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#4 Reports A. Activities Report Hedberg Public Library Activity Report 2012 Adult Services Bilingual Outreach Rene Bue received a Martin Luther King Service Award at Blackhawk Technical College’s Commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. held Saturday, January 14, in part for her service to Latinos at HPL. The award was presented by former library board trustee, Jose Carrillo. René has been busy working on plans for all the upcoming events such as the Lunar New Year celebration, and the Mardi Gras/Carnaval event. She also met with Scott Angus, the editor of the Janesville Gazette, to discuss how HPL can get better coverage for the multicultural events. René gave a tour of the library to Brooke Bahnsen, a Youth services Librarian from Mundelein, IL. She met Brooke while at the International Book Fair in Guadalajara. René also gave Brooke ideas for the multicultural Día de los niños celebration that they are planning to host at the Fremont Library. Brooke and the Fremont Public Library were winners of the Día de los niños grant from ALA and REFORMA. René is now planning on taking a field trip to the Fremont PL to continue sharing programming ideas with the librarians there. Adult Services/Outreach/Programming Our library hosted a “try it, it’s free” Zumba class in January. It was well-attended and enjoyed by the attendees. Ann Forbeck, homeless liaison for the School District of Janesville, presented the documentary, “Project 16:49” th on January 24. The audience found the film quite interesting and had many questions for Ann. JATV taped the program for viewing on Channel 994. Jean Yeomans, René Bue, and Michelle Dennis are planning a series of programs called “Building Common Ground: Community Tapestry”, which will run from April through September of this year. It is based on the Building Common Ground American Library Association grant program which focuses on community building. Due to inclement weather, Jean’s WLA Literary Awards Committee monthly meeting was cancelled in January. The committee is responsible for selecting the annual Literary Award winner, Outstanding Achievement Award winners, the R. R. Donnelly Award winner, and maintaining a current list of Wisconsin authors, among other duties. The awards are given at the annual WLA conference in November. Circulation Services Total circulation for the month of January is down 3,997 items or 4.1% from last year: 95,610 in 2012 compared to 99,607 in 2011. Circ is up by 9,842 items compared to last month. The busiest day in January, based on the number of items checked-out, was Tuesday, Jan. 3, when we checked out 5,762 items (84.7% via our self checks), and accepted 5,437 returns (11,199 items when through our hands in a single day)! Our amazing circulation department staff had everything shelved before the weekend! Our slowest day was Sunday, Jan. 15, and we still checked out 1,824 items. The number of library visits for January was down by 2,351 or 3.5% compared to last year: down from 68,096 in 2011 to 65,745 in 2012. However, visits are up from last month when we had 53,644 visitors. Based on door count, our busiest January day was Tuesday, Jan. 31 when we served 2,995 people; the slowest day was Sunday, Jan 15 when we served 1,140. This month an average of 79.52% of all checkouts were done using our Self Checkout machines. We ranged from a high of 85.74% on Saturday, Jan. 21, to a low of 71.22 % on Sunday, Jan. 8. The slight dip for the month is because one of our self checkout machines was down for 10 days. Another one is down today, Feb. 1, and probably will be out of service until Tuesday Feb. 6 while we wait for replacement parts. Our biggest change in January and February is the facelift of our Full Service Checkout Desk. When customers walk up to our desk they will see lovely oak cabinet doors rather than our messy metal shelves. We think the bi-fold doors will add a warm, clean and professional look to a very busy area. Displays in the Library Linda Kerr continues to do a wonderful job keeping our library looking great and featuring interesting library items for our clients. She tries to include all types of materials, especially new formats like Playaways that our clients may not be familiar with yet. The displays for January 2012 were:  Large display: “Warm the Chill of Winter” features an eye catching doll house. It went from a holiday house in December to a January winter scene. This display includes materials on a wide range of topics related to the season. Winter poetry, sports, snowy day adventures, winter science exploration, and cold weather animals to name just a few. The doll house glows with its warming welcome.  The old service desk shows us that “Monsters Need Love Too!” Our stand up guests from ALS, Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy, are on hand to set the mood for these monster themed goodies. The bibliography committee's booklist, also entitled “Monsters Need Love Too,” was featured in a handy tri-fold format.  The center aisle case features “Adventurous Reading.” This display sports a bibliography committee booklist by the same title. The New Book bookcase featured displays on:  1)Celebrating Martin Luther King Day o 2)In memory of Etta James aka Miss Peaches to her fans. The famous jazz singer died in o mid Jan. We had many of her cds to offer patrons. 3)Remembering Alex Haley and the 35th anniversary of the television premier of 'Roots' o the well known miniseries based on the author's novel. The show aired in Jan 1977 to huge audience. Collection Development The January OverDrive program drew an overflow crowd, with 24 patrons attending the session. Amazon’s participation in the program “kindled” increased interest in the downloadable format. There has been some backlash from publishers, with Penguin Books withdrawing their titles for download. The Wisconsin Public Library Consortium will continue to investigate working with other vendors in the future, but publishers such as Random House have renewed their commitment to OverDrive. The collection team is in the process of updating the Hedberg Public Library Collection Development Plan. There are no radical changes to the basic structure and policy, but the project will require several months of review by the team before the plan comes before the HPL Board of Trustees for approval. Information Services We received 12 applications for the open 50% Reference Librarian and interviewed five of those candidates. We have hired Beth Webb for the position. Beth has been working at Hedberg Public Library since 2003, and she currently holds the position of Senior Circulation Assistant. Beth also works as an Associate Academic Librarian at UW Rock County. She received her Master of Library and Information Science from UW Milwaukee. We are very pleased to add Beth to our Information Desk team! We continue to receive a significant number of e-reader and Overdrive questions at the Information Desk. The first few weeks after the holidays were particularly intense as many patrons had received new e-readers for Christmas. (All versions of the Kindle were particularly popular this year.) Everyone at the Information Desk – Reference Librarians and Information Assistants alike – are becoming increasingly comfortable assisting patrons with e-reader and Overdrive questions as these questions become routine. Technical Services Technical Services ordered, invoiced, and processed over a hundred Blu-ray DVD titles in January. HPL’s newest collection was an immediate hit, with patrons checking out titles as soon as they were shelved. Many of the titles arrive as part of a combo kit containing both Blu-ray and DVD versions. TS staff catalogued and processed the discs separately, thereby doubling the number of circs for a title. Blu- ray will be included in an on-line list of new DVD titles, making it easier for patrons to identify current popular releases and to place reserves. Youth Services Children’s Services Our winter schedule of programs is in full swing. Storytimes began with smaller groups, which is normal for the beginning of any semester, but especially the winter semester. Our storytimes for babies continue to experience growth – Camille Rammer and Shannon Murphy-Tollefsrud are our Pied Pipers and families happily move on to our other storytimes after their wonderful introduction to the library through Baby Lapsit and Baby Walkers. Saturday Story Shorts has begun attracting larger crowds as the winter doldrums set in and families look for ways to have fun away from their homes and Learning Through Play also plays into this winter family need. The imaginative play equipment purchased with the LSTA grant, a train table and a kitchen/store that resembles the Ground Floor has been extremely popular with children and families. The Youth Services staff is grateful to Bryan McCormick for helping select and assemble (twice) the train tableau for assembling the kitchen/store. It is terrific to see children and their adult caregivers interacting with this equipment in ways that promote social, emotional, and literacy learning. Our celebration of the Lunar New Year – the Year of the Dragon – drew a smaller, but no less enthusiastic crowd this year. Six lions danced at the library and we’re hoping for our good luck to continue. It is wonderful to be able to share this festival with community members from China and Korea. We hope to be able to find some Vietnamese families to share their traditions with us next year. Youth Services staff that plan and present programs participated in an excellent Summer Reading Program workshop, presented by LaCrosse librarian Marge Loch-Wouters and sponsored by Arrowhead Library System. Young Adult Services Printz Book Club members met at Craig High School to discuss American Born Chinese, the 2007 Michael L. Printz Award for Young Adult Literature winner, by Gene Yang. Audiobook narrator Nick Podehl held an informal Q&A session at the library with members of TAB and other interested teens and school librarians. His main presentation followed and contained a live performance from his Odyssey Honor award-winning narration of The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking trilogy) by Patrick Ness. Other:  Laurie Bartz participated in a College Goal Wisconsin (CGW) State Committee conference call meeting.  In preparation for HPL’s College Goal program on Saturday, February 18, Laurie Bartz delivered free CGW promotional materials to Rock County schools.  Laurie Bartz attended – and was named secretary – a JM4C (Janesville Mobilizing for Change) meeting.  Sharon Grover and Laurie Bartz attended the ALA Midwinter Meeting in their capacities as 2013 Michael L. Printz Committee chair and administrative assistant. At the Midwinter Meeting they Participated in the Young Adult Library Association (YALSA) Leadership Development o Meeting. Met with publishers to discuss submission of books for Printz consideration. o Attended a luncheon with young adult author John Green. o Attended publication preview events with the following publishers of books for children o and young adults: Little, Brown; Holiday House; Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt; Random House; Candlewick; and Scholastic Attended the Youth Media Awards press conference. o Attended the Morris Award (for debut young adult novel) and Young Adult Non-Fiction o Award program.  Laurie Bartz attended a 2012-2013 FAFSA (Federal Application for Student Aid) line-by-line training webinar for volunteers at College Goal Sunday sites.