Category: Uncategorized

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

Over the past few days, several patrons have noted that they are no longer receiving e-mail notifications from Polaris (date due reminders, overdue notices, hold notices, etc.).  In all cases so far, these patrons have had Microsoft e-mail accounts (msn.com or hotmail.com).  Eric and I are working to resolve the problem.

In the meantime, if a patron tells you that s/he isn’t receiving notices, please note the patron’s name and send it to me.  Explain to the patron that we’re experiencing difficulties.  Circ staff will be happy to work with the patron either to add sending an additional text message to their account or to change the existing e-mail address to an alternate one.

Dreama

It’s time for our semi-annual kitchen cleanup.  As has been done in the past, we’ll be cleaning out the refrigerator. In addition, we’re also cleaning out the cupboards.

On Wednesday, December 17, all items in the cupboards will be removed and set out.  If there are items that belong to you personally, please label each item with your name and the current date.  If there are items that are used for programming such as Youth Services and Public Services, please label and date accordingly. 

Three tubs will be available for you to place items to keep.  Markers and tape will be available for labeling.   Remember to label everything before putting it in the tub:

1.  Items for programming.

2.  Items for personal use.

3.  Items for anyone to use.   Food items must not have expired.

Likewise, items in the refrigerator should be labeled and dated. 

All items not claimed by December 24 will be discarded.

Moving forward, we plan to reorganize the cupboards to provide more space for staff to store personal and programming items.  Some ideas being tossed around are to:

1.  Ask staff to label and date all items placed on shelves,

2.  Divide shelf space and label shelf with staff names and/or programming areas (no labeling of individual items required), or

3.  Purchase bins/baskets that will be labeled with a staff members  can label and store personal and programming items.

In addition, we’d like your feedback:

Which of the above three organizing methods would you prefer?

If you could change anything about the staff kitchen, what would you change?

How often and for what purpose do you use the staff kitchen?

It’s timesheet week again!   Please complete and turn your timesheets in by Thursday afternoon.

Thanks!

All the Gingerbread houses can go home.  To help remind people to take their gingerbread houses home (and I needed the Archive room back) I have placed them on the countertop behind Circ. The winners are still inside the Archive Room, but will be moved out when there is room at Circ. 

If someone asks, please let them know they are welcome to take their house home.  🙂

Thank you!