610 Quincy St. ź Rapid City, SD  57701

605-394-4171 ź www.rapidcitylibrary.org

 

 

DIRECTOR’S REPORT:  AUGUST  2005

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

 

ADMINISTRATION

 

Community, Governmental and Interlibrary Relations:  Union negotiations continued through July.  Budget hearings took place with the Council on July 25, and will continue on August 3.  The statewide newspaper digitization group continues its work towards providing online access to the state’s papers; Greta and Renee attended a digitizing meeting in Pierre.  Greta also participated in an SDLN fee structure meeting.

 

Building & Grounds: Network office remodel is complete. Construction for a new membrane roof is approved; Black Hills Roofing came in as the low bidder and is currently waiting on contract from the city, Roof completion is expected in November. The HVAC upgrade project will begin in the latter part of August. The garage door has been retrofitted so the library van can be parked inside. Landscaping boulders and wood chips were added around the building.  

 

Public Information and Programming:

 

·         Signage and Displays for Teen Bags; Hometown Heroes, Manga, Tea and Herbs, Photo digitalizing, and family storytime programs; Work of Wolves book discussion

·         Publications – August  newsletter, calendar and computer courses; book marks for Story Times at Storybook Island  and Tea and Herbs; drafted updates to procedures for newsletter publication and color laser printer

·         PSAs – Ricco fire information; Tea and Herbs; Hometown Heroes; Digitalizing Photos; Manga art workshop; Work of Wolves discussion

 

Training:  Mike Miner and his skeleton “Slim,” from The Physical Therapy Center presented sessions to all staff members on individual injury prevention regarding lifting, reaching and desk/computer work.

 

Youth Service staff, Reference staff and management met July 26 for a combined program planning session, to begin outlining programming for the coming year.

 

PUBLIC SERVICES/YOUTH

 

Programs: Over 150 children attended our Hometown Heroes celebration in conjunction with the Summer Reading Program.  This event was an opportunity to meet local fireman, policeman and the Forest Service firefighters.  Participants could turn in their 60 day Summer Reading log and enjoy donated ice cream.

           

Collections: Rapid City Public Library was cited as the “Innovator of the Month” by the tutor.com live homework help service, for promotion of the resource throughout the summer.

 

PUBLIC SERVICES/ADULT SERVICES-REFERENCE

 

Programs:  Reference facilitated 4 programs in July, all of which had a good attendance. 15 people attended our second “Lunch and Learn” program to learn about health information on the internet.

 

Services:  11 tests were proctored in July.  9 computer classes were offered, with 21 total attendees.

 

SUPPORT SERVICES/CIRCULATION

  • There have been 62 entries in the “Distant Places” adult summer program; 8 people have been weekly winners.
  • The overdue schedule has been updated to reflect the recent policy change.

 

OUTREACH: 

Homebound delivered to 68 patrons this month.

  • 79% of our homebound patrons live in a residential institution; institutions are delivered to on a rotating basis of once every 6 weeks.

Outreach

  • Our Readers’ Corps volunteer has read to 20-30 residents at Fountain Springs and 3-6 residents at Holiday Hills each week.
  • Plans for the library to attend the Central States Fair parade on August 20 are underway. Four employees will dress in medieval garb and hand out brochures about wireless access, Pennington County cards and back to school program.

Volunteers

  • YTD we have 3526 volunteer hours towards our annual goal of 6240; 35 volunteers worked in July.
  • 31 of our volunteers have held their positions for 1 year or longer.

Tours

·                                 22 youth tours have been given toward the goal of 45; there were 490 attendees for these tours.

·                                 11 adult tours were given toward the goal of 30, with 216 attendees

  • The online tour is being adapted to be accessible by any computer; the goal is have the tour updated by October.

 

SUPPORT SERVICES/NETWORK SERVICES

 

Services: 

  • Working on electronic time sheets
  • Learning flash
  • Re-aligning the web authors’ group
  • Moved into enlarged office space for NS
  • Cleaning up network wiring

 

SUPPORT SERVICES/TECHNICAL SERVICES

 

Services: 

  • We instituted a weekly purchasing of requested titles from local bookstores. Patrons will get their requested material more quickly and it will mean that more of the library’s money is spent locally.
  • Travis completed rally poster designed to attract bikers to our wireless Internet access
  • Ed’s and Chris’ book reviews were published in the Rapid City Journal.
  • Chris identified a complete list of Aleph tables that will allow us to request access to tables that we need to make the system work better for us.
  • We modified our departmental procedure to allow for a evenhanded distribution of holds for patrons requesting titles with multiple copies.