Author: Eric Melton

Mert Hansen (Jeanne Hansen’s husband) passed away on Sunday.  Services will be Saturday October 18 at St. Paul Presbyterian Church in Johnston; visitation at 11:00 followed by the funeral service at 12:00.   Memorials are to St. Paul Presbyterian Church.   A card has been sent from the Library staff.

Hello,

Please turn in your timesheet today, Wednesday, October 15.

Thank you,

Missy

Art waiting for pickup from the last exhibit has moved from Eric’s office to my desk. The art is labeled with the artists name.

KCK

Here are some specifics regarding Satellite Voting: 

*Early voting at Johnston Public Library is available for residents of Johnston, Grimes, Jefferson Township and Granger. 

*Voters do not need to bring photo ID with them. 

*Voting times are available on the homepage of our website. 

*Voters may find out the district through the Secretary of State’s website: 

https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/voterreg/pollingplace/search.aspx

*Satellite Voting Locations are listed on the handout available at the Circ Desk and online at:

http://auditor.co.polk.ia.us/election/14general/sat.pdf

Children and Families of Iowa will set up a small table offering information related to domestic violence for Domestic Violence Awareness month next Tuesday morning at 10am. They’ll set up in or near the lobby and will stay for about two hours. 

Files from the south MAROON file cabinet in the workroom (in the pre-shelving area) have been relocated to the 2nd and 3rd drawers of the other MAROON file cabinet.    The file cabinet from the pre-shelving area will be removed.

The public bulletin boards (in the commons and by the bookdrop drop) will now be managed by Public Services. Please put posters, fliers, and other information to be approved in the middle office.

September staff meeting minutes are available via the link below.

http://catalog.johnstonlibrary.com/staff/docs/staff-meeting-minutes/2014/

Maurine, Dreama, and I will begin a slight reconfiguration of the workroom this week to make better use of the space. Bring your hard hats. 

I have updated the staff phone tree with our most recent hires.  Remember it contains email addresses as well, so if you need to add the new staff to your email group list you can find the email addresses on this updated list.  Dreama posted it on the list just to the right, under printables.

We will no longer be printing and placing a copy in your mailbox; instead you may print from here if you so wish.

Thank you,

Missy

Hy-Vee just called and cancelled the class due to lack of rsvp’s.

Please let people know that we hope to have more cooking classes in the upcoming winter months.

Thanks!

Cheryl

Congratulations to Peggy and Lori E. on their promotion to Library Associate. Thanks for all of your hardwork!

The YA Audiobooks and YA New Books have been pulled out of the frosted glass area and moved to either side of that area. 

Just a quick reminder that EARLY VOTING begins Tuesday, October 7.   Early Voting will take place in our meeting room hallway.   I’ve also put this info and more on our website as the last Navigational Tab.

Also, I changed one of the small displays (by Circ Desk) to books re: firefighters as next week is Fire Safety Week.  On display sign is explanation of the week’s history.  Let me know if you have questions – Cheryl

Early Voting

October 7 – October 24

Early voting will be in our long meeting room hallway.  We will have around 4 to 5 volunteers that will be here helping with early voting.  The volunteers will use the Meeting Room refrigerator, however when the meeting room is booked, they will need to use the staff refrigerator for any dietarty needs they might have.  Thank you for making them feel welcome!

Hello!

Timesheets are due today, Wednesday, October 1st!

Thank you,

Missy

At their last meeting, the Library Board approved a revision of the Internet Use Policy (see link below). Perhaps the most significant change is the removal of the parental permission requirement for Internet access for those under 14. We do not require permission for access to movies, books, or any other kind of information or resource we provide. This change makes library Internet access consistent with access to these other resources and more consistent with the idea that -in a choice between free access and personal choice vs suppression of choice- public libraries ought to err on the side of access and choice for all patrons.  

Key points for staff

• The Internet permission section has been removed from the juvenile application form
• Staff are not to bring up the issue of Internet access upon registration (in the same manner that we do not raise the issue of minors checking out R-rated movies).
• Parents/guardians may still request that children under 18 be barred from Internet access
• Children previously barred from Internet access will remain barred
• The “Games Only” card will become a “Computers Only” card and will be granted full access to resources available on our Internet PCs
• The Library still utilizes software which blocks sites that contain child pornography, obscenities and content harmful to minors. This filtering software, however, is not guaranteed to block all inappropriate content
• The “Games Only” PCs will be re-configured as regular Internet PCs

http://catalog.johnstonlibrary.com/staff/drupal/index.php?q=filedepot_download/1430/10

A note on patrons circumventing Internet-related policies and procedures

Staff are not expected to vigorously monitor computer use for potential breaches of the Library’s Internet access rules. In the course of regular work, however, if staff become aware of such violations -use of another’s card to get around time or parental restrictions, for example- the patron should be confronted and an incident report filed. Persistent violations will result in disciplinary action taken by the Director or Assistant Director.

At last week’s staff meeting we discussed creating filters (also known as rules) in your e-mail.  Filters allow you to direct incoming mail directly to a folder instead of your Inbox so that your Inbox isn’t so full of messages all the time.

University of Iowa has a great step-by-step procedure for creating a filter (http://its.uiowa.edu/support/article/1094) for those of us who have Outlook Web Access (any account ending with @johnstonlibrary.com).  The filters will work in both Outlook and Outlook Web Access since these software programs are just two different ways to see your same mail, contacts, tasks, and appointments.

The link to Outlook Web Access is https://mail.cityofjohnston.com/owa. 

For those of you who have Yahoo! Mail, follow these instructions for setting up a filter — http://help.yahoo.com/qe/my/tutorials/mmail/mm_filter1.html. 

I would be happy to meet with you individually if you want assistance in filtering your e-mail.

Dreama

Starting Wednesday, Johnston Zinio users will checkout magazines from a Zinio site (“Central Iowa MagNet”) shared amongst several Metro Area libraries. This arrangement will allow us to offer more magazines at a significant savings. Magazines that will be new for Johnston patrons include The Atlantic, The Nation, The Economist, Allrecipes, National Geographic, Backpacker, Clean Eating, Midwest Living, and Reader’s Digest. A full list of magazines that will be available is included below. 

Adult Displays for October are out. They are as follows: 

Books that Go Bump in the Night: Tales of the supernatural, spectral and just plain scary
Large Book Display in front of Reference 

Good to be Bad: Anti-heroes, bad boys and femme fatales
Large book display in the Adult Stacks (this display also features movies and TV shows)

Iowa Authors
Small display by Circ

Pirates
Small display by Circ

New Cookbooks
Small display by the cookbooks

Large displays will stay up through the month of October. The smaller displays will change mid-month. All books, audiobooks and movies on display are marked as such in the catalog.

Thanks!