Author: Eric Melton

“Thank you very much. No other library in the metro area is as responsive to its customers as the Johnston Library.”

When books become available for Outbound delivery or for Public Services Holds, please give them to Ref Staff or place them on the shelving behind the Reference Desk labeled Outbound books or Public Services Holds. 

Thanks!

Beth

The library board met last Thursday. I’ve highlighted some of the agenda items below.

• The board approved incorporating the Conference & Study Room Policy into our general meeting room policy. The additional language, which changes the weekly limit from four hours to one reservation, reads,”Individuals and groups may make an advanced reservation of library study rooms once per week. Subsequent use of the study rooms that week will be on a first-come, first-served basis”. 
• The board approved Molly and I to attend the Public Library Association annual conference in Denver this April.
• Molly applied for a $2,500 Polk County Betterment grant to help digitize our local newspapers that are not yet available online. We hope to complete the project before the end of the fiscal year.
• After consolidating JPEG scans of individual yearbook pages into searchable PDFs, the Johnston High School yearbooks are finally available online. They can be found at https://archive.org/details/@johnston_public_library. 
  
• Maryann Mori will be at the library in April to lead a community focus group. She will lead a similar information gathering meeting with library staff at our regular staff meeting in May.
  
• After several years of service, Carol Crane decided not to serve another term on the Foundation Board. Her position will be filled by Marcia Johnson. Marcia is currently a member of the Friends of the Library and has helped with Art In the Barn and Craft In the Barn in recent years. She’s a retired elementary school principal and makes a mean batch of cookies.
  

You’ve probably heard that DuPont, owner of Pioneer, is merging with Dow and this will have consequences for Pioneer’s presence in Johnston (see http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2016/02/19/iowa-loses-ag-headquarters-new-dow-dupont/80561874/) .

The city manager, Jim Sanders, held a meeting this afternoon to explain what has happened and what we might be able to expect. He reported that, while the city and state had hoped Dow would locate its headquarters in Johnston, Dow has decided its headquarters will stay in Delaware. The good news is that there will not be a sudden closure and loss of hundreds of jobs. (Pioneer has about 2,600 employees in Johnston, 1/3 of whom live in Johnston.) The bad news is that the future is uncertain. While Dow has committed to keeping a facility (a “Global Business Center”) in Johnston and possibly even growing that facility in the years to come, there will likely be some job losses as part of the company’s “restructuring” over the next few years–possibly at the same time as other, different positions are added.  

Let me know if you have any questions.

Hey all, 

Study Room policy has been updated to reflect the following: 

Individuals and groups may make an advanced reservation of library study rooms ONCE per week. Subsequent use of study rooms that week will be on a first-come, first-served basis. 

We will no longer be enforcing the suggested 2-hour time limit. Patrons are welcome to use the study rooms more than once a week, but can only reserve the study rooms once in a given calendar week. 

Ask if you have questions. 

Beth

And another pay period is coming to an end.  Please place your completed and signed timesheets into the green folder outside Eric’s office on or before Noon, Friday, February 19. 

Thanks,

Peg

A set of car keys were found in the Youth Computer Lounge. They had a library card belonging to Stacy Eveland attached. I left a message for her. 

They are in the lost and found at the Circ Desk.

Alex and her husband welcomed a son,Theodore Robert, into their family yesterday. She says, “We appreciate all the joyful thoughts!”

We will have a card on the black filing cabinet near Eric’s office. There will be an envelope if you wish to contribute towards a gift. I will leave it out for a week.

All workstations have been upgraded.  Thank you for your cooperation.

Staff client and PAC are unavailable this morning.  Circ staff will use offline circ at check-out and wait until after the upgrade is complete to check in returned materials.

I’ll let you know when the upgrade is complete.

I’d like to commend the staff for 365 days of no workplace injuries. With the threat of paper and tape dispener cuts, book-cart-shin collisions, and hamster bites, we all know this can be dangerous place. Keep up the good work.

Books on the Blind Date display are checked out to Circulation Services. When you check one out for a patron, you will get a message telling you the book is already checked out. Click Yes to checkout to the library user.

Thanks!

This year tax forms will be kept on the low part of the Reference Desk. 

A list of forms that we should be receiving is below, but they do not all come at the same time. Forms and booklets will be set out by Ref staff as they become available. Once forms are gone, they are gone. We will not receive any more. Please refer patrons to the Tax Help link on our website for additional info or links to printing forms. 

Thanks. 

