Weekly Report: Week of July 11-15, 2022
This week we circulated 3,518 items, received 617 items in transit and sent 591 items. We requested 636 items and filled hold 535 requests; registered 32 patrons for library cards and added 7 new items. The most popular book this week is The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter by Hazel Gaynor. We hosted 14 meetings in our conference, study and tutoring rooms for 18 people, for private work, study, and tutoring sessions.
Grafton Ukulele Musicians met at Apple Tree Arts to sing and strum. They will meet at ATA in August as well, and also plan to participate in Play Music on the Porch Day as a group on Saturday August 27, location TBA. Beth and Dana Wilson from the Library Board of Trustees hosted the first Library Gardening program where seven volunteers donated eight hours of service pulling weeds from the library grounds. We saw a goldfinch and a hummingbird, moths and butterflies, and bees and bunnies while working. Pizza and salad were donated by
Pepperoni Express. The next event is Wed July 27 from 4-6 – RSVP at graftonlibrary.org/events.
Eileen and Beth attended VADAR training for the new accounting software, and managed to submit bills for warrant #3! Beth attended the Grafton Anti-Racist Book Club’s inaugural meeting; we will be providing support with space and assisting members get copies of the titles they will be discussing. She also gave Debby introductory training in scheduling and payroll.
Beth met with Evan, with Library department heads, with the Board of Trustees Chair, and corresponded with capital Campaign. She conducted final interviews for the Technical Services Librarian position and hired a new head of Borrower Service to start in August; a name will be released when the hiring memo is complete. She registered staff for an upcoming CPR training which will enable us to complete our Food Permit.
Willard House and Clock Museum will be donating a clock this fall, to be on temporary long-term loan for the Historic Reading Room. We are planning an event in November with a horology lecture and wine and appetizer reception. Beth also worked on dates for hosting some of the events for the Small Stones Festival of the Arts in October.
As acting head of Borrower Services, Beth corresponded with patrons about damaged and donated books. She also purchased eBooks and eAudio from OverDrive.
Beth met with the construction team, building committee, and our construction specialist from MBLC. Paul from CTA construction delivered all the operational manuals and plans for the new library building and was on site on Wed for a final review. HVAC work continued with Advantage and LG. The green roof was fertilized. GCTV worked with IT and we can now go LIVE with events, meetings and programs from our Community Room, a project ten years in the making. CAVT Solutions came out on Friday to address some A/V issues.
We received a recommendation to remove an item from the collection that negatively portrays Native Americans and will go through our request for reconsideration process for the item.
Sandhya Shenoy accepted a promotion to Senior Library Associate for the additional duties taken on with Susan Leto’s retirement. She has been employed with the Library since May 2016 with increased responsibilities over the last 4 years.
Borrower Services staff assisted patrons at the circulation desk and in the lobby. Sandhya processed, ordered, requested and returned CLIO/COMCAT materials. She updated and renewed museum passes, added new seed packets to the Seed Library, handled issues with AMH systems, ordered books for August displays, and processed ILL emails. Sandhya and Ranjita processed home deliveries. Jane reviewed the NYT best seller fiction list while Ranjita reviewed the non-fiction list purchase suggestions were made. Jane also put together the Dewey Decimal Number of the Week display for 200-299 (religion, mythology, theology), and continues searching for complete large print Amish series.
The Children’s Room is in full swing with summer programming and the staff have been busy with children and caregivers reading, making use of public computers, attending programs, and cooling off in the air-conditioned space. Children’s Room staff have been hard at work assisting patrons, running various programs, and prepping for upcoming programming. Programs offered this week include Teddy Bear Camp-In, Summer Movie & Craft, Comic
Creators Club, Summer Stories for Babies and Toddlers, two sessions of Summer Tie Dye, Summer Preschool Storytime, Campfire Ghost Stories, Summer LEGO Brick Builders, Graphic Novel Design Class, Summer Songs in the Park, Summer HexBugs, Summer Gaming, and Color Me Calm.
Teen Services has spent most of their time this week on programming. This week’s programs included Tie Dye (a second session will be in August), Turning Red movie night, and Anime Club. We hosted two outside presenters this week: New York Times bestselling author Michael Tougias to talk about his book The Finest Hours and comic artist and author Cathy Johnson who will be teaching a zine making workshop on Saturday.
Heidi and Eric answered reference questions. Eric got a very nice compliment from a patron for his patience and helpfulness in assisting a patron with computer needs. Heidi created library cards for patrons and worked on statistics. She also shepherded the showing of the movie The Finest Hours on Tuesday, July 12th worked on event planning. Eric met with Gale database representatives and is researching various options for rehoming weeded items.