Grafton Public Library

Director’s Report: August 2017

Posted on

Reference Question of the Year: “Do you have emergency instructions for Monday (8/21), just in case something goes wrong? With the sun? Is there a fallout shelter nearby?”

I completed the state ARIS report used to secure State Aid funding by the August 18 deadline – thanks to Diane for reviewing and signing! We are slightly down in circulation – possibly due to slower purchasing with the spending freeze.

Summer Reading
Please complete an evaluation for the summer reading program that you participated in, online!
http://graftonlibrary.org/2017/08/24/take-our-summer-survey-and-win/

Summer Reading Program Registration Stats

2017
Adult – 253/ 306 (either ↓19% or ↑5% from last year)
Teen – 250 (↑71% from last year)
Kid – 539/548 (↓29%)

2016
Adult – 290 (up 625% from 2015)
Teen – 146 (up 40% from 2015)
Kid – 759 (up 185% from 2015)

2015
Adult – 40
Teen – 99
Kid – 266

Allison writes, “Kids and Adult figures total number of individuals that either signed up for a program or filled out a ticket. The original numbers are based on the number of registration tickets I made versus what was left. I am NOT 100% confident on these numbers, which is why I want to try electronic tickets next year. I am trying to compile an email list of kids and adults who participated so that I send them an email with our summer survey (and see if they will sign up for the newsletter). I’ve already done this for teens.”

The Summer Reading Program may only run for 6 weeks, but planning and executing is actually a year round process. We participate in the national Collaborative Library Summer Program, which schedules the theme 3 years in advance. Here is a rundown of our planning schedule:
August: Staff evaluation of program & debriefing, patron surveys/feedback
September: Stats and orders for next year due
October-January: Planning
February: Promotion of theme begins as when
March 15: Deadline for booking Summer Programs
April: Vacation programs match Summer Reading Program for promotional reasons
May 15: Calendar completed and printed in time for Fun
June: School visits to promote the program to all grades
Forthcoming Themes:
2018: Music Librarys Rock! / Artist Brian Pinkey
2019: A Universe of Stories / Artist Leeza Hernandez
2020: Theme: Fairytales, Mythologies, Fantasies / artist Leuyen Pham

Allison prepared a staff survey for feedback on this year’s summer reading program. Our Facebook announcement of the winners of the Sticker Voting for a favorite endangered animal reached over 2,000 people! The winners were the Fennec Fox, the Giant Panda, and the Sea Turtle. Thank you to the Friends of the Library for sponsoring! It’s a really engaging and interactive piece to our program.

Building
Our custodian, Paul, made great progress on the Walkabout list. Tasks completed include foam insulation around the air conditioners (we added an owl to scare away the birds that keep nested in the A/C units), painting the junction box, adding foam to the air conditioner units, removing the mousetrap, cleaning and painting the LULA, and painting the railings. Paul Cournoyer arranged for DPW to adjust the tilted lamp globe on the parking lot light.

The LULA is re-certified for another two years. A certificate will be issued via email. Ossian Foote from Garaventa said that before the next inspection in two years time, we should figure out which breaker goes to the louvered vent in the wall near the top of the lift shaft. For testing purposes, they’d like to turn off the breaker to see if it opens by itself. He suspects that said breaker is in the PP2 box as their notes say the lift itself is in that box at #38. He said it looks like someone took the index card with all the notes about what is where out of the box for some reason—mysterious!
Recycling bins for the copier corner and trash/recycling for outside were ordered at the end of August.

We had a leaking air conditioning unit in the Main Reading Room on the opposite side of the room on Saturday August 23. Susan put a service call in to Renaud HVAC, and a tech came to clean out the unit. It was suggested when this happened in July that they do a preemptive maintenance on the second unit. Three YA books were water-damaged and discarded.

Landscaping and Garden
Some miniature bunnies have been added to the fairy house. The Garden continues to thrive, although I am perplexed as to why the squash blossoms never erupted into vegetables.

Budget
Please see attached Budget Report.

Circulation
Evergreen was down briefly on August 10. Circulation for August was 13,577 physical and 2,958 digital, up slightly from July. Digital circulation seems to have jumped due to ePeriodicals. Please see the attached Circulation Report.

The Library Applications department at C/W MARS has been working on restructuring reports in phases. Some of our regularly used reports are now easier to access, and more are expected.

Collection Development
We continue to work on the non-fiction weeding project, and the 700’s are finished! Allison is working on the 600’s, and we only have 800-999 left. In the process, other books that are in bad shape or outdated are being culled, even if they don’t appear on the list we are working from. It’s also been a great opportunity to shelf-read, and rearrange. Once the project is completed, we will analyze the collection to buy replacements to fill gaps, and update the Ingram Continuations Program.

Overdrive added a new feature for patrons to be able to make recommendations, which will be monitored by C/W MARS staff. This is a move towards patron-drive collection development and is an awesome new feature!

Museum Passes
In August 224, passes were reserved, 199 picked up and there were 25 “no shows.”

Volunteers
Boy Scout Troop 106 reached out and offered to be of service.

Thanks to volunteers Aaron & Janelle for making sample eclipse viewers for our program.

Grants and Gifts
Thank you to Don Davidson, who donated a 3-year subscription to American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) magazine!

Thank you to the Central MA Lyme Foundation, who donated a collection of materials on Lyme Disease.

Thank you to Jane Nozzolillo who donated a copy of her book, the Littlest House. An additional copy was purchased for the Grafton Collection, as she is a former staff member and local author.

Thank you again to UniBank, who funded the development and implementation of Boopsie, a C/W MARS Library app which has been customized for our website and databases! It had a quiet launch in mid-August. Please check it out and add it to your smartphone or tablet: http://www.cwmars.boopsie.com/

Borrowers, Attendance & Usage Statistics, Program Statistics, Reference Statistics, Web Metrics, Social Media Metrics
Please see attached ARIS statistics.

Library Renovation
Tim’s office provided a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) for an Owner’s Project Manager (OPM) scheduled to appear in the Central Register on August 16 with submissions due by 11:00am Friday September 13. Tim took a phone call with UniBank mid-August and says that if the Board of Selectman will vote on “conclusive determination” that we have been awarded a grant at next meeting, then we can proceed with the construction project.
MBLC called a meeting to review our design and grant application; the meeting will be with the Director, Architect, and OPM on Thu Oct 26 at 10:30 at the Shrewsbury Public Library.

Lisa Rice applied for and accepted a position on the Library Planning and Building Committee.

IT
On August 8 we received an email in the morning that the Internet would be down for maintenance at 4:30pm (when Town offices closed). When I investigated further, the date was not correct. I clarified that the service would include the Library, and it did. With less than 24 hours notice, we were down at our busiest time of day. I respectfully requested (again) the Library and it’s operating hours could be kept in mind, and if in the future we could have more notice and if this type of maintenance work could take place when ALL departments are closed, such as after 9pm or on a Sunday morning. We had no phone, staff or public internet or wifi, or access to files for an hour and a half. Several patrons complained. Tim assured me it was unavoidable, but unlikely to happen again.

A Hoopla upgrade is coming soon! Hoopla will soon be available for Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire–making Hoopla even more accessible for patrons! With no wait lists, hoopla content is always available, and with these new additions, patrons will have the ability to stream over 33,000 movie and TV selections directly through their televisions!

Outreach and Partnerships
Crescent Manor BookWagon had 16 visitors, 65 check-outs and renewals, 0 new registration, and 17 requests.

Thank you to Jen McNeil (and Millie!), Beth Patch, Marilyn Cusher and Karen Durand for staffing the Library table at National Night Out! Our prize wheel and giveaways were a great draw.
The Grafton Land Trust put together a Storybook Trail in June to celebrate the library building’s 90th anniversary on the Williams Preserve on Brigham Hill Road. The book is Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk.
Friends
Thank you to the Friends for sponsoring a World Wildlife Federation Donation as part of the Build a Better World Summer Reading Program!

Volunteers
We have one new Home Delivery recipient, and one that returned after an extended stay in rehab, bringing our total up to six. We also have a new volunteer driver, who replaced one who left for graduate school. We had 2 new volunteers start this month. There were a total of 29 regular volunteers, 2 ELL tutors, and 2 garden helpers, working a total of 292 hours.

Staff
Beth distributed invitations to staff appreciation. RSVP by September 5, 2017. Staff reviewed their FY18 accruals.

Tech Services
493 items were added in August. Donna reports she did some original cataloging on equipment/toys/games, and began a large database cleanup using Allison’s “List of Weird Things for Donna.” I am pleased to report we are serving as a pilot library for the Evergreen Web Client (we have installed software for the back end behind the scenes transactions like circulation and cataloging), and Donna is testing and evaluating the software and sending feedback to C/W MARS.

Children’s Room
Summer may have just ended, but we are back in full gear planning for fall programming and compiling summer stats.
We capped off our summer programming with a wildly popular concert by Grafton’s own Mr. Kim! We were lucky and had beautiful weather for the event. We estimate that around 300 people came out to see Mr. Kim sing, perform magic and puppetry, and even debut a brand new song! Chairs, blankets, and picnics were set up all over the Common and a wonderful time was had by all.

This summer, we offered 61 programs during our 5 week program and we had 1,744 children and caregivers attend. Sarah reports that she feels the summer was successful, but Allison feels our registration numbers are low and inaccurate. Next year, we are planning on implementing a new system to track registrants and details are still being worked out. As always, we were thankful for to the Municipal Center for accommodating us and our many programs, but offsite programming still comes with its own share of problems: lack of access to the collection, lack of access to program supplies and materials, coverage at the Library while staff are offsite, confusion over location of the program, and competition for space.

