- List of bills for December 2008.
- List of bills for February 2009.
- EOEP.
- Trustee Essentials #5.
ELISHA D. SMITH PUBLIC LIBRARY
DIRECTOR’S REPORT – FEBRUARY 2009
1.
Bills. REQUESTED ACTION: Approval of bills as presented for December 2008.
2.
Bills. REQUESTED ACTION: Approval of bills as presented for February 2009.
CONSENSUS ACTION ITEMS:
3.
Minutes. Minutes of Board meeting January 15, 2009. REQUESTED ACTION: Approval.
INFORMATION ITEMS:
4.
Statistics. Another wonderful month where our circulation increased by 15.9% over January 2008. We continue to see great growth in books, magazines, CD-Books, and DVDs. You will also notice that for the first time, our website and blog figures broke 70,000 visits. The bulk of these visits are for our blogs, which represent 54,000 visits.
5.
Donations. We received our first online donations via PayPal and the website in 2008. Cheri Authement donated $250 and Theodore Eisch donated $75. We have made sure the donation button is on our new front page.
We also rolled over another Endowment CD and are getting an annual yield of 2.7%.
6.
Congratulations Kris! Kris Seefeldt will be celebrating her 25th Anniversary as a Menasha Public Library employee in early March. I know that I could not do what I do without her and that the library as a whole couldn’t either.
7.
Vandals. As you may have seen in the newspaper, we had an issue with some teen vandals and our snow sculpture that was done for the city’s Winter Gala event. Huge thanks go out to our custodian, Dave Powell, who focused the outdoor security cameras on the sculpture and caught the vandals in the act.
We had been having issues with these and other teens in the evenings. We will continue a strict no-nonsense policy with troublesome teens for the next few months. Additionally, the police are aware of the evening problems and are doing walkthroughs during the active late afternoon times as they are able. We are also working with Winnebago Health and Human Services to have them help with delinquent teens at the library. It appears we may be the gathering place for teens who have been kicked out of the City’s parks.
8.
New Website. In early February, we launched our new website. The only changes for the public are on the front page where we are now able to have rotating information, more featured events, larger fonts and more space for images. The larger fonts and more space carry through to the other pages as well. This new site was necessary because we were the first library in Winnefox to use Drupal, and we were on an aging server that was failing. Instead of dumping our existing site onto a new server, it made more sense to update us to the new version of Drupal while moving. We took this opportunity to spruce things up a bit.
9.
New Staff. Our new teen librarian, Vanessa Taylir, started on February 2nd. We have also hired Ana Acosta as a part-time Reference Librarian. Ana is a native Spanish speaker, which will help us serve our community better than we currently are. She will be joining the staff in mid to late February. You will also see a new face at our Circulation Department, Pam Moran will be joining us on a temporary basis to help cover for a staff member’s temporary reduction in hours. All of the women have a lot to offer our library and our community and I am thrilled to have been able to hire them.
10.
Library Year. Each year we put out a rough schedule of what you can expect as a board member as well as events happening at the library. You will find our 2009 version in your packet. The main change is that the budget process is scheduled to start a bit earlier as requested by the Finance Committee in 2008.
11.
Staff Meetings. We have scheduled our staff meetings for the year. They are scheduled for:
Wednesday, February 18th
Tuesday, May 19th
Thursday, August 13th
The meetings are held at 7:30 am so that the entire staff can get together. At our February meeting, we are putting together some cross-departmental committees to focus on programming, customer service, and diversity. We will also be discussing the 2009 Long Range Plan objectives.
Our fourth staff meeting will be in October and that will be our staff retreat. I am looking for a speaker at this time, so the date is not yet set. We close the library for either a half day or full day for that so that all staff can participate.
12.
Winnefox Services. In your packet you will find a sheet from Winnefox that details the services they gave our library specifically in 2008. I am happy to answer any questions you may have. It is clear from the report that we use the printing service, inter-library loan, delivery, and PC/website support extensively.
13.
Net Lender Payment. We will be paid by Winnefox for being a net-lender on the shared circulation system. This is a new program in its second year. We are the second largest lender in Winnefox, second only to Oshkosh. This speaks to the quality of our collection and our willingness to share with other libraries. We will receive $1710.41 which will be placed in our WALS funds for expenditure on technology.
DISCUSSION/ACTION ITEMS:
14.
EOEP. The library has completed an Emergency Operations and Evacuation Plan in conjunction with the City’s Safety Committee. The library now has maps posted throughout the building informing patrons where to go in case of an emergency. The EOEP is comprehensive, offering information on a variety of emergencies. We have assigned staff members to coordinate certain floors in case an evacuation is necessary. Each staff member will receive their own copy of the plan. In April, we will be participating in a tornado drill where staff will be tested on their knowledge of the plan. REQUESTED ACTION: Approval of EOEP for the library.
15.
Trustee Essentials #5. Kathy Wicihowski has agreed to present this Trustee Essential to the group. I will need a volunteer for Essential #7.
