Smith and Young
Neighborhood Libraries
November 6 2015
8:30 AM-10:30AM
Smith NL Meeting Conference
Room
Notes
I 3 trainings 6 sigma, Cyber security
1, and Discrimination 1-50; Has everyone
finished taking the courses? If not
email me so I can put it on the schedule
II CMC Wrap up
Charity selected was the food bank
How was the fair?
III
Announcements from Managers
meeting
CE
Update:
(Michele Gorman) Michele congratulated the new hires and promotions in the
group. Edgar Fuentes is the new Administrative Supervisor at Stella Link.
Dena Melvin is the new Manager of Park Place. The new Manager for Mancuso
is Tula Gorden. We also have new Youth Services Managers: Angela Barratt
will serve in that capacity at Collier and Jayla Parks will be at Alief.
Jayla remains at Acres Homes/Oak Forest temporarily. Two staff members
are now serving as acting Assistant Managers: Tega Zoma for Mancuso and Iona
Joseph for Johnson. The new assistant manager for Heights begins November
9th. We will be looking at applications for Administrative
Supervisors for Collier and Alief shortly. HPL is participating in a
hiring event for veterans on November 6th from 9AM-2PM.
Interviews will be done on the spot.
a.
Nov.
6 – Veteran’s Fair (Laurie, Tim, Dominick), will be doing on the spot
interviews
Circulation
Administration is now under Digital Strategies instead of LMS. This was
done to unify both the HelpDesk and Circ Admin call centers.
The
Fall Festival is Friday, October 30th from 11AM-2PM. All
Neighborhood Libraries will open an hour later that day. Both Clayton and
Central will be business as usual. All locations are required to either
participate in the pumpkin decorating contest or have a booth at the festival.
Remote parking will be available. Staffs are encouraged to wear their HPL
red unless they are in costume.
Donations
to the CMC have surpassed $28,000 and we have 31% participation. Our goal
is to raise $50,000 and have 100% participation. Keep reminding your staff
that giving, even a little will go a long way to help another. Those who
donate will be entered into a raffle to earn prizes.
Councilmembers
have given $16,000 to Southwest Express/Walter for enhancements to their
space. Youth Services received $42,000 for After School Zones. They
will use the money to build STEAM kits.
Please
remind your staff to take the Health Assessment. We only have a 35%
completion rate. Reporting your biometric numbers will entitle you to a
$600 discount on your insurance, and if your spouse participates, their
biometric numbers can earn you an additional $300 discount. See the email
that was sent out on 10/22 for more details on the remaining biometric
screening locations.
Digital Strategies: (Rick Peralez & Saima Kadir)
Rick introduced Virtual Services Manager Saima Kadir. Her team is
responsible for our web presence. She pointed out the different web pages
accessible even when our main website is down. Customers sometimes refer
to the catalog page as our website, but it’s different. The catalog is
cloud based, so it works independently of the main one. The main HPL
website is www.houstonlibrary.org.
Digital Strategies and Communications govern the site, but Virtual Services and
Branding Manager Donna Jackson maintain it. Various HPL staffs are
responsible for the content. Special Collections websites are separate and are
housed on WWW2 servers. Special Collections’ staffs govern and maintain
content. The web pages are updated by Roland Lemonius and George
Eggleston. Roland is also responsible for maintaining the intranet.
That web page is also separate and housed on the WWW2 server. When the
main website is down, you can also urge customers to use our mobile app.
It offers much of the same information: catalog access, My Account, digital
media, locations, events, digital archives and book lists. More detail on
the HPL webpages can be found in Saima’s presentation which will be posted with
the notes.
