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#4 Reports A. Activities Report Hedberg Public Library Activity Report April 2012 Circulation Services Total circulation for the month of April was 91,304 items in 2012 compared to 94,124 in 2011. Our busiest day was April 9 when we checked out 3,544 items and checked in 4,513! The number of library visits for April was approximately 62,782. Our tracking problems from March carried over into the first part of April but appear to be resolved for May. We served 66,018 people in April 2011. Ten of the 225 new library cards we issued were handled via our on-line library card registration system. This month an average of 80 % of all checkouts were done using our Self Checkout machines. We ranged from the high 88.93% on Sunday, April 22, to a low of 75.10 % on Friday April 27. Dave Peters installed backstops on the shelves housing our collection of TV shows on DVD. Since the cases are uniform in size, the backstop holds all the spines right up to the edge of the shelf. They look better, are easier for staff to maintain, and make it much easier for customers to see and locate their favorite shows. Emrick Gunderson finished installing and setting up security cameras with recordable feed this month. We now have great views of the TV shows, Self-pick up holds, and circulation areas that let us keep surveillance of these vulnerable areas. Because of his excellent work we were able to identify a customer who was behaving suspiciously in another department and supply a photo to Janesville police. Hedberg @ Home, our homebound and extension site delivery service is now part of Circulation services. I am still working on an accurate count of home sites and volunteers. This week, It looks like we have more volunteers than readers! In April we sent 419 items to our extension sites and 231 items to homebound clients- at total of 650 items. More details next month. Displays in the Library The large counter display recognized National Library Week. The display was planned and executed by an intern working at HPL for school credit. Featured were HPL staff members and the good work they do in community outreach projects dear to their hearts. I gave the student, Sara Byrnes, suggestions on display construction but she did the work of set up and take down herself. I believe she enjoyed the experience. For the end of April and May, the display says “Outdoor Projects bring Outdoor Pleasures” Let's get outside to work and play! On the old service desk: New York-New York, it's a ---- of a town! Statue of Liberty history and Big Apple fun and travel guides. Center isle case-Continued as Literature in Letters. Bib committee book list. New book bookcase- Author of the Month-William Shakespeare. The Bard of Avon! Collection Development Collection Manager Carol Kuntzelman presented a draft of the HPL Collection Development Plan at the April Library Board of Trustees meeting. The Board recommended changes and the agenda item was tabled for consideration at the May meeting. This provided the Board time to review the ALA documents included in the appendices. Changes suggested by the Board were incorporated in the document to be included in the May Board packet. The Wisconsin Public Library Consortium OverDrive web site received a facelift in April. The new site, now titled “Wisconsin’s Digital Library,” has a cleaner appearance and provides easier access for the public. Statistics show the site continues to increase in popularity with HPL patrons, with over 1600 circs for April 2012. This compares with approximately 800 circs in April 2011. Once again there was full attendance at the April OverDrive training session. Carol Kuntzelman prepared to lead a May discussion of the Big Read title, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Materials for the discussion included a handout listing recent editions of works by and about Samuel Clemens. Human Resources/Accounting Laurel Fant and David Peters received “I Made a Difference” awards for planning and then in one morning executing a plan for improved access to Romance materials that involved the transfer of over 100 shelves of materials. The payables list has a charge for $4,208.53 from Amp Electric. This is for 37 LED light fixtures for the underground parking area Information Services Information Services has participated in two exchanges of local history information with other local organizations in the past two months. In March Hedberg hosted a training session on digitized local history resources for local librarians and historians, where Hedberg librarian Sue Braden demonstrated Hedberg’s Local History Database and “Janesville’s Past” collection, and Arrowhead librarian Ruth Ann Montgomery demonstrated resources digitized by the Eager Free Public Library. In April Hedberg offered materials about the communities of Beloit, Clinton, Edgerton, Evansville and Milton to the public libraries in those communities. These materials – mostly newspaper clippings - had been housed in file cabinets in the Janesville Room, but those cabinets are now at capacity, and more space is needed for newer materials. The articles all are indexed in the Local History Database and available on microfilm, so the information can still be retrieved if necessary even though we no longer own the paper copies. Beloit Public Library, Clinton Public Library, Edgerton Public Library, Eager Free Public Library and the Milton Historical Society accepted the donations. The library has developed a partnership with Second Harvest, the non-profit umbrella organization for area food banks such as ECHO. The Rock County outreach coordinator for Second Harvest regularly meets with persons interested in FoodShare (formerly known as food stamps) in the Small Group Study Rooms. In these meetings the coordinator Rachael Sheets checks if the individual is eligible for FoodShare, helps them to sign up if they are, and answers questions about the program. Rachel gave a training session about FoodShare to the Reference Librarians some months ago, where she demonstrated the website applicants use to manage their benefits. Since the training we have been able to better help patrons with this website, and refer questions we cannot answer to Rachael. We now have a poster that we can put out when the coordinator is at the library and available to answer FoodShare questions from the public. We have already received positive feedback from patrons who appreciate knowing when the Second Harvest coordinator is here. Reference Librarian Kate Hull is leaving Information Services. Kate’s last day at Hedberg will be Saturday May 26, 2012, and at the end of this month Kate will begin a new position and a new adventure at the Fitchburg Public Library. As the Head of Fitchburg’s Adult and Technical Services Kate will be supervising four employees, the reference desk, adult programming, and materials processing. As computer teacher, Overdrive guru, Reading on the Rock discussion leader, fiction, audiobook and science selector, and as reference librarian extraordinaire, Kate has contributed much to Hedberg since her arrival in 2009. We will certainly miss her efficiency, patience, tact, and calm good sense. We are reviewing applications for Jean’s position. As of May 10 we