Author: Eric Melton

The Commons doors get warped in the extreme cold–especially the west-most pair. At close please ensure all of them are latched.

A patron from Piney Ridge Green House had a black Calvin Klein insulated vest with an offset zipper that disappeared while she was here.  It has her remote start to her car in the pocket.  Please keep am eye out for it.  If found please call the green house. Peg G (by Juli)

 I’ve highlighted some of what was discussed at the December board meeting below.

*ILL Policy

The Library Board approved a change to the Library’s ILL Policy that eliminates patron fees for materials borrowed via interlibrary loan.

*Conduct Policy

The board approved the addition of the following to the list of unallowed activities in the Conduct Policy: Bringing an animal into the library, unless it is assisting a person with a disability.

*New Offices

The Board approved purchase of three new office spaces–for Dreama, Beth, and Missy. These will be installed in Feburary and can be previewed via the links below

http://catalog.johnstonlibrary.com/board/2017/2017-11/07a%20visual%201.pdf

http://catalog.johnstonlibrary.com/board/2017/2017-11/07a%20visual%202.pdf

For more details, remember that current and past board agendas and documents are located under Staff Resources or at http://catalog.johnstonlibrary.com/board/

If possible, please have your timesheets and PARs turned in by 8 pm on Thursday evening. I’ll be double-checking them first thing Saturday morning.

Thanks,

Peg

At last night’s meeting, the Library Board approved a change to the Library’s ILL Policy that eliminates patron fees for materials borrowed via interlibrary loan.

Effective immediately, we will no longer charge patrons $3 for ILL items. 

All, 

Patrons now have the ability through johnstonlibrary.com to reserve study rooms 1, 2, 3 and 4 online. Prior to this, only study rooms 1 and 3 were reservable online. 

Same guidelines still apply–patrons are allowed one advance study room reservation per calendar week–they may use study rooms more than once per calendar week, but it needs to be on a first-come, first-served basis. 

Thanks! Ask Beth if you have any questions. 

I’ve caved to pressure from YS to allow jeans tomorrow. Feel free to wear jeans.

Re-carpeting starts February 5th. To make things easier for the movers, please look around your work area sometime in the next few weeks for things that can be thrown away or stored someplace.

In an attempt to boost the circulation of the YA Playaways, we’re moving them to the end of the adult Playaways.  The call number will now be PLAYAWAY YA F AUTHOR.  Missy is adjusting the bib and item records, and Lori E. will re-label the spines.  The devices will be ready for re-shelving in the next few days.

A feature of the JPL website allows creating shortened URLs for pages with URLs that are much longer. The URL for the Art in the Barn page is https://foundation.johnstonlibrary.com/?page=art-in-the-barn. By adding a new entry in the website’s settings, this can be shortened to www.johnstonlibrary.com/art . Other shortened URLs we have setup include:

www.johnstonlibrary.com/cr/ > Consumer Reports

www.johnstonlibrary.com/dmreg/ > Des Moines Register

www.johnstonlibrary.com/techlab/ > Tech Lab

Keep this feature in mind if you find yourself directing patrons to a particular page of the website–a list, a browsing page limited by genre, etc.–that would be much easier to write down or tell them if shortened.

I should have mentioned that, with the changes to the website mentioned in a post earlier this week, a handful of features will be going away.

These include:

• the “browse shelf” feature
• the “share” feature (the site is now set up with tags to properly display images and other site information when a page is shared via its URL)
• the “compact view” feature which hid all images and showed 100, rather than 40, results on the search and browse pages
• RSS feeds for new materials

Please let me know if you hear grumblings.

The City of Johnston has extended the due date for timesheets this pay period. Because of that change, please make sure you have your timesheets completed, signed, PARS attached and placed in the green folder on or before December 23. I will be double-checking them the morning of the 26th.

Thanks!

Peg

It’s in the freezer for all, and here’s the recipe:

2-1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup coca (dutch process preferred)

2-1/2 cups powdered milk (Carnation brand)

2 teaspoons corn starch

1 teaspoon salt

Sift all ingredients, then mix together.  1/3-1/2 cup of mix combined with hot water or milk will work depending on the size of your cup.

