Category: Uncategorized

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

Hey all, 

Reminder that the staff party is this Friday. 515 is a very relaxed environment–I hope you will like it. They don’t serve food, but they allow people to bring in their own (which people do all the time). 

If anyone is interested, I would be willing to make a run to Gusto Pizza and be the pizza delivery person for any interested parties. If you would like to order something from Gusto and have me bring it to the party for you this Friday, check out their menu (link below) and then send me an email with what you want. If you could pay me ahead of time that would be appreciated, but I would also take payment afterwards. 

http://gustopizzaco.com/pizza

Otherwise, you’re welcome to bring whatever you want or eat beforehand. 

Let me know!

Beth

The bypass tray on the Xerox printer isn’t recognizing that there is paper loaded.  We have a service call in.

Update: The technician fixed the problem, and the bypass tray is working.

Update: The item was mailed and the patron has been contacted.

Jerry Green returned a CD book to our library on Monday, January 4th that belonged to the Estes Park Library in Colorado. If you know where this item is, please let Jerry know. His phone number is 515-971-2620. Thanks!

Please complete all columns and rows on your timesheet, sign and turn in by 8 pm Wednesday, January 6.  Make sure PARS are in the expandable file folder for any PTO.

Thanks,

Peg