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#4 Reports A. Activities Report Hedberg Public Library Activity Report February 2011 Adult Services The theme for Jean Yeomans’ programs at St. Elizabeth’s Nursing Home, Regency House, and Cedar View was “The Reasons for the Great Depression”. Residents enjoyed sharing their memories of the times and looking at library books about the Depression era. The topic in March will be the Thirteen Colonies. Plans for the 2011 National Endowment for the Arts-sponsored BIG READ kickoff event at HPL st on March 31 are almost finished. This year’s program features the works of Edgar Allan Poe. HPL is hosting the kickoff for Rock County’s libraries and will offer a book discussion on April th 6, led by two HPL staff members. Collection Development The collection team identified areas of the collection in need of additional funds and prepared a list of recommendations for the HPL Foundation. The request included money for a proposed children’s graphic novels collection, the purchase of reprints of classic works to support the needs of high school students, and to fund HPL’s participation in the OverDrive Advantage program for the purchase of added copies of popular e-book titles. Several members of the technical services and collection team staffs attended a systemwide collection and technical services meeting. Information on special collections held by member libraries was shared and issues involving consistency in adding acquisitions and cataloging records to the shared database were discussed. Human Resources/Accounting The final Operating Statement for 2010 is enclosed with the board packet. The ending fund balance for 2010 is $425,145. The February 2011 Operating Statement includes several charges posted outside the bill lists, most notably the property/liability insurance charge of $16,426. Reference Services We initially scheduled 13 computer classes for February. When all spaces in all classes – including the waiting list – were filled by the end of January, we added four more classes for a total of 17. One class was scheduled for Wednesday February 2, a day the library was closed due to inclement weather. We were able to reschedule this class for Wednesday February 9. All the originally scheduled students were able to attend at the new class day and time. Reference Librarian Sue Braden taught an additional to six Cedar Crest residents. The class was one hour long, and covered highlights from the “Introduction to Computers”, “Microsoft Word”, and “Internet Basics”. Mary Buelow participated in the Rock County Development Alliance’s “Small Business Owner and Entrepreneur Workshop Series”. The series consisted of four workshops at two different times and locations – Tuesdays in Beloit and Thursdays in Janesville. Mary was the presenter at the second session, “Library Resources for Market Research” on February 8 and 10. She presented the same workshop again for the “E-HUB” instructional series, on March 1, and is scheduled for another session with “E-HUB” March 31. Bob Brunner resigned as of January 30. Bob was working an average of 10 hours a week and had both Service Desk and Security duties. This works as long as someone is familiar with both sets of responsibilities when they start the schedule, but it is not feasible for a new employee to learn both sets of duties on a ten hour a week schedule. We will be revising schedules so this ten hours position is either just Service Desk or just Security before we hire anyone new. In the meantime, Senior Security/Service Desk Assistant Jill Osmond is adjusting her schedule to fill Bob’s former shifts. Question of the month: A patron wanted to know how much Governor Walker earns, and the next day a different patron wanted to know how much Wisconsin State Senators earn. The information for both questions was found in “Salaries of State Elected Officials Brief 10-9” from the Legislative Reference Bureau. Effective January 2011, The Governor earns $144,423 and members of the Legislature (both Assembly and Senate) earn 49,943 with a per diem of $44 a day for Dane County members, and $88 a day for members from outside Dane County. Technical Services Staff planned for a new project--the reassignment of the location code and relabeling of material for the soon-to-be YA graphic novel neighborhood. Reprocessing of the books will begin shortly and should be completed within a month. TS staff prepared for a temporary staff shortage while Serials Acquisitions Technician Debbie Hessian- Kjornes went on maternity leave. The planning was timely as Debbie’s son, Rowan th Thomas, arrived on March 4, a month early. Youth Services Children’s Services February started off with a spectacular celebration of the Lunar New Year. For the second year in a row, Sharon Grover and René Bue teamed up with members of the Chinese community, in particular the Chinese language teachers, to plan the event. Whitefish Bay Kung Fu and Lion Dance made a return engagement to present a three- lion dance. This year, because our event fell on Super Bowl Sunday, two of the lions were green and gold and had performed at Lambeau Field in 2008. The Lion Dance is thought to bring good luck and it certainly helped the Packers this year as approximately 300 participants were there to celebrate. Children from the community performed several skits and the Program Room was decorated with beautiful wall hangings and lanterns from China. Be sure to check out the photos and video on the website. Children’s Room staff has been busy outside the library this month, carrying stories and the library message to special needs classes in Janesville. This is the first year the library has not provided transportation to the library for these groups and we were concerned that we would not be invited to their classrooms for this program. However, staff went out to 13 classes in seven schools and interacted with 256 children and 48 adults. Four Head Start classes (55 children and 19 adults) provided their own transportation to come to the library. Next year we’re hoping to be able to work with the school district administrators to reach more groups. Jamie Swenson and Field Study Student Amanda Canovan worked together to plan and present a Goosebumps Party for children in grades 3 – 5. Even though only 10 of the 15 children registered came to the party, they had an excellent time. Jamie reports that two girls were overheard discussing library events, “I just love coming to these library parties, don’t you?” The response: “Oh, yes, I come all the time. Have you seen my video book review on the library’s website?” Young Adult Services TAB members were busy in February with several activities. Our annual Teen Mystery program was held on a Thursday evening during school conferences. TAB members volunteered to set up the crime scene, complete with the outline of the victim on stage, and placed clues, decorations and props backstage. They then played the parts of suspects and announcers during the event. Two were charged and taken away by “police” at the conclusion of the exciting event! TAB also met for its regular monthly meeting to discuss summer events, prize selections and other aspects of the teen reading program. Sharon Alfano coordinated a fascinating program for teens called Hearts for Hearts. Paul Amendt, Emergency Services Director at Mercy Health System, introduced teens to the new hands-only CPR method. The speaker kept the attention of the audience with stories of real-life scenarios from the emergency department of a busy hospital. He stressed the vital importance and effectiveness of this methodology. After teens demonstrated a basic knowledge of performing hands-only CPR, they were given a box of chocolate in a heart-shaped box. College Goal Wisconsin was held at Hedberg and many other sites around the state. Several sites were canceled due to poor weather on Sunday, but our event went smoothly on Saturday for all involved. Sixty-nine students and family members used computers in the Woodruff Training Lab, Job Resource Center and Program Room while skilled volunteers from UW-Rock County, UW Whitewater, UW Credit Union and Blackhawk Technical College assisted them while filling out the FAFSA, the free required financial aid form. Laptops on loan from Arrowhead Library System and UW-Rock County, as well as the efforts of Emrick Gunderson and staff from UW-Rock, helped to make our event a success. Diana McDonald and Angela Meadows also assisted during the event. Other  Laurie Bartz attended a meeting of the Janesville Community Coalition, now called Janesville Mobilizing 4 Change  Sharon Grover and Field Study Student Amanda Canovan completed weeding the YA audiobook collection and will be working on a project to promote this collection  Laurie Bauer, Parker High School Librarian, provided a wonderful training session for Reference and several Youth Services staff (Laurie Bartz, Sharon Grover, Shannon Murphy-Tollefsrud, and Julie Westby) on the SIRS database. We now feel more confident to introduce this database to patrons.  Laurie Bartz and Sharon Grover attended a system-wide collection development meeting. It was very interesting to hear perspectives on collection issues from the other ALS libraries.  Laurie Bartz is working with Amanda Canovan on a teen mystery booklist. Laurie and Amanda have also worked on several teen programs including the mystery night and the February TAB meeting.