Hello!

For those of you who weren’t at the staff meeting on Novemeber 30, I wanted to quickly fill you in on what I’ve been working on.

I am slowly uploading JPL photos to a database, and then supplying metadata (information about each photo) to describe and provide access to photos. So far I’ve worked through about 500 photos – most of 2015 and 2016, and about half of 2014.

What I would love from you all is FEEDBACK! Please look at the archive and let me know what works and what doesn’t. If you see typos, misspellings, or misidentifications, please let me know. And please let me know if you’d like to help in some way with this project.

You can check out the archive (as Eric posted recently) at photos.johnstonlibrary.com.

My email is waugh@johnstonlibrary.com, so feel free to send me an email with your feedback.

Thanks!

Abbi Waugh

I’ve set up a small table by the circ. desk for demonstrating one of our Learning Tools: the Pocket Operators. These are small audio synthesizers for making music. I’d say the minimum age for sucessfully operating one is 8–they’re fairly complicated and nearly impossible to figure out without reading the instructions in detail (it’s ok if littler ones play with them–they’re pretty tough).

After this one, I’ll be setting up similar demos of learning tools in the same spot or nearby.

Thanks to Lori F. for the idea.

You’ll notice several small changes happening on the search and browse pages of the website over the coming days.

In an attempt to make the site more tablet friendly, the buttons–like “place holds”, “add to my list”, etc.–that were previously  accessible via a small menu in the upper right corner of each row have been placed at the bottom of each row. 

If you are so inclined, please read the following message from the president of the Iowa Library Association. If you would like your voice to be heard, you may click on the Take Action Now link at the bottom.

“Good morning,

We are in the closing days before the Dec 14^th  vote on Net Neutrality and all voices are needed on this issue.  I encourage you to choose to make that call or send that email to Iowa’s US senators and representatives.

If you feel like you aren’t sure what this whole thing is about, here are some important facts:

• Net Neutrality is the basic principle that prohibits internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from speeding up, slowing down or blocking any content, applications or websites you want to use. Net Neutrality is the way that the internet has always worked.
• Without Net Neutrality, cable and phone companies could carve the internet into fast and slow lanes. An ISP could slow down its competitors’ content or block opinions it disagrees with. ISPs could charge extra fees to the few content companies that could afford to pay for preferential treatment — relegating everyone else to a slower tier of service. This would destroy the open internet; creating “fast lanes” on the super highway for those who can afford it and “slow lanes” for those who cannot. 
• All people, but in particular people in the margins of society, small businesses, and rural communities, rely on the open internet to organize/communicate and to access economic and educational opportunities.  The loss of Net Neutrality could devastate their ability to participate equally.  Net Neutrality levels the playing field for all.

ALA has provided helpful links below, for more information. 

ILA will issue a statement on Net Neutrality later today.

Rebecca Funke

President

The American Library Association encourages everyone to contact Congress as your most effective way to voice support for net neutrality.

Take action now! Contact your House and Senate representatives.

Background

Net Neutrality at the end of 2017: What libraries need to know.

Net neutrality protections eliminated in draft FCC order

Resolution endorsed by ALA Council on June 28, 2006. Council Document 20.12 (CD#20.12)

Resolution adopted by ALA Council on July 1, 2014, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Council Document 20.7 (CD#20.7)

Ajit Pai’s Shell Game

Internet/Broadband Fact Sheet (Pew Research Study)”

Volunteer, Roger Littlefield, left us some treats in the breakroom. He asked that I pass along a big Thank You for making him feel so welcome. He wanted to be sure I shared with you how much he appreciates the library and enjoys our services and staff as a volunteer and patron. 

An iPhone was found in the  YS area around 4:50 p.m. I put it in the money cabinet.

Quick shout-out to all staff. Great job on timesheets this week. Took me less than hour to double-check them. Thanks for your diligence confirming your hours are right, PARs are attached, and turning them in on time. I appreciate it.

Peg