Grafton Public Library

Director’s Report: November 2019

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November Statistics Overview

November 2019 Library Statistics

  • Met with Patti Keller to discuss G-Term project
  • Contacted GHS Re: Internship Program
  • Coordinated groundbreaking with Dana, Doug and BuildCom
  • Submitted FY21 budget draft
  • Developed the 2020 Action Plan
  • Attended BuildCom & construction meetings and wrote the MBLC construction report
  • Attended Friends Board meeting, publicized the Usborne Book Fair fundraiser, and promoted Grafton Celebrates the Holidays
  • Completed the 2020 Food Permit Application
  • Reviewed applications for a 20-hour / week vacancy, and began interviews
  • Worked on Program Policy
  • Posted Trustee vacancy
  • Building maintenance: parking lot lighting, dehumidifier, report leaks
  • Posted an online suggestion form to go with the physical suggestion box.

STAFF
Heidi and Susan renewed Passport Acceptance Agent certification.
Jan and Susan attended the Annual Circulation Meeting in Charlton.
Marilyn completed 2 webinars on managing volunteers.

CHILDREN’S SERVICES
November marked the last Willard House Once Upon a Storytime and Historical Society Storytime of the year. We will take a break and resume programming at Willard House in March and the Historical Society in February. We plan this winter break due to lower attendance during the winter months. We look forward to resuming our outreach storytimes next year! Grafton Public School and Busy Bee Academy preschool outreach visits continues as normal throughout the academic year.

This November we ran an Usborne books sale at the library. It was a huge success!  We offered a family night on a Wednesday and had an extremely talented balloon artist come and make fabulous balloon art for the children in the library. We offered light refreshments and saw 28 people from 5:30-7:30. $746.00 in books were purchased during our book fair and the library $373.42 in free books. I am hoping this is a program we are able to offer again in the future.

We are making a change in how we are running Mr. Kim in the future. We have had an uptick in people not registering all family members for the program of just dropping in and we have been over in our numbers. We will be taking signup in person or over the phone and we will be limiting the number to twenty and moving it into the program room. We hope this helps alleviate the problems we have been experiencing.

Blackstone Robotics came to do a program for us on a half day in November. The program was well received, but even in a large space, we had trouble accommodating the group. We are looking forward to moving into the new library building and the larger programming spaces that will be available to us.

TEEN SERVICES

This month Allison spent a lot of time doing final preparations on the Winter Reading Program: Reading is Magic. All the details can be found at: graftonlibrary.org/wrp. She did teaser posts on social media, made dozens and dozens of buttons, and worked on getting the letters printed.  Additionally, Allison sent out General and YA newsletters and continued making social media posts.

ADULT SERVICES

Outreach
Crescent Manor BookWagon had 14 visitors, 41 check-outs and renewals, 8 requests, and no new registrations.

Heidi took Scarecrow Pete to the Community Harvest Scarecrow Contest at the Harvest Home Fall Festival on  Sunday, November 3rd.  People who attended the event had the chance to see Pete and get the library’s name out there. Pete also got to bring props to the Festival.

Volunteers
There were a total of 23 people who put in 89 hours.

Museums
56 passes were reserved, 53 were picked up and there were 3 no shows.

We have a new pass to the Massachusetts State Police Museum and Learning Center! Reserve the pass online at http://www.eventkeeper.com/mars/tkflex.cfm?curOrg=GRAFTON&curApp=passes

Passports
We issued 10 passports and Heidi and Susan renewed their Passport Acceptance Agent Training

Circulation
We had 26 new borrowers registered. Jan and Susan attended the Annual Circulation Meeting in Charlton.

Collection Development

Evergreen
The upgrade to version 3.2 was accomplished without issues over Veterans Day weekend.

ILL
ComCat had a successful upgrade to the latest version of their software on 11/06.

Programs

“Not Just for Young Adults” Book Discussion Group met to discuss Fawkes by Nadine Brandes.

“Reads Well with Others” Adult Book Discussion Group met to discuss Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb.

Daytimers Book Group met to discuss The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg.

The “Inspirational Book Club” met to discuss Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & In Life, One Conversation at a Time by Susan Scott.

GPL Mystery Book Group met to discuss What the Dead Leave Behind by Rosemary Simpson.

Saturday Afternoon Knitters
G.U.M. (Grafton Ukulele Musicians) Monthly Jam

Library Display Topics

  • Thanksgiving
  • Downton Abbey

Circulation
Circulation for November was 9,634 physical items (a 3% decrease from last month and an 11% increase compared to last November) and 2,038 digital items (a 3% compared to last month and 57% increase compared to last November).

TECHNICAL SERVICES

623 items were added in November.

Ongoing projects include completing the NF tagging, YA series and genre projects, re-cataloging/replacing cases/tagging adult music collection, working with the Library of Things cataloging.

COMMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC

  • “Glad you have fax as a service.”
  • “I have to cancel my pass reservation for Roger Williams Park Zoo. Thank you so much for offering it.  Someday I’ll get to use it.”
  • “Has anyone told you it’s really musty in here?”
  • “You always look so cute.” and “I like your outfit” and “You’re always so festive. I love it.”  (All as a result of my “Reads Well With Others” Book Group costume for the book Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb.
  • “Thanks so much for the book recommendation.  It was awesome.” (The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, I think).
  • “Like the new please check out holds with us sign.”
  • “Love new door display at entrance.”
  • “I’m so excited. I didn’t know you had a sewing machine until I saw the Facebook post.  I told my girlfriend and she said she wanted to borrow it to hem some drapes.  I said she’d have to wait until I returned it. “
  • “Thank you.  You made my day. (helping the person look at and check out history so she could ILL the Thanksgiving music she got last year.)  You ladies helped me appreciate instrumental music too because of the CDs you got for me.”
  • “The books save me.  Thanks for everything you do for me.  It helps so much.”  (After the death of her husband.)
  • “I’m so glad you have the light in the parking lot.”
  • “I love your yard decorations.  You make the library beautiful.”
  • “I love the decorations [on the lawn].  They are a pleasure to look at.  I appreciate you taking the time to do it.  It’s your doing isn’t it? (Heidi ).  I said know that no,  the pumpkins were done by all of us and the idea was someone else’s not mine…though I did make the scarecrow. “Well I love it.”
  • “I didn’t know we could check out magazines!”
  • Do you always do this?” (dress up in my Gandalf  the Gray hat and Sense and Sensibility finger-less gloves).  I said mostly.  She laughed and laughed and said I made her day.
  • “Patron wanted to let you now how much she appreciated your efforts to get this for her.” (a grant finding book.)

NO LOG

  • 11/16 – No we don’t have little plastic dividers for you to hold your place in case you want to put a book back after flipping through it. (Suggested a bookmark sticking out)
  • 11/16 No, we don’t have selective service registration forms (online at sss.gov)
  • 11/12 No, we don’t have 7,000 books for sale!  We got a phone call from someone looking at a website called “Booksale Finder” —  I sent an email to them to correct the entry for GPL.
  • 11/12 We do not have a subscription to Banker & Tradesman magazine.
  • 11/8 We don’t have any Robotics books for adults
  • 11/5 No, you don’t need to scan your books in to return them (have had this question numerous times)

YES LOG

(We apparently didn’t say YES to anything in November… or at least, not outstanding enough to record!)

One response to “Director’s Report: November 2019”

  1. Annette McCarthy says:

    Wow. It was wonderful to see all you do during the day. Can’t get along without the library. I didn’t do any serious reading till my second child was born. Now I can’t get through a day without reading

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