Grafton Public Library

Director’s Report: July 2017

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Building
The LULA inspection (now every two years) was scheduled for August 23 by Garaventa.

We had a leaking air conditioning unit in the Main Reading Room and put a service call in to Renaud HVAC, and a tech came to clean out the unit.

We had a leak along a pipe by the emergency exit / staff entrance that turned out to be roof overflow coming down the vent; Barnard came out to clear the vent, clean some debris from the roof, add a witch’s hat to a pipe, and reseal some of the rubber surface. They recommended twice annual clearing of the pipe.

Two companies came out to look at the brick repointing. The chimney is very bad and in danger of crumbling. If it will be removed during construction, it may not be worth the repair costs. Intent is to apply for CPC funding in October for repointing on three sides of building.

Garden & Landscaping
Gardens look amazing. Thanks to Beth P for all of her hard work!

Budget
Please see attached report.

Circulation
Circulation for July was 13,445, down 5% from July 2016. Please see the attached circulation statistics for a complete annual overview, and the ARIS report, provided this month, for the July 1 2016-June 30 2017 report. Many patrons have reported problems getting email notifications since the Verizon/AOL merge. We’ve begun suggesting patrons choose text notifications, which seem more reliable.

We’ve been receiving 3-4 extra bins in delivery due to summer reading requests. The staff at the front desk have been doing a great job keeping up with all the holds, and juggling the fully packed holds shelf!

Museum Passes
213 passes were reserved, 180 picked up and 33 “no shows”. We continue to have requests for the Southwick Zoo pass, which we elected not to purchase this year due to cost. ($750 for 50 tickets). Patrons going to the Museum of Science have been happy to take advantage of the “while supplies last” coupons for the Omni Theater, Planetarium and Butterfly Garden. These special coupons were donated to the friends by a former Grafton resident.

Volunteers
We had 2 new volunteers start this month. There were a total of 20 regular volunteers, and 5 garden helpers, working a total of 211 hours. We have 2 potential new Home Delivery recipients after learning of these patrons through family members. The friends had volunteers provide hours of service from July 1 2016-June 30, 2016! Thanks to Aaron Swartz for submitting these numbers in time for the ARIS report.

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

Library Renovation
Beth attended the MBLC meeting at the Norwood Public Library on July 13 to hear the MBLC’s grant announcements. Grafton was awarded a provisional grant of $7,435,041 and was ranked #16 on the waiting list. A guide for waiting list libraries has been published to http://guides.mblc.state.ma.us/construction/waitlist.

Nine libraries are getting funding in FY18 (provided they secure matching funding) and it is anticipated that MPLCP monies will be reappropriated in 2018, and that Grafton’s project would be voted on by the state legislature and placed on the state’s annual capital project list in FY20/FY21, with 20% reimbursements contingent on MBLC benchmarks following. The first benchmark is a signed contract with MBLC.

Beth met with Tim, a financial analyst from UniBank, the Town accountant and treasurer/collector to discuss requirements moving forward with borrowing some money now to proceed with architectural drawings, hiring an OPM, etc. Beth was able to provide the provisional grant award letter and the project estimations for eligible and ineligible costs, demonstrating we surpassed the required 45.5% coverage of eligible costs for the project. Tim scheduled a further call in August to discuss borrowing in August.

Beth posted a vacancy notice for the Library Planning and Building Committee; there has been one person interested.

IT
At the end of June, an IT update and change to our DNS server resulted in several hours of down time – in the future, the Town needs to alert the Library when maintainence is scheduled and make sure there are staff on hand if corrections need to be made to individual machines.

Outreach and Partnerships
Crescent Manor BookWagon had 18 visitors, 72 check-outs and renewals, and 26 requests.

Friends
The Friends scheduled a fundraising meeting for Tuesday August 8.
15 boxes were donated to Thrift Books in July.
Aaron is doing an excellent job maintaining Down Under. Thanks for the updated signage!

Volunteers
Gail Poler volunteered to coordinate a cell phone drop box for used cell phones in any condition. Gail will take contents to the Senior Center so Barbara can redeem them for cash. The box is located in the foyer at the Main Reading Room entrance.

Staff
About half the staff attended an all town departments cookout at the end of the month. Thanks to Elinor Tidman and Patti Keller for covering!

Thanks to Susan for working with the Town to bulk order and store paper for an even greater discount! And thanks to Paul for bringing it over as needed.

Tech Services
Over 20 boxes of items arrived in the first week of July; Donna somehow unburied herself and added 981 items were added in July, did original cataloging on games and equipment., and entered non-fiction continuations, and weeded older, previous copies (travel, law, college, etc)

Children’s Room
Patrons have been very complementary about our summer programming. Our LEGO Tween builds have been wildly successful, with a full waiting list each week. We are looking into ways to allow more families a chance to participate in this and some of our other more popular programs, and may consider an attendance lottery in the future.

This year we introduced a Summer Stories program at the library each week for babies and toddlers. We open the Children’s Room early for this event so we don’t interfere with school aged children who wish to choose books and visit the library. The program has been a huge success with many families coming to spend their Tuesday mornings at the library. The program incorporates rhymes, songs, scarves, books, and bubbles and is so much fun for our patrons and staff.

We partnered with the Grafton Recreation Department for another successful Fun in the Sun program. This year we added a henna artist to the library’s table and she had a line of eager patrons the whole day! We saw around 450 children, teens, and adults and over 80 people received a henna tattoo.

Mr. Bill has joined us again this year for Summer Songs in the Park. His energy, enthusiasm, and love of music really show and he gets children and adults moving. Each week we changed locations so families got a chance to visit parks around town that they may not usually go to.

In addition to our Silly Science STEAM program for preschoolers, this summer we offered a STEM Kids program run by STEM Beginnings. Children K-4 had the opportunity to be scientists with this hands-on session. We learned about electricity, engineering, physics, and more.

Diane Edgecomb joined us again for a storytelling program centered around Stone Soup and other multicultural stories. The group had so much fun during this interactive program where they helped make stone soup, dance, and sing. This program was supported in part by a grant from the Grafton Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

Teen Services
Popular programs this month included LEGO Builds, Crafternoons, Lou’s Upcycling Workshop and a Writing Workshop with Julie Berry.

We also had a ton of new teen fiction and nonfiction added to the collection including: And Then There Were Four by Nancy Werlin. When five very different high school students are brought together under mysterious circumstances, they begin to discover that their parents are working together to kill them all.

Adult Services
The Library hosted the following book discussion groups in July: The “Not Just for Young Adults” Book Discussion Group met to discuss The Summer I saved the world — in 65 days by Michaele Weber Hurwitz; the Daytimers Book Group met to discuss The Seventeen Second Miracle by Jason F. Wright; the GPL Mystery Book Group met to discuss Absolute Friends by John le Carre; the Inspirational Book Club met to discuss Thank you for being late, by Thomas Friedman, and the “Reads Well with Others” Adult Book Discussion Group met to discuss The Humanity Project, by Jean Thompson.

The Library also hosted Saturday Afternoon Knitters, Green Cleaning with Leslie Reichert and the Boston Children’s Hospital Bloodmobile, A Move Toward Healthier Eating and Abandoned Asylums of Connecticut.

July Display themes included Beach Reads, Green Cleaning display to go with the library program, and an audio book display. The fiction display was “First Novels”, both old and new.

Collection Development
The Telescope light has an issue–we are working with John Root of the Aldritch Astronomical Society to repair it.

We now have a yarn winder, and have decided to have it for in-house use only. It is located on Heidi’s reference book shelf, on top. Patrons are welcome to come in to use it on site!

We continue to work on the non-fiction weeding project, finishing half of the 700’s. We’ve been happy to put loads of new material on the shelves this month!

Comments from the Public:
• “I really like to browse the book club shelf. It’s so nice to have something to look at that someone has picked out.”
• “So nice to be able to print here since I ran out of ink at home. So easy.”
• “Too many flyers.”
• “New library too big.”
• “The library grounds look spectacular.”
• “The raised beds look awesome.”
• “The formal beds look great.”
• “You read my mind when you bought the Beatrix Potter craft book, as that’s the theme of my relative’s baby nursery. Thank you for getting it.”
• “No parking due to concert.”
• “Problem with parking.”
• “No parking.”
• “Please designate parking only for library.”
• “Worth the risk if the movie is bad, I just turn it off. That’s the beauty of the library.”
• “Thank goodness!” (That we have fax service). “Such a relief.”
• [Response when thanked for thinking of us with regard to donated books]…”I always think of you. I love the Library.”
• “I love the library. There are so many interesting things coming in aren’t there? Like the telescope, ebooks, etc.)
• “Thank you for the help last week. It worked out beautifully. I really appreciate it.” (helping a patron attach a document to email.)
• Upton patron was pleased with all kinds of things: telescope, cook book display, etc.
• “Lee was very helpful. You all are.”

NO Log
7/31 Do you have any Garfield books? BG
7/31 Do you take credit cards?
7/26 Do you have an iPhone 7 charger? CZ
7/20 Is there an elevator? (No, a lift)
7/18 Are you hiring right now? (I mention that we asked for more positions but were not approved.) AC
7/13 You should open the CR at 9, and close at 8! Kids are up early!

YES Log
7/25 Yes, you do get a larger prize! -CZ
7/22 Is Davis Farmland Pass available next Saturday?
7/20 Will we get a better elevator with the renovation?
7/19 Yes, we do have books for babies. -CZ
7/19 Can you check out books without a library card?
7/19 Yes, you may bring your 7 month old baby to the library! -SL
7/18 “I want to thank you for introducing me to Hoopla” (9 year old boy!) -SL
7/14 I’ve had so much fun with overdrive and downloading books and reading them ~ Awesome! Was told about Libby.
7/13 Can I check out a ukulele?
7/13 You have the best board books of all the surrounding libraries -CZ
7/12 I’m so glad I was still able to take things out of the library even though there was no power -CZ

Respectfully submitted,
Beth Gallaway
Library Director

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