Beth

Many of you know Chuck Rinkel. He has been grandgathered in (no pun intended) to homebound services. Chuck ocassionally  calls the library and asks to have items put on hold for him. Go ahead and do so, and then give the items to a Public Services staff member. His daughter ocassionally also relays his requests to staff members. Please follow the same procedure–put these items on hold for him, and then items can be directed to a Public Services staff person. His materials will be delivered to him by Allison. 

Ask Beth if you have questions. 

Thanks. 

This year, we will only be receiving one copy of the Federal Income Tax Guide Instructional Booklet. It will be kept behind the Reference Desk in the drawer labeled “Important Stuff” if patrons wish to potocopy anything. 

Ask Beth or Lori F. is you have questions. 

We will not have AARP tax aide this year. Free AARP tax aide is available at other locations in the metro. Patrons can find a complete list of tax assistance locations via the AARP Tax Aide Locator. 

The two closest locations 2 JPL are: 

Urbandale Public Library   Mon-Thurs 12:00pm – 3:30pm

NW Community Center (adjacent to Franklin Library) Mon, Wed, Fri 11:30am – 3:15pm

Walk-ins welcome. Tax assistance will not be available on Presidents’ Day 

The library board met last night, as it does the third Thursday of every month. Each month, the board approves new invoices, reviews the current state of the budget, looks at circulation and other statistics from the month prior, and, if necessary, decides on changes to library policy. 

At last night’s meeting, I presented a summary of materials and fees recovered by Unique, our collections agency:

We continue to be pleased with the service of Unique Management Inc., the collections agency we use to assist in retrieving materials and fees. Thus far, we’ve submitted 269 accounts that have a combined $33,547 in fees and unreturned materials. We’ve recovered $4,426.75 in fees and $6,946.20 in materials and paid Unique $2,341.20 for their services. 

I also gave an update on development of a new website for the library:

We’ve begun work on the new website and have notified the city of our plans. An unknown going into the project was the possibility of integrating the PAC and our events reservation system into the WordPress site thus, from a user’s perspective, creating seamless transitions between pages that currently have sometimes-disorienting differences in layout and style. We’re happy to report that we’ve discovered a path to full integration with these components and the work is progressing well. You can keep tabs on the project at http://catalog.johnstonlibrary.com/wordpress/.

The library is due for development of a new strategic plan. The process includes gathering input from selected members of the community via a focus group. Our focus group will be held April 7th. 

I’ve been attending meetings of metro-area library directors that have been organized by a group of private citizen advocates and municipal administrators called Capital Crossroads. Capital Crossroads’ goal is to encourage inter-city cooperation between like departments. After an initial brainstorming session, Library directors selected two projects to work together on: 1) Better coordination of training for front-line staff; and 2) Instituting an online, public catalog that allows searching and placing requests across participating libraries’ collections. For an update on the status and results of these efforts please see the presentations included in this month’s board folder (linked below).

See the agenda, statistics sheet, and other documents from this meeting at http://catalog.johnstonlibrary.com/board/2016-01/. Going forward, I plan to post summaries like this following each board meeting. Remember that all documents related to board meetings are accessible via the “Library Board” link on the intranet under the “Staff Resources” menu.

Everyone has been doing a great job handing in their timesheets with columns/rows tallied and accurate and attaching their completed PARs. 

So, let’s try having a deadline of Friday, January 22 at noon this payperiod. 

If you can get your timesheet into the green folder before then, I’ll start working on them on Thursday and get done what I can.  My deadline is to have them on Eric’s desk 8 am on Monday.

If you questions with PTO or Holiday pay, just ask.

Thanks,

Peg

Tax info is now available on our website. We are NOT a location for AARP tax aide this year, but Urbandale Library and Northwest Community Center are locations, among other places. We will be getting a limited number of paper Federal forms. We cannot say when the forms will arive–they get here when they get here. The State no longer prints paper forms. Paper State forms are available at the Hoover building and paper Federal forms are available at the Federal Building. 

Link to tax info on our site is here: http://www.cityofjohnston.com/index.aspx?NID=558

Ask Lori F. is you have questions.  

The form used to acknowledge donations (not memorials) has been updated, see below.  The form is now 1/4 page, two-sided and will be printed in black and white.  It is no longer necessary for JPL to keep a copy of this donation form.  The forms will be stored in the same location (under the card catalog drawers at Circ).

When patrons bring in a donation, offer them a receipt.  Complete the receipt and give to the patron.

Thanks,

Peg