have 25 applicants. Bilingual Activities Mary and Rene discussed better ways to track Rene’s patron contacts. Previously Rene had only been tallying questions during the times she staffed the Bilingual Desk, and had not been counting the questions answered in telephone and email exchanges in her off-desk hours. Starting April 2012, Rene will count all questions, no matter where she receives them. Question of the month: A patron asked how he could find a family member in the 1940 census, which had been released to the public a week or so previously. The patron had the name of the family member, and knew he lived on Beloit Avenue in Janesville. Librarians went to the National Archives webpage and pulled up the 1940 census for Rock County. At the present time there is no way to search the 1940 census by name of the person; however, it can be browsed by location if the searcher knows the address (inside city limits) or Census Enumeration District (townships). The librarians checked the Janesville listings for Beloit Avenue page by page, but could not find the name the patron sought. The librarians then searched non-census records to see if they could determine which township where this individual lived. The librarians checked the Hedberg’s copy of the 1940 Rock County Plat Book, and located the individual’s property in Rock Township. The librarians went back to the 1940 Census website, and found a map identifying all the Enumeration Districts in Rock County. Rock Township is located in Enumeration District 53-59. The census schedules for ED 53-59 are 38 pages long, and street names are listed. Instead all of the addresses in Rock Township were listed by their RFD or “rural free delivery” number. Librarians looked page-by-page until they found the name of the individual sought. The patron was very excited to see the full 1940 census listing for his family. Technical Services Stacks Maintenance Technician Laurel Fant celebrated the first year anniversary of the HPL inventory project with a review of the statistics for the year. Laurel reports that over 140,000 items were inventoried, accounting for over half of the entire collection of 260,000 volumes. Included in the count were some of the most popular collections—Adult DVD, Adult Music CD, Children’s Audiovisual and Adult Fiction. The loss rate for the most popular collection, Adult DVDs, was 3% when the inventory was conducted in April 2011. Laurel plans to return to inventory the collection in May 2012. Youth Services Children’s Services As lead person for the early literacy kits that HPL will be offering to area teachers and librarians, Karin Timmermann has begun sorting the materials purchased with last year’s LSTA early literacy grant. Karin will be the point person for collaborating with P4J (Preschool for Janesville) teachers who have agreed to help us build the kits. Karin will also be working with Carol Kuntzelman and Tech Services to determine the best methods for cataloging and processing the kits. The sinking of the Titanic was commemorated in grand style with a Totally Titanic program for children in grades three through six. Julie Westby and Shannon Murphy-Tollefsrud played games and taught the children about the Titanic – how she was built, how she sank, and who survived and why. The best part was that no one realized they were learning; they just thought they were having fun. René Bue and Jamie Swenson hosted HPL’s annual celebration of El día de los niños, el día de los libros (Children’s Day, Book Day) with stories, food, and books. As this celebration becomes more diverse in scope, countries beyond Latin America are featured; this year African countries were the focus. One tradition that never changes is that each child goes home with a new book. HPL is lucky to have so many donations of books from major children’s and young adult publishers and children were thrilled to choose from among 150 different titles. Saturday Story Shorts wrapped up on April 28. This year, we have done all of these programs in the Children’s Room to avoid the heavy competition for the Program Room. For the most part, this has worked well and families seem to enjoy the short program and then stay on to play and look for books and other materials to take home. Saturday Story Shorts will start again in fall. Young Adult Services The Printz Book Club met at Craig High School twice in April to discuss Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony and Beneath a Meth Moon by Jacqueline Woodson, two YA books published in 2012. The students are beginning to discuss the books from a literary perspective and the conversation is now very lively. A group of Life Skills students from Edison Middle School visited the library for a tour and received a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at the Circulation Office and sorter from Michelle Dennis. A core group of dedicated volunteers worked non-stop at the Recycling Event under the direction of Emrick Gunderson. Several members of TAB learned about Civics as they participated in Bryan McCormick’s Introduction to Local Civics program. Our homeschool families were really excited to help with this event and hope we can do more activities like this in the future. One of the most memorable and fun events of the year was the Zombie Prom, complete with Prom King and Queen and strange, zombie-friendly treats! Two local high school DJs provided music and a fog machine, which – unfortunately – set off the smoke and particulate detectors. It was interesting explaining the bloody, ragged teens to the paramedics and firemen when they responded to the alarm. The teen zombies thought it was exciting that we planned a fire drill as part of the event! Other  Sharon Grover met with Jeni Schomber, Head of Youth Services at the Beloit Public Library to discuss areas of interest to both libraries.  Julie Westby attended the Downtown Riverfront Park Committee meeting as a library representative.  Jamie Swenson and Sharon Grover met with Kris Koch, Education Coordinator at Rotary Botanical Gardens, to begin planning a joint event for this summer.  Sharon Grover met with Tessa Michaelson Schmidt, new Youth Services and Special Needs Consultant for the Department of Libraries and Technology (part of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction), Marge Loch-Wouters, Youth Services Manager at the LaCrosse Public Library, and Rhonda Puntney Gould, Youth Services and Special Needs Consultant for the Lakeshores Library System. This group meets quarterly to discuss ways to reinvigorate the youth services library community in Wisconsin.  Laurie Bartz attended a meeting of JM4C (Janesville Mobilizing for Change). Laurie is the secretary of this organization.  Sharon Grover attended the P4J monthly directors’ meeting. The success of the P4J Pizzeria night at HPL was one topic of discussion at the meeting.  Laurie Bartz and Sharon Grover attended the monthly book discussion at the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, UW-Madison, as part of their training for the Printz Award Committee.  Sharon Grover was part of a panel presentation at the International Reading Association Conference in Chicago, IL. The title of the presentation was “Beyond the Printed Word: Audiobooks and Digital Literacy.”