Weekly Report October 29-November 4
Library Weekly Report
Week of October 29 – November 4, 2023
This week we circulated 1,847 items, received 510 items in transit, and sent 568 items. We requested 392 items and fulfilled 452 hold requests; registered 11 patrons for library cards, and added 79 new items. The most popular book this week is The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach. We hosted 34 meetings in our conference, study, and tutoring rooms for 79 people including Small Stones planning, as well as private work, study, homeschool, and tutoring sessions.
Thank you to all of our visitors who made Halloween so amazing this year! We passed out 1,400 rubber ducks between the Recreation Department’s Friendly Trick-or-Treat event last week and Trick-or-Treating at the library on Halloween night. Many people stopped by the library on Halloween throughout the day and not only enjoyed the staff Barbie costume theme, but had their picture taken in our life-size Barbie box as well.
Building
The Community Room and Children’s Room remain closed and the Friends of the Grafton Public Library book sale is still on hiatus as we await reconstruction from flood damage. While we anticipate construction should begin soon, we do not have a definitive timeline. We thank everyone for their continued patience as we navigate this situation.
Admin
The director is out on FMLA leave through the end of the calendar year. In her absence, staff are keeping the day-to-day operations running along smoothly under the supervision of our incredible Department Managers. We would like to thank Trustees Carrie Hogan and Aaron Vandesteen for coming out to sign the warrants to pay bills this week; Jen McNeil from the Children’s Department for managing website updates; Mary Lauria and Kristin Pasacane for assisting with payroll submission; and Town Administrator, Evan Brassard and Assistant Town Administrator, William Blake for their continued support.
Eileen maintained the collection of periodicals, took care of incoming mail, sent late notices, prepared bills, paid invoices and assisted with coverage for Borrower Services. Debby compiled the Weekly Report, and worked on payroll, scheduling, social media, tasks for the Board of Library Trustees, and in the Director’s absence, continues to assume a number of additional tasks to keep the Admin office on track.
Borrower Services
Staff managed the adult circ desk, delivery, museum passes, the lobby, room reservations, and Automatic Materials Handling equipment. We assisted patrons, placed holds, performed readers’ advisory, and supervised volunteers.
Kara added adult fiction standing order titles to future orders; put out new adult graphic novels and manga; prepared the ARIS, circulation statistics, and circ narrative for October; sent October’s OverDrive MARC records to CWMARS; pulled materials for Crescent Manor and made the monthly visit; ordered items for next month’s Crescent Manor visit; took down last month’s staircase and graphic novel displays; set up the November endcap and graphic novel displays; and created bookmarks. Jane posted the New York Times Best Seller List for print and audio fiction and recommended titles for purchase; corrected patron records with the wrong home library; prepared graphics for an endcap display featuring vegan cookbooks to celebrate World Vegan Month; and prepared tongue twisters to display celebrating International Tongue Twister Day on November 12. Ranjita posted the New York Times Best Seller List for print and audio nonfiction and recommended titles for purchase performed a routine check of the Library of Things. Sandhya managed out of network requests for materials and followed up on open issues; worked on interlibrary loans and followed up with patrons; cleared expired holds and followed up with patrons who had missing items; assisted patrons with room reservations, and a number of faxing, printing, and scanning services; checked, updated and responded to interlibrary loan items ordered and unfillable requests; planned adult programming for November/December including necessary items to order; coordinated with patrons and volunteers about home delivery; reviewed expiring museum passes and processed renewals; and continued preparing for the next season of the Seed Library. Allie added titles to the Humorous section in the Readers Advisory Database, researched Readers Advisory databases at other libraries, and converted RA Database to Excel; added new contacts to Constant Contact for e-newsletters; set up the staircase display for November for Native American Heritage Month; edited the newsletter and prepared for distribution; reviewed the meeting room policy for tutors; and trained with Technical Services for CAT Center requests, processing/cataloging new books, repairing books, and Ingram ordering and grids. In Tech Services, she processed new books and submitted CAT Center requests for MARC records.
Children’s Services
The Children’s Room staff continues working out of the temporary CR space located in the Friends of the Library Corner while we await repairs to damage sustained in the August flood. As we continue with our department’s displacement, we are feeling the strain and challenges of working with limited space and resources. Staff have continued to field questions and concerns from the public ranging from sympathetic understanding to frustration about the closure of the Children’s Room, our current programming hiatus, and the temporary suspension of the Friends of the Grafton Public Library’s book sale on a daily basis. At this time, the timeline of the project continues to be unclear, making it challenging to alleviate the concerns of the public.
Children’s Room staff presented outreach Storytime programming at Busy Bee Academy, planned and prepped for Halloween trick or treating, worked on a life size Barbie box prop to be used for display during Halloween, began program planning for the new year, began our yearly Summer Reading promotional material order, placed book and materials orders, reorganized and maintained the temporary collection, stored excess materials that we not able to fit on current shelving, lesson planned for November & December outreach programming, assisted patrons with hold requests and reader’s advisory, attended professional development, communicated with patrons, updated displays with seasonal items, attended the Summer 2024 webinar, and assisted patrons.
Teen Services
Allison spent some time working in Tech Services to catalog materials, working with Allie and Eric who are also being cross trained on that department; attended the department head meeting; compiled monthly stats for October; and worked on a book order. Sarah S. changed displays for November, planned programming, answered questions, and performed readers’ advisory. Shawn interacted with teens and supervised the Teen Room during after-school hours.
Reference Services
Heidi and Eric assisted with tech and reference questions, circulation, room reservations and museum passes. Heidi hosted the “Reads Well with Others” Book Group discussion of Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune, worked on event PR, statistics, and collection development. Eric also cataloged and ordered items for the adult non-fiction section, recorded monthly statistics for databases, and organized the new non-fiction section.
Technical Services
Prior to her departure at the end of last week, Cynthia trained Allison C, Allie, and Eric in various aspects of Technical Services. All three worked brief shifts throughout the week to keep the department moving along without interruption in service getting new materials on the shelves for patrons.