610 Quincy St. Ÿ Rapid City, SD  57701

605-394-4171 Ÿ www.rapidcitylibrary.org

 

 

DIRECTOR’S REPORT:  JULY  2006

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

 

ADMINISTRATION

 

Community, Governmental and Interlibrary Relations:  

G. Chapman and library staff attended the State Library Strategic Plan review and hosted Dr. Melmer Sec. of Education, State Librarian Dorothy Liegl and Consultant Mary Bushing. Forty three people attended from the Black Hill’s area. G. Chapman is teaching one semester class this year of Advanced Management for Emporia State University. Two class weekends are held with one in June and July and the time between classes is online discussion. A Pennington County Area Librarians meeting was held to update discussion about communications regarding the county library services contract. G. Chapman attended the Mayor’s Budget presentation to Council on July 6. 

 

Building & Grounds: Coffee shop progress: Room emptied – contents relocated to designated area. Work began June 26th and included removal of carpet and floor preparation for new tile. We have an anticipated opening date around the middle of July. The stack mover is reserved for the first of August and we will be moving equipment and furniture during the first couple of weeks in August.

 

Public Information and Programming:

·         The position for publications assistant has been filled by Barbara Worden. 

·         Travis Brink will now assume more L1 duties and responsibilities, including acting as publications editor.

·         With the purchase of a folding machine and a new arrangement with the post office for presorted bulk mail, many hours of work have already been saved in regards to newsletter preparation and mailing.

·         The online versions of the library newsletter and events calendar are undergoing minor stylistic changes to better accommodate breaking news and event updates, as well as offer a more robust online experience. 

·         This month’s publications:

·         Several hundred summer reading program logs

·         Signage indicating genealogy and South Dakota materials having been moved to make way for coffee shop; coffee shop “teaser” poster.

·         Various in-house programming fliers/posters

·         20 promotional bags for presentation to Morning Optimists group that Ed Hughes spoke to.

 

 

Training:  The topic for the staff informational meeting this month was “Finding Legal Information” and covered the U.S. Code, U.S. Code Service, the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) online and the SD Code.

 

 

PUBLIC SERVICES/YOUTH

 

Programs:  Staff and volunteers hosted 500 patrons at our annual Summer Reading Kickoff Tales Scales, Paws and Claws.  Patrons of all ages were entertained by animals of all shapes and sizes including parrots, dancing dogs and a friendly Froggy.

           

Services:  Staff conducted a tour and storytime for 49 fourth grade students.  The tour included a demonstration of the online catalog and homework helper resources.

 

 

PUBLIC SERVICES/ADULT SERVICES-REFERENCE

 

Programs:  The Oral History Pilot Project continues to gather interviews.  With volunteer assistance, interviews continue to be scheduled towards the pilot project’s initial goal of 18 by September 2006.

 

Training: Jean Frankenfeld and Susan Braunstein trained staff on finding legal information.  The training included information on South Dakota Codified Laws and federal legal resources.

 

SUPPORT SERVICES/CIRCULATION

  • The shift to no longer providing computer access cards has gone smoothly.
  • Staff have put together a publicity plan for our self-service services which will be implemented in the coming months.
  • We have begun working on the transition to merge the Circulation and Technical Services departments, looking at workflow, shared tasks, and deployment of staff.

Outreach:

·         31 volunteers contributed 305.5 hours in June.

·         87 deliveries were made in homebound service. 5 Intuitions were served, 62 patrons were served. Many of our patrons take advantage of placing holds and receiving them in the next week or so.

·         Outreach has contacted the state health department and social services agencies to provide brochures for the community board in the lobby. There is an ongoing effort to maintain more timely community information in the lobby such as city recreation opportunities and upcoming festivals.

 

 

SUPPORT SERVICES/NETWORK SERVICES

 

Services: 

  • Installed desktop computers from the Gates Grant
  • Received the Server and Rack from the gates grant
  • Finished the web site file and folder restructure
  • Research self checkout machines for purchase
  • Created an initial photo archive program for the library

 

 

SUPPORT SERVICES/TECHNICAL SERVICES

 

Services: 

·         Specialization versus homogeneity in assignments of tasks was discussed. Agreed that trying to make everyone capable of functioning for all tasks sacrifices efficiency.

·         Discussed how to provide better patron assistance at the self-check machines. The concept of “Lobby Concierge” was suggested, which resembles the Reference departments “Roamers” idea. Discussed how grocery stores offer assistance with their self-check machines.

·         Discussed block scheduling which concluded with a suggestion to ask individual staff what hours they would prefer. Ed said he would pass this idea on to the other supervisors.

·         We also discussed how to incorporate additional staff in the TS work area with the current desk arrangements.

 

 

    EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER