Staff Meeting Notes

On Tuesday the 29th, Sara sent out the minutes of the staff meeting on the 25th.

If you were not able to attend, please take a moment and read over them.  Please talk to Sara or I if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Brandon

Door Count is coming!

Next week starts Door Count!

As usual, please record the gate numbers every hour and the in house use statistics once a day.

If you have any questions, please ask Sara or myself!

Thanks,
Brandon

Language Access Plan (LAP)

Greetings - I am adding the highlights here for you to share with your staff members regarding the Language Access Plan. An Online training for staff is planned and will be happening sometime in August via the LMS platform, but it will be nice if our staff is informed earlier rather than latter. I was told by the Language Access Committee Chair that he is going around City Hall and putting Language Identification Guides on every desk. So, there is a potential that we will start to get questions.

Here is a link to the stats sheet. Again, this was my attempt to create something we could use, but please feel free to tweak it, make more user friendly, personalize it and above all share your creative ideas with your colleagues.  Moving forward, we will start collecting statistics. I would like to start collecting these effective July 1st, 2014, start of new fiscal year for the City of Houston.

(I've had to edit this to make it fit correctly.  Please check the comments for the rest of the post).

Best regards,

Shammi

Awarding Chipotle coupon and bag instructions

Please put a note in Evanced that says “Bag awarded LOCATION/INITIALS”.  Please check Evanced for this note before giving a child a bag. Remember, the customer needs to have the log with him/her, and there needs to be at least 5 books read, and all 5 STREAM program stickers in the log.

The reason we don’t have a way to actually award in Evanced is because it confuses the system to have more than 2 criteria to track, and it’s already tracking number of hours and number of books read. Please continue to use the Google Form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1cuJSBaN7Sbjf-sygm3EhaTjdkk6QG-LUfi2_-ZkAo60/viewform to track the number of bags and coupons given away, in addition to writing the note in Evanced.

Thanks!

Sara

Last Minute Time Off Requests

Today I've had three different people come to me with either vacation time needs or needing time off for various appointments in the next two days

While I can sometimes accommodate these requests, please give me as much notice as you can for any non-emergency time off request as is humanly possible.  I

Please do not be surprised if I have to tell you that I cannot give you the time off due to operational needs.

The *best* times to schedule anything personal is the morning of your branches late night (Tuesday for ACR and Thursday for OAK) or Friday mornings.

When I am unavailable, let Sara know and send me an email.

Even if you have spoken with me about it, I have 13 different people to keep up with and unless you see the schedule marking you as being out, there is a good chance I have forgotten it.

Thanks,
Brandon

Unblocking Websites

If Websense (our Internet filter) blocks a customer from accessing a website, you can unblock that site on a temporary basis by following the procedures outlined on the Reference Page of the Intranet under CIPA FAQ: Disabling the Websense Filter:  https://hplnet.hpl.lib.tx.us/depts/neighborhood/CIPA-FAQ.pdf.  As noted in the FAQ, you will need to contact the IT Helpdesk for the override password.

If you or a customer feels that Websense is blocking a website incorrectly and that it should be readily available, please send that information to Lin Swalley (lin.swalley@houstontx.gov).  The Collection Development Department will review the site and determine if the website should be unblocked.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Thanks,

Syma

How to count holds for statistics

Here's a reminder on how the holds are defined for statistics:

·         Pulled:  Items on the paging lists-whether found or not found, because you spent time looking for everything on the list, didn't you?

·         Processed:  Items received in delivery, items that come across the desk as holds for customers (both in house and to send in delivery), and items cleared from the holdshelf. If an item cleared from the holdshelf activates a hold, you can count it twice, since you are spending twice the amount of time on it.

Please make sure you are counting statistics accurately! It shows how busy we are, and right now, we are very busy!

Thanks!

Sara