JPL Intranet

A display from the African American Museum of Iowa will be setup at JPL sometime this week and will be here until March 3rd.

Examine the role public schools play in funneling students into the prison system in Suspended: Systemic Oppression in our Schools, an original exhibition developed by the African American Museum of Iowa. Elements of the criminal justice system have entered public schools around the country, resulting in zero tolerance policies and student policing that disproportionately effect children of color.

Find more information about the display here.

Janet Wilwerding, Communication Manager, shared these options for getting information from the City of Johnston (and Polk Co.) regarding general information and emergency alerts. These are optional, but we wanted to make sure you were aware that they are available for staff and community members:

Johnston Alerts (Civic Ready) – www.cityofjohnston.com/JohnstonAlerts
The City of Johnston uses CivicReady to send emergency alerts and other notifications. Subscribers can register to receive emergency alerts via phone call, text message, and/or email. Non-emergency messages will be sent by text and/or email. If you wish to subscribe to emergency alerts by SMS text message only, text your zip code to 38276. You can sign up now to receive weather-related alerts – that part is quite nice.

Examples of messages sent through CivicReady:

• A snow parking ban is in effect
• Missing persons
• Local threats
• Road closures and traffic alerts
• Utility service disruptions
• Other incidents that require rapid communication

Johnston Press Releases –  http://www.cityofjohnston.com/list.aspx
The City of Johnston sends out press releases to local media. Once complete, they are also posted on the City of Johnston’s website. You can sign up to receive an email and/or text alert on the press releases.  Visit http://www.cityofjohnston.com/list.aspx and look for the “Johnston Press Releases” under “Notify me.”

Johnston Notifications (Civic Engage) – www.cityofjohnston.com/notifications

Stay up-to-date with general news and information from the City of Johnston by subscribing to Notify Me email and text notifications.

By signing up, you can receive automatic notifications for:

• Calendar Events
• News Flash updates
• City of Johnston Job Postings
• Board, Council, and Commission Agendas

City Newsletter – www.cityofjohnston.com/Enewsletter
This newsletter provides information on upcoming events, activities, or project updates. The newsletter is sent out every Thursday and the first of each month. However, only the monthly newsletter is sent if the first of the month falls within the same week. We also have an employee newsletter that is sent out each quarter. The next newsletter will be on December 1. Maddy also prints a copy and provides it to the department directors to hang in their designated areas. It provides information on new employees, birthdays, anniversaries and projects happening in the city.

Polk County/Alert Iowa – www.smart911.com/smart911/ref/reg.action?pa=polkcountyia

These notifications are sent through Polk County. If you were previously signed up for the Polk County alerts through SMART 911, the system did not transfer over the contacts. You will need to sign up to receive the alerts again.

In the event of an emergency or severe weather, an alert will be sent to the phone number and/or email address provided by voice, text and/or email. This is a free service provided by Polk County and the State of Iowa; however, normal message fees may apply. To receive text messages to your cell phone, your cell phone must have text messaging capabilities.

Some examples of the types of incidents or events where the Polk County/Alert Iowa system may be effective in notifying our citizens to include the following:

• Environmental and Natural Disasters: Floods, Dangerous Water Conditions, Water Safety Alerts, Dam/Levee Breaks
• Search and Rescue: Missing Children, Missing Elderly, Missing Disabled, Evacuation Notices, Evacuation Routes
• Crime: Law Enforcement Activities, Prisoner Escape Warning, Neighborhood Crime Watches
• Man-Made Disasters: Terrorism Threats, Bomb Threats, Nuclear Hazards, Bio Terrorism Threats, Chemical Spills, Hazardous Material Emergencies, Gas Leaks, Hostage Situations
• Public Works: Drinking Water Contamination, Utility Outages, Street Closings, Public Notifications

Hello All,
Tax season is upon us so I wanted to submit a friendly reminder about info and services we offer during this time, as well as info and services we do not offer.

Eric has made our tax link live on our website. It is under our Services tab and a little quick link above slider images on the homepage. This is the most expedient way to link people to printable forms for Iowa and Federal tax forms. The link also has info about what government offices people need to go to if they want to pick up their tax forms in person.

JPL has received federal 1040 and 1040SR forms plus federal 1040 instruction booklets. The 1040SR stands for senior. It is intended for people 65 or older. Form is basically the same but has larger print and calls out tax benefits for people over age 65.

If individuals are seeking tax forms above and beyond the forms listed above, we will print them for individuals for free. We will not print instruction manuals for free.

The tax link on our website also has information about free tax preparation people can take advantage of if they are interested. AARP offers free tax prep, as well as United Way. Links to those sites with location and date and time info is posted there.

During this time, it’s important to remember that we do not provide tax advice or information to people, in the same way we do not provide medical or legal information to people. Just a friendly reminder that we can connect people to services and organizations that do provide this information, but we are not the information ourselves.

The Lonely Readers book club is using an Inter-library loan book from Clive PL for their February selection.  The JPL barcodes are located at the top left corner of the borrowing band.  The books are automatically set to check out for 6 weeks, which makes them due on 3/7/23, ( a day before the normal due date).  Please remind patrons to return the books to a staff member and to leave the ILL borrowing band on . Please placed returned books on the Lonely Reader Shelf.  Thank you so much for your help!

Lori

Instructions for Federal 1040 & 1040-SR have arrived. As well as a small quantity of Federal 1040-SR forms. I’ve printed 50 copies of the Federal 1040 form and 50 of the Iowa 1040. Additional copies will be arriving in the near future, in the meantime, just print forms (only) from the Federal and State websites. The links are available on the JPL website.

Hey All,

Since we don’t have a staff meeting, I did take you off When to Work this Thursday at 8 am. If you would like to come and watch some of the online conference in the Archive Room that Eric M has posted about before or after your regular shift, please let me know so we can get When to Work updated to match your timesheet.

Thank you.

We will not be holding an all-staff meeting this Thursday.

Remember that during this pay period, January 15-28, that the library was closed on Monday, January 16 in observance of MLK Day.

DMX – 1_17_2023 3_50PM – DSS Packet

Please help yourself to a triple chocolate cookie in the breakroom when you get a chance.  They are in a ziploc bag, and Andrew made them.

I’d like to invite all staff to attend (on the clock of course) the Iowa Libraries Online Conference on Thursday, January 26th, 9am – 7pm in the Archive Room.

The conference has several sesssions so please take a look at the schedule and attend those you’re most interested in.

We took down the Holiday CD Display. As CD/HOL music CDs come in, please change the shelf location to STORAGE and put them in storage.

The storage bins are on the pre shelving under J Fiction.

There is a cart of withdrawn magazines close to the employee entrance.  Please take what you want! I’ll be adding a few more next week and then they are headed for recycling.

Thanks!

Lori

Andrew will be playing the cello in the Des Moines Symphony Masterworks 4 concert set in early February, and here is a link to purchase tickets:  https://my.desmoinesperformingarts.org/0/6347.

We are playing Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with Kevin Zhu as soloist, and Seven O’Clock Shout by Valerie Coleman.  The Coleman works honors Covid-19 heroes.

As you probably know, Andrew will be playing in the Des Moines Symphony’s production of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on Friday, January 27th at 7:30 PM, and Saturday, January 28th, at 1:30 PM at the Civic Center downtown.  As of 1/5/23 at 10:53 AM, there are two seats available for the Friday night performance, and more but not a lot available for the Saturday performance.  If you wish to attend, NOW is the time to purchase your tickets!  After you purchase tickets, they should be available 72 hours prior to your desired performance.

https://desmoinesperformingarts.org/events/harry-potter-and-the-goblet-of-fire/