610
Quincy St.
Ÿ Rapid City , SD 57701
605-394-4171 Ÿ www.rapidcitylibrary.org
DIRECTOR’S REPORT: OCTOBER 2006
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
ADMINISTRATION
Community, Governmental and Interlibrary Relations: The
focus for the month has been leading up to, completing and wrapping up the SDLA
Conference. It was a great success with a tremendous job done by the RCPL
staff. It was well received by the SDLA Membership and Exhibitors. A number of
newly implemented procedures allowed for a smooth interaction with registration
and the hotel staff along with retaining information for next year’s
conference. The use of a number of automated online procedures will reduce the
amount of volunteer support needed and allow the association to make more
informed decisions regarding financial transactions, membership attendance and
program planning. A partnership between RCPL and the Pennington County
Auditor’s Office for voting resources is established for the forthcoming
election. A number of print and online resources are linked to encourage the
public to use the library for information and voting registration. RCPL staff
hosted the SDLA
Exhibit Booth for a first appearance and attendance at the SD
Municipal League Conference in Spearfish, Oct. 3 – 4.
Building & Grounds: The City has approved
funding to fix the library “high curb” areas thru Miscellaneous Improvement
Projects (MIP) program. If there is enough funding this year, the project will
be funded from this year's budget.
However, the actual work will likely not occur until next year. If there is not enough funding for this year,
the City will include it in next year's program. In either case, the project will be done in
2007.
Recently completed facility
projects:
- Stack moving, floor trenching, conduit and
electrical installation, and carpet replacement
- Reconfiguration of service points
- Painting the front green arches
- Painting the east side entrance area
- Re-lamping the high ceiling light area
- Re-lamping outside front entrance high light
area
Public Information and Publications:
September’s
publications included:
- Creating new signage for main
floor materials and displaying them where they can be easily seen
- Created numerous publications
and signage for the SDLA fall conference, including over 230 conference
booklets
- Creating a “read” poster for
SDLA featuring Sue Grafton
- Replacing the front entrance
lettering with a vinyl specially created for application on plexiglass
- Advertising and media relations
for the “Bus-eum,” which generated over 150 attendees
- Update the welcome brochure to
reflect the new floorplan
Training:
Dr. Arthur Zimiga, Director of Indian Education of the Rapid City Schools, and Robert Cook, who administers a ninth grade transition program for American Indian students at Central High School, presented information to staff on Indian education and ways the library could better serve Native American students and their families.
Staff members received refresher training from Jared, Grace and Jason on the library behavior policy and procedures.
17 staff members and two library board members attended the
South Dakota Library Association conference, which RCPL hosted at the Rushmore
Plaza Holiday Inn. 177 librarians from
across the state also attended this annual event. Staff members Ed Hughes and
PUBLIC
SERVICES/YOUTH
Programs: We completed
a 2 part series on Pressing Wildflowers.
Partners for this program included the
During the
month of October, the library will host a traveling children’s museum
exhibit that demonstrates concepts in light and color, and hands-on
experiments dealing with light refraction, rainbows, holograms, and more. The
exhibit is brought to us by the Hands-On Partnership for Science, Literature
and Art in
October 13-20 is Teen Read Week. This year’s theme is Get Active @ Your
Library. Programs planned for the week
include:
·
A teen rock concert kicking off the week on October
13
·
An author blog running throughout the week. Teens will have the chance to chat with
nationally published young adult authors about reading, writing and publishing.
·
A GPS session with staff from the National Forest
Service
·
City-wide scavenger hunt, with clues posted daily on RCPLs Teen Myspace
Our Summer Reading Program “Paws, Claws, Scales and Tales”
was very successful this year. The summary
report indicates that although slightly fewer children participated
than last year, those participants remained active in the program throughout
more of the summer.
PUBLIC
SERVICES/ADULT SERVICES-REFERENCE
Programs: The
September Lunch and Learn featured librarian
Young adult author Jamie Lee was our guest for the Author!
Author! series. She shared her writings
on Lakota culture. October’s Author! Author! program will feature cowboy
poet M. J. McMillan. Author
appearances for this series are funded by support from the Friends of Library.
Both the Lunch and Learn and Author! Author! programs are sponsored by the
Friends of the Library.
Services: In order
to better meet patron needs, Public Services has divided the existing service
desks into two separate service points on each floor. This concept was
identified through the space use plan.
These service points are working well for public interactions,
particularly during peak after-school hours from 3-5 PM.
SUPPORT
SERVICES/NETWORK SERVICES
Services:
- Supported
the SDLA Conference website and conference technology needs
- Updated
library blogs to provide staff access from outside the library.
- Loaded
a simple text Wiki in order to test this as a means of sharing
information.
- Now
working with MediaWiki; this is the a more sophisticated Wiki software,
with the same source code used to create WikiPedia.
- Worked
with Facilities staff for the floor trenching, in order to install electrical
and network connections for the technology area.
SUPPORT
SERVICES CIRCULATOIN/TECHNICAL SERVICES
Services:
·
Jeanie and Ed created at office and workstation use
plan that accommodates all office and workstation needs without requiring the
building of additional offices.
·
All departmental staff assisted with a massive
withdrawal of old audiocassettes and VHS cassettes. This was done in
preparation for the SDLA reception. This also gets us much closer to the
eventual phasing out of both formats.
·
Two new Librarian 1s started work this last month in
the department: Marjorie Brekke and
Grace Hammond. Grace has already begun work on synthesizing information and
goals that came out of our meeting with Mary Bushing on information resource
development.
·
Jason is putting the final touches on an electronic
schedule for the department that will allow all staff to view a three week
schedule.
OUTREACH: We are
studying how to reassign outreach and volunteer coordination between the two
departments.
EQUAL
OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER