Weekly Report: June 6-11, 2022
Congratulations to our Library Director who was awarded Library Advocate of the Year for 2022 by the Massachusetts Library Association’s Paralibrarian Section!
This week we circulated 2,294 items, received 482 items in transit and sent 505; requested 492 items and filled 393 hold requests; registered 14 patrons for library cards, and added 30 new items. The most popular book this week is Unplugged by Gordon Korman. We hosted 22 meetings in our conference, study and tutoring rooms for 75 people, including a Homeowner’s Association Meeting, a Grafton Middle School Book Club, and a Nursing Association Meeting. Reserve a room in advance online at https://graftonlibrary.org/reserve/meeting/.
On Friday afternoon, The GHS National Honors Society has organized a Pillowcase Project event. Children can come to fill their pillowcases with various items that would be beneficial during an emergency. Our goal is to provide kids with a feeling of security and preparation in case of an unfortunate situation. This is an Independent Service Project as a part of GHS NHS.
This week Beth approved meeting room use and totaled statistics, publicized upcoming events, greeted the Middle School Book club that held their last meeting of the year on site, and did a short A/V training for an upcoming program. She attended a construction team meeting and addressed building issues including HVAC, flooding after recent rain, the newly installed tutoring room doors, and a ceiling crack.
Eric attended a webinar on the new statewide databases and contributed to the Beyond the Beaten Path book display.
We extended offers to fill the administrative assistant and reference librarian positions and are hoping for acceptance and then appointments June 21.
Scanning is not functional right now because Microsoft added a layer of authentication and we need to reset the machine. In the meantime, computer users can scan to a zip drive—bring your own or purchase for $5. Staff are preparing for a major change to email and word-processing as the Town shifts back to Outlook and adds Office 365 from Gmail and Google Drive.
Borrower Services staff managed the adult circ desk, the lobby, the AMH equipment, room reservations, museum pass reservations, placed holds and answered patron questions, assisted patrons with faxing and printing, assisted patrons with self -check in and self-checkout and processed delivery. Allie, Jane and Ranjita visited the new Optima sorting facility in Worcester, to see where all the books are sorted for delivery. Interesting facts of the new Optima Facility Tour is that 300,000 items are sorted per week, 15 billion or sorted per year. Their accuracy is 99.95% and less than 5% of books are rolled over to the next day. The cost per item was 38 cents, less than the price of a postage stamp – very efficient!
Ranjita began learning how to process out of network interlibrary loans and did battery inventory checks. Jane worked on NYTimes Best Seller List, items with alerts report and patrons with wrong home library report. Allie worked on the Genre Sticker Project organization for volunteers and staff, updated the website with newsletters, made additions to the Readers Advisory database, tested the fax for confirmation reports, helped with the printer at the reference desk, edited receipt templates, attended a CW MARS Cataloging Roundtable, edited a new CW MARS brochure to add our logo, started working on July newsletter graphics, and processed items from the Commonwealth Catalog.
Susan supervised the team, worked with Market Spark on faxing issues, contacted Benchmark for scanning issues, completed an employed review, prepared for another employed review, arranged for six items to be delivered to homebound patrons, interviewed a prospective volunteer, cleared the hold shelf, processed out of network interlibrary loans and worked on an updated list of passwords.
Children’s Room staff planned and prepared for the upcoming Summer Library Program, and assisted patrons. Sarah coordinated the Tom Knight/Kindergarten Readiness program with the YFCP and blocked out the 2022/2023 library storytime schedule. Jen updated the Library event calendar and social media, and shepherded the Tom Knight/Kindergarten Readiness program with the YFCP on Thursday evening. Cyndi managed the CR library of things, followed up with volunteers. She has been placed on a Grand Jury, an appointment which will last up to 18 months, and we will be losing her a day a week from the Children’s Room, creating a scheduling gap. Mare managed volunteers. Stacie decorated the room for June—it’s full of rainbows!–and set up book displays. Kristin coordinated with the local schools.
Last week Heidi hosted the Inspirational Book Discussion of the book Clean My Space : the secret to cleaning better, faster — and loving your home every day by Melissa Maker. She also answered reference questions, planned programs, advertised library events and did Library Outreach at the Grafton Pride event on Saturday.
Summer Reading logging continues at https://graftonlibrary.beanstack.com/reader365.
A reminder that the Library will be CLOSED on Monday June 20 in observance of Juneteenth. No items are due.