patron questions asked at Reference Desk – 2580 2475  Patron questions asked at Service Desk – 2623 2506  Asked at Youth Services 1494 1477  Asked at Bilingual Desk (when staffed) 2 6  Asked at Teen Central (when staffed) 47 35  Asked via email 52  Total patron questions 6798 6499 Reportable Reference Questions:  Asked at the Reference Desk 940 1173  Asked at Service Desk 226 187  Asked at Youth Services 402 534  Asked at Bilingual Desk (when staffed) 1 0  Asked at Teen Central (when staffed) 4 12  Asked via email 27  Total for all service points 1600 1906 Year-end summary reference stats  Total Patron Questions July – Dec 2009 48,817  Total Patron Questions July – Dec 2010 47,590  Percent change of total questions between 2009 and 2010 -2.5%  Total Reference Questions July – Dec 2009 14,213  Total Reference Questions July – Dec 2010 13,061  Percent change of reference questions between 2009 and 2010 -8% Statistics from InterLibrary Loan:  Items requested from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 315  Items received from other libraries for Hedberg patrons – 268  Requests received from other libraries to borrow Hedberg materials – 624  Items lent to other libraries from the Hedberg collection – 457 Overdrive experienced a post-Christmas rush, as excited owners of brand-new eBook devices tried to access materials to check out. Reference and Service staff received many questions from HPL patrons who were unable to access the Overdrive site at all. In the week between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays Overdrive increased their server and broadband capacity to meet the additional demand. Overdrive later reported the following statistics: between Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas weekend 2010, Overdrive visits increased 60%, ebook checkouts increased 93%, eBooks circulation surpassed audiobook downloads, and Christmas and the days following were the three biggest days for downloads ever. Attendance at library computer classed decreased throughout 2010. By November we only had 65 attendees over eight classes. In December attendance spiked up again with new people we had never seen before, to a total of 102 attendees over eight classes. Right before the numbers spiked, Mary took some computer class flyers to the Job Center Open House, and the Gazette also ran an article on the subject. One of the librarians surveyed students in her “Introduction to Computers” class to find out where people heard about the library classes. Here are the results:  8 people read about it in the Gazette  1 person heard about it at church  1 person heard about it at the Job Center  1 person heard about it from both his wife and his office manager  1 person heard about it from a friend Question of the month: Patron wanted to know the minimum age for gambling in Wisconsin. When the librarian asked clarifying questions, the patron said he was particularly interested in the age limit for the Indian Casinos. The librarian first searched the Wisconsin Statutes, but found only the age limit for bingo –age 18. She then typed “age limit for gambling in Wisconsin” into Google. She found Answers.com listed the gambling age as 18; however, Answers.com did not list how old the information was, nor where it came from so she kept looking. She then found a report titled “The Evolution of Legalized Gambling in Wisconsin” by the State of Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau. This report stated “ The minimum age for casino patrons was raised from 18 to 21 years-of-age when the State-Tribal Gaming Compacts were renewed in 1998-99.” The librarian found the Gaming Compacts on the WI Department of Administration web site, and confirmed that the statement “No person under the age of 21 shall be permitted access to any portion of any facility in which any Class III game is conducted, except for purposes of employment . . . or to gain access to the Nation’s non-Class III gaming facilities.” This same report also mentioned the age limits for purchasing lottery tickets (A lottery ticket purchaser must be 18 years of age or older, but minors can receive tickets as gifts.) Technical Services A look back at 2010 reveals it to be a busy year for technical services staff. Over 25,600 items were added to the HPL collection during the past year. Print books continue to account for the majority of purchases, but approximately 1500 audio books, 1700 DVDs and over 1800 music CDs were also added to the collection in 2010. Those figures do not include the downloadable audio and e-book statistics referred to in the Collection Development section. Statistics for withdrawals show a significant number of items withdrawn, over 39,000, but this figure is somewhat deceptive. It reflects the elimination of the videocassette collections in January 2010 (6580 items) and a clean-up of HPL holdings in the RockCat catalog. Lost and missing items had not been deleted from the database for the three years HPL had been part of the integrated library system. The first part of 2010 saw the selectors working with the RockCat system administrator to replace and update catalog holdings. Approximately 8000 items were deleted from the catalog as part of this process. Youth Services Box Office Books program ends with success: Box Office Books, a reading incentive program co-sponsored by Wildwood Theatres in Janesville under the direction of manager Kari Klebba, was offered to school-age children by Youth Services in fall 2010. The children’s and teen programs were run simultaneously by staff at the Children’s Service Desk (limited staffing in Teen Central during the school year). The theme and basic operation of the programs were identical. Separate databases were maintained for registration and statistics and prizes for teens differed from those offered to children. At registration, students were given Ticket #1 to keep track of their reading time and a Books into Movies booklist made especially for Box Office Books. When all seven hours (denoted with clapboards) were read and filled in, the ticket could be returned for a prize and the next ticket. Optional bonus activities for each ticket could also be completed in return for a Grand Prize entry form. th The Children’s Edition, open to anyone in grades K-5, began on Monday, September 13 and thth ended on Monday, December 13. The Library Explorers program on September 13 was the kickoff of the reading program. There were a total of 206 participants in the reading program. th The grade level with the highest number of children in the program was 5 grade with 37 participants. The group with the highest number of participants was the homeschoolers with 43 children in the program. The school with the highest number of participants was Roosevelt Elementary with 19 children in the program. There were children from 32 schools in the program. Participants in Box Office Books: Children’s Edition completed 498 reading tickets. There were 81 children that completed the program, which was 39% of the registered children; 60% of the participants completed at least one ticket. Program participants received 1 Grand Prize Entry Form for each bonus activity completed as well as 1 Entry Form for completing the program. For the Children’s Edition, there were a total of 1026 Grand Prize Entry Forms eligible for the drawing for the free movie party from Wildwood Theatres. The winner of the movie party for the Box Office Books: Children’s rd Edition was a homeschooled 3 grader. Ninety-five students, grades 6 – 12, registered for Box Office Books: Teen Central Edition. Seventh grade students had the highest representation and 34% were homeschool students. 61% completed the first reading ticket and 41% completed all five tickets. Bonus tickets were popular and effective in promoting attendance at programs, encouraging reading books made into movies and checking out books from HPL. The Bonus Grand Prize Drawing Winner for Box Office th Books: Teen Central Edition was a 7 grade homeschooled student. She will receive a private movie party with 20 friends at Wildwood Theatres. Children’s Services The semester’s programming concluded with the usual round of storytimes. The happy surprises of the semester have been that Tales for 4s and More has continued to attract enough attendance (despite 4-year-old kindergarten) and the surge in attendance at Baby Lapsit programs. The Art of Listening (listen to a story while doing a craft project or puzzle) did not achieve any success, so Monday afternoon programming has switched back to Library Explorers, which combines books and activities and crafts around a theme. This format works very well in the summer and has been successful as a once-a-month program during the school year. It will be interesting to see if attendance can be sustained on a weekly basis during the school year. We are trying weekly programming for school-age children as part of our strategic plan to reach a wider audience on a regular basis. Young Adult Services TAB members enjoyed an interactive team-building session presented by Michelle Dennis, Clinton Public Library director and Blackhawk Technical College instructor, during its regular meeting. Following TAB, 17 teens constructed Dream Pillows using a variety of colorful fleece. B-Force Book Club met and the programming year for teens concluded with a Gaming Day, held during winter break. Sixth grade visits were extended to accommodate testing schedules for students at Edison Middle School. A total of 18 sessions were presented to 280 sixth grade students and teachers between October and December. Teen volunteer training was conducted in December and is ongoing. Volunteers contributed 13 hours in the Children’s Department in December. Other Youth Services News:  The remodeling of the workroom was completed in record time. The design by our own Dave Peters maximizes use of the space in a much more efficient manner and gives staff more room to do the kinds of work that goes on in Youth Services.  Angela Meadows and Travis Woods, our summer college student workers, were happy to get some work time in the Children’s Room during their winter break. Both have committed to returning this coming summer, which makes everyone very happy as they are a wonderful addition to the staff.