Grafton Public Library

Library Weekly Report Week of May 8-13, 2023

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This week we circulated 2,380 items, received 469 items in transit and sent 521 items. We requested 473 items and filled 414 hold requests; registered 17 patrons for library cards, and added 65 new items. The most popular book this week is Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. We hosted 32 meetings in our conference, study, and tutoring rooms for 134

people including Grafton Democratic Town Committee, Grafton Soccer Club Board of Directors, Small Stones planning, Girl Scouts troop 65197, Girl Scouts Grafton Lakes Service Unit as well as private -work, study, homeschool, and tutoring sessions.

Admin
Beth attended Town Meeting – the FY24 Library budget passed as submitted. She drafted and posted a vacancy notice for the new 18-hr per week Library Associate, Teen Services position so we can have someone start on July 1, 2023. We did not have any other items on the warrant.

The Board of Library Trustees met to approve minutes, bills, and a letter of support committing up to $109,114 for restoration of the cupola. We will seek out additional funding. Beth completed submittal of outstanding items for the MHC preservation grant application; we should get notification of project funding in June. She and William Blake met with architect David L. King to get a better understanding of the plan and scope of work.

Several people have expressed interest in volunteering to help with Library gardens. Beth coordinated training with the head gardener and connected them with Capital Campaign regarding plantings, and is working with a resident to provide a butterfly observation program, since our gardens are host to birds, butterflies, and insects. Of note MA Audubon society’s Bird-A-Thon is this weekend—what can you spot on our site? We’ve seen robins, blackbirds, chickadee, jays, and hawks! https://www.massaudubon.org/get-outdoors/activities/birding/bird-a-thon.

Beth attended GUM Jam (focus was on Beatle’s music!); worked on updating the schedule, events, calendar and website; and approved meeting room requests. Our intern worked on promotional posters for our social media accounts and finalized a Library QR code scavenger hunt for displaying photos of the Library before renovations took place, and  made promotional materials for library databases of interest to teens, including Tutor.com and Comics Plus. Beth met with someone who wants to do a facility rental in June, met with IT, checked in with a union steward on outstanding items, and met with various staff. She will be on vacation and unavailable next week; the BoLT chair and Asst. Town Manager have been alerted, and managerial staff received clear instructions for the task delegated to them: call in temps as needed to staff our facility. Thank you again to BoLT for allocating funds to cover service desk during staff leave.

Eileen maintained the collection of periodicals, took care of incoming mail, prepared bills, and send out late notices. Debby compiled the Weekly Report, worked on social media updates, and completed payroll and scheduling tasks as well as tasks for the Board of Library Trustees. She attended the Town Meeting and special meeting of the Board of Library Trustees on Monday evening and filled in gaps in the Teen Room schedule.

Borrower Services
Staff managed service desks, delivery, museum passes, the lobby, room reservations and Automatic Materials Handling equipment. They assisted patrons, placed holds, performed readers’ advisory, and supervised volunteers.

Kara placed the May order of adult CD audiobooks, began working on the June title list for Pride Month, checked CWMars top titles against the collection, reviewed industry newsletters to add upcoming titles to purchase lists, attended the Ingram standing order program meeting for adult fiction, ran a report to weed DVDs and Blu-rays to make room for new donated titles, and ran Evergreen reports for lost, transit, and missing items for April. Jane posted the New York Times Best Seller List for print and audio fiction and recommended titles for purchase, completed the conflict of interest training, provided AV support for a program, collected items with alerts for invalid RFID tags, and continued weeding adult fiction. Ranjita posted the New York Times Best Seller List for print and audio nonfiction and recommended titles for purchase; processed ComCat requests and pending library card applications; performed a routine check of the Library of Things and processed new items, and processed new adult DVDs. Allie researched CW MARS staff guidance on quantity of patron cards, shelved new adult fiction, trained a new hire in room reservations and museum passes, took photos of the “Mind-Body & Spirit” display, and created a music video from the photos for social media outlets. She planned the staircase display for June’s Pride Month, created Spotlight for Fiction content and graphics for different newsletter sections, created graphics for June’s Museum of the Month, and created the June adult events printable flyer. Sandhya managed out of network requests for materials and followed up on open issues; worked on interlibrary loans; cleared expired holds from the hold shelf and followed up with patrons; worked on the home delivery service; created more seed packets and labels for the Seed Library; created graphics and requested titles for the June endcap display; assembled kits for the take-and-make yarn craft program, and hosted the daytime Unplug with Art program for adults.

Children’s Services
Sarah moved surplus shelving, ran two sessions of Toddler Time, ran a session of Preschool Storytime, ran an outreach storytime program at Willard House & Clock Museum, ran three preschool outreach sessions at NGES, discussed final details for summer partnership with Willard House & Clock Museum, and planned for upcoming programs and school visits. Jen worked on the upcoming CR newsletter, updated EventKeeper, finalized the printed summer reading calendar, and ran a session of Library Babies. Jen and Sarah presented a program for the 6th graders at MSES who did not attend Nature’s Classroom. Stacie updated CR room displays, ran two 2 sessions of Drop-In Arts & Crafts, assisted patrons, and prepped for upcoming programming. Cyndi went through the emails she received while she was out, met with staff to get updated on anything new that happened while on vacation, trained a new volunteer, and put together a math book display for K-2 & 3-5. Kristin delivered materials to the local schools. Mare managed volunteers, continued to reach out to new volunteers, worked on the volunteers’ schedules, assisted patrons, tidied up the room, and shelved.

Teen Services
Thank you to staff for continuing to cover shift in the Teen Room in Allison’s absence. Sarah S put up displays for Tiara Day and Sherlock Holmes Day; planned displays for Pride month; kept up with reviews for new YA books, collected a list of upcoming YA nonfiction; and updated the manga release spreadsheet. We had several incidents of teens being disrespectful to the space and to staff which were handled well.

Reference Services
Heidi and Eric assisted with tech and reference questions as well as circulation, worked on monthly statistics, and attended an Ingram meeting.  Heidi helped select books for the next Mystery Book Club; hosted the “Not Just For Young Adults” Book Group discussion of Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira; helped host the Friends of the Library’s Community Read Book Discussion of Love & Saffron by Kim Fay on Thursday, May 11th.  (If you couldn’t make it, but want to discuss the book, we’ll be talking about it at the Daytimers Book Group on Tuesday, May 16th at 1:30pm and at the “Reads Well with Others” Book Group, on Monday, May 22 at 7:30pm.)  Eric refreshed the reception book display and bookends and met with OUT MetroWest for June programming.

Technical Services
Cynthia unpacked items as they arrived; cataloged new young adult and children’s books; coordinated a meeting and met with a Collection Development Librarian from Ingram to discuss our standing order; sent requests for records to the CatCenter; and worked on fixing problem items.

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