Teen Services
In August we concluded our summer programs and randomly picked winners in each age group. Winners have been contacted and Allison is in the process of purchasing gift cards. Winners will be contacted again when their prize is ready to pick up.

Allison created and sent out surveys for adults, teens, and kids to get feedback on our summer program, as well as materials they like to check out and purchase suggestions. These surveys end on September 30th. She will send out one more email before then and collect and share the data received.

Allison reports, “I keep trying to improve my Constant Contact emails. My goal is to send out 2-3 a month. One that contains upcoming events, new items to the collection, and related info for teens (like the Teens’s Top Ten voting). I’ve changed the format to this a little bit: instead of just listing the titles of items I am including pictures so that it feels more like you are browsing the shelf. Each book links to the catalog for patrons to check its status or place a hold. The second one is a themed booklist.”

This month’s featured book is Refugee by Alan Gratz. Although separated by continents and decades, Josef, a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany; Isabel, a Cuban girl trying to escape the riots and unrest plaguing her country in 1994; and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy in 2015 whose homeland is torn apart by violence and destruction, embark on harrowing journeys in search of refuge, discovering shocking connections that tie their stories together.

Adult Services
In August, the “Not Just for Young Adults” Book Discussion Group met to discuss Boys, Bears and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots by Abby McDonald; the Daytimers Book Group met to discuss The All You Can Dream Buffet by Barbara O’Neal; the GPL Mystery Book Group met to discuss Coming Back by Marcia Muller; the “Reads Well with Others” Adult Book Discussion Group met to discuss Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen; and the “Inspirational Book Club” met to discuss The Yellow Envelope : one gift, three rules, and a life-changing journey around the world by Kim Dinan.

The Library hosted Saturday Afternoon Knitting, the “45-Million Dollar Flower” Pastel Workshop, Simple Steps to Taming Clutter and a DIY Solar Eclipse Glasses & Viewing. In Simple Steps to Taming Clutter, we offered an outcome-based evaluation that demonstrated a 20% jump in perceived learning on average, the presenter scored in the top 90% for satisfaction, and the content exceeded expectations. Comments on the program included:

“Jenna is awesome! She has so many helpful tips for daily use to help keep our life and space organized. Will put into use as soon as I go home.” And “Jenna is a wonderful presenter with accessible, useful information. Very motivational.” One participant commented it was difficult to hear at times.

Heidi proctored three exams and went to the Farmers Market once. She notes, “On August 9th when the server was down for maintenance, there were at least six people who went away unable to do what they came to the library to do.”

Displays for August included Whodunits, Beach Reads, August is Family Fun Month, and an Audiobook display.

Comments from the Public:
• “Mommy, I like this place.” “I do too. It’s cool. I didn’t know they had another floor.”
• Two different people said that the bookstore looks great!
• “This is the first library I’ve been to where I’ve been able to get handouts to walk me through ebooks.”
• “I’m so excited. I didn’t know you had museum passes until my friend told me. I usually have to pay full price when I take them [the kids] places.”
• “The Biomes Marine Biology Center was great! Lots of hand on stuff- petting tanks. The kids could pet sharks. There were presentations. Loved it.”
• When we couldn’t find a patron’s hold on the hold shelf, the patron said. “That’s OK. Just another excuse to visit. As I said, I’m always thrilled to walk in here.”
• A patron with vision issues and needed help printing things said, “Everyone here has been so nice to me so far.”
• “You always help me out. You’re like psychologists or psychiatrists. I can’t watch TV anymore because of Trump. He just needs to stop talking. I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to read instead.”
• Patrons complain that they are not heard by the person on the other end of the call when they are in the library.

NO Log
• 8/23 “I don’t think the library sign is working. I couldn’t find a parking spot tonight.”
• 8/18 “Do you have emergency instructions for Monday, just in case something goes wrong? With the sun? Is there a fallout shelter nearby?”
• 8/15, 8/16, 8/17,8/18 numerous requests for eclipse glasses
• 8/16 No Southwick passes
• 8/16 No passes to Canobie Lake Park (2nd call this month) -SL
• 8/15 We don’t have a universal charger for android phones -SL
• 8/12 No more Consumer Reports online (patron hopes it comes back in the future) -SL
• 8/7-12: numerous requests for eclipse glasses -SL

YES Log
• 8/22 Do you have Thomas the Train books? You guys are the best! -CZ
• 8/15 There’s a lady upstairs wearing a real tiara! This library is amazing!
• 8/15 You guys have had the best building materials this summer! -CZ
• 8/15 I love it when I get a receipt and see how much I have saved by not buying books! -CZ

Respectfully submitted,
Beth Gallaway
Library Director

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *