Author: Eric Melton

I am a volunteer selector for WILBOR and assigned to spend $9,600 (!) between January 1st the end of February. Please send suggestions.

Eric

The night message of the new phone system sends calls to Circ, YS, or Ref directly to voice mail until we open.  To call in sick, you will need to know the direct extension of your supervisor.  If your supervisor isn’t working, call Maurine (x606) or Eric (x604).  On the weekends, please be sure to speak directly with one of your co-workers so that adjustments in service desk coverage can be made.

In celebration of the new year, feel free to wear jeans Wednesday.

Just a little reminder that this Friday, January 2nd is our holiday gathering…good times!

See you at 6:15ish (earlier if you enjoy Happy Hour) at El Rodeo Restaurant, 7420 Douglas Ave, Urbandale.

After dinner, let’s go bowling at Merle Hay Lanes!  If you cannot join us for dinner, the bowling alley will be ready for JPL at 8pm.

The sign-up sheet will remain on the break room table if you’d still like to sign up.  If your plans change and you didn’t sign up but you’re able to attend, please do…the more the merrier!

The mayor will be interviewed for her Mayor’s New Year’s Eve Run for Food in front of our food collection bin on Monday at 1:45.

Hello Everyone!

It’s time for staff picks!

Please send me your selections of Fiction or Non-Ficition books that you have read or thought looked interesting.

Thanks!

Erin

Peg and Lori would like to extend a sincere thank you to all staff for their patience during the semi-annual staff kitchen clean-up.

The cupboards have been cleaned and reorganized.  Staff now have the option of placing personal items in a labeled basket (so that individual items don’t have to be labeled).  Items available for all staff to use can be placed in the all-staff-use cupboard.  One cupboard has been designated specifically for programming supplies; please don’t use these supplies for your personal use.

The refrigerator has also been thoroughly cleaned.  Noteworthy items that were disposed of included:  a box of baking soda expiring in 2007, a beverage labeled with Willona’s name, and many, many science experiments.  Again, baskets are available for storing personal items if needed or just use a Sharpie and write your name and date on it.  Please be respectful of the limited space available and store only items you intend to use for the day or, at most, the week.  Many staff use the refrigerator on a daily basis and are appreciative when space is available for their lunches.

Peg

Good morning!

Please turn in your timesheet as soon as possible since we will be closed Wednesday and Thursday.  I’ll get right to work on them Friday morning.

Happy Holidays!

Missy

From City Hall:

“Johnston’s Mayor Will Run for Food! 

 Join us on Wednesday, December 31 for the Mayor’s New Year’s Eve Run for Food.  For every sack of food donated to the Johnston Partnership, the mayor will run one mile on New Year’s Eve.   Donations will be collected from Monday, December 29 at 8 am until 3 pm on December 31 at City Hall and the Johnston Public Library.   Everyone in the community is invited to donate food and participate in this free event!  Want to run too?  Meet Mayor Paula Dierenfeld and the Johnston Running Club at the Green Meadows West Gazebo at 5 pm on Wednesday, December 31.  The Mayor will choose the route — with fun and merriment at the end!”

Please have donors put their donations in our white collection bin in the entryway.

The department heads met with Dave this afternoon, and here’s what we decided:

• We will be using an “auto attendant” to answer the telephone and provide the caller with a brief menu of options
• Press 1 for Circulation, Renewals and Holds
• Press 2 for Youth Services
• Press 3 for Reference and Meeting Room Reservations
• Press 4 to hear Library Hours
• If you know your party’s extension, please enter it now
• Or stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly

If the caller stays on the line or presses 1, the call will ring at the Circ Desk.  The call will ring at Circ 1 and Circ 2 for 3 rings.  At the fourth ring, Circ 1 and Circ 2 will continue to ring and all of the phones in the work room as well as the Ref Desk will start to ring.  If no one has answered the call in 6 rings, it will go to voice mail at Circ 1.

If the caller presses 2, all 3 youth services lines will ring up to 4 times.  If no one answers after the 4th ring, the call will go to voice mail at the YS Desk.

If the caller presses 3, both Ref Desk and Ref Office will ring up to 4 times.  If no one answers after the 4th ring, the call will go to voice mail at the Ref Desk.

There will be two variations on the auto attendant for when we are closed at night and when we are closed for a holiday.  They are pretty similar to the day message, except they direct the caller to the department’s voice mail.

We will also have the ability to add an announcement to our day attendant when we are closed due to inclement weather or other unexpected circumstances.

Lori F. placed a copy of the phone documentation in your mail box if you weren’t at this morning’s staff meeting.  The manuals are also available on the P: drive in the Telephone Manuals folder.

We will be switching to the new phones around noon on Friday.

Dreama

As discussed at this morning’s staff meeting, library phones will have new extensions beginning Friday. A list of new extensions will be distrubuted soon. If you use an email signature that includes your extension, please update it to reflect the change.

Elijah has been banned from the library through 12/26. His mother has been notified.

Beth W. left reindeer antlers that some staff have worn in previous years during the holidays.  The antlers are on a gray cart near my desk. If you want to wear antlers this season, take a pair to keep.  They’ll be yours to pull out every Christmas.  Or not.

If there are any antlers left in the box by next Sunday, I will donate them to Rudolph’s Home for Antlerless Reindeer.

Dreama

The prizes for the gingerbread houses are in the Foundation drawer at Circ desk.

Sometime in the next few days our subscription to Freegal (the downloadable music service) will expire. Although this service has been popular with a subset of our patrons (121 patrons used the service in the past year), the expense –which, given our circulation, comes out to over $1/download– is hard to justify given the number of options now available for customers to hear music for free –streaming via Pandora or Spotify, for example, or simply checking out physical CDs. Please let me know if you have questions.

As part of its fiber network upgrade, the City needs to take the entire network down for approximately 4 hours this afternoon.  This will affect staff network access, Internet access, and e-mail access.  Our public network will be unaffected.  You can continue to use mobile devices on our Wi-Fi network.

Cyndee Rhames notes that the Library will be down for “a very short time.”  I don’t know how long that will be, but please log off your workstations around 3:25 p.m. so that you don’t lose any work.  I will let you know when we’re back up.

Circ staff will use Polaris in offline mode so that patrons can continue to check out materials.  Self-check will not be available.

Dreama

The new VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) telephone system is scheduled to be installed on Wednesday, December 17.  New phones will be set next to the existing phones, but they will not be functional.  You will continue to use your existing phone.

At Thursday’s staff meeting, we will receive training in the use of the new phones.  Thursday afternoon, the telephone company will make the switch from our current lines to the new lines and the new telephones will be activated.

This schedule is tentative and may have to change if any of steps in the process falls behind schedule.

Stay tuned.

Dreama