(presentation is available on G: Drive under
Saima Kadir’s folder)
Digital
Strategies is continuing to monitor why the servers have gone down and is
working with HITS for a solution. Our main website may be down today, so
they can troubleshoot the problem. The slowness experienced with Sirsi is
being addressed by HITS and Digital Strategies, but it’s more difficult to
pin-point the problem. If you don’t see your daily or weekly reports in
Sirsi, contact the Helpdesk. Rick is trying to meet with Coin Copiers to
address our concerns. The problems with Tech Logic have been communicated
to the company and they have promised to “make it right” and give an alternate
proposal different than retro-fitting our equipment for the price of a new
one. Recently there was a sweep of the entire system to clean up the
wiring in the libraries. Rick has also made the reservation system a top
priority to provide better customer service. Connecting existing staff
phone lines to the 911 service is also being addressed. The team is
working on an inventory initiative, so they ask if you have old IT equipment
not being used to send the list of items and G numbers to Celeste Diaz by COB
11/6. They will work with SPACES on getting them removed from your
location.
Salvage
Technology: Send list of salvage tech to Celeste by Nov. 6
Rick
spoke about the inclusion of Circ Admin into the Digital Strategies
department. He said it should be a smooth transition and will provide
more access to the call center. The manual paper process will become more
automated. The computer cards process will also be improved.
Clayton: (Sue Kaufman) The
PBS program “The Genealogy Roadshow” will be taping a program at JIB on
November 22nd and anyone can attend. The taping will be from
8:30AM-6PM. There will be limited parking. You can find more
information on Clayton’s blog.
HMRC: (Laney McAdow)
Beginning next week, there will be a cell phone tour of HMRC available.
There will be 19 stops inside and outside the building. You can either go
to the website: http://hmrc.toursphere.com,
or call 832-308-3574 to participate. There will be an author event on
November 14th that HMRC is co-sponsoring at the Julia Ideson
Building. Authors will be speaking in the Reading Room and exhibitors
will be in the Norma Meldrum room. The authors all write material about
Houston and Texas.
LMS: (Fred
Schumacher) We will have a new eBook service called Axis 360. It
complements our current eBook service, but doesn’t replace any other
service. There will be a soft launch at the end of this month with a full
launch expected for early November. Training webinars will be offered on
10/29 at 9:15AM and 11:15AM and 10/30 at 9AM. The 10/30 session will be
archived for those who couldn’t attend. Sessions will last 45-60 minutes.
Register using the Training Calendar. What is Axis360?
- Axis360 is a new e-book service that is provided by
Baker & Taylor.
- Axis360 is not intended
to replace OverDrive or the new Hoopla e-books.
Why
do we need another e-book service?
- OverDrive content is purchased through a consortium
of libraries to meet the needs of all the consortium members.
- The content of Hoopla
is determined by the agreements between Hoopla and the studios. The
library has no control over what titles are offered through this service.
- Axis360 will allow us
to provide access to titles we don’t get through OverDrive or Hoopla that
are more focused on the needs of Houston Public Library’s customers.
Will
there be overlap between the titles offered by all three services?
- We will attempt to purchase unique titles for each service
but there may be overlap in titles.
- Please note that it is likely we will get requests
to purchase titles in one service that we already have in another. We
don’t have the resources to duplicate content so in general we will only
purchase a title in one service.
What
is the circulation policy for Axis360?
- We will try to make the circulation policy for
Axis360 as close to OverDrive as possible to minimize confusion.
- Check out limit:
10 items.
- Check out time period: 2 weeks.
- Holds limit:
10 items.
- The time period a patron has to check out a hold
after a hold fulfillment notification has been sent: 3 days.
International
Services:
(Shammi Gill) Citizenship Month is in November. If you are doing a
special program not part of Youth Services, please send Tiffany Wise an email,
so she can add you to our collateral. Language Access 101 Training is
happening on Friday, November 6th from 11AM to Noon at 611 Walker in
the Garden Auditorium. This is recommended for front-line staff because
it will help them understand the City’s Language Access Program. One hour
of training credit will be earned. A basic Spanish class was conducted
this month with Beatriz DeAngulo as instructor. More classes will be
forthcoming. Shammi is looking for staff willing to be part of the
International Services Advisory Team. She asks that managers encourage
their staff to join. See Shammi’s email on 10/22.
CE
Admin:
WPRs in Talent Management System (TMS) are due by the 31st.
Complete the WPR form that was used previously. You can then place the
narrative in TMS, in the section that pops up when you click “meeting” in the
staff account. Laurie will email follow up instructions. In TMS,
you can add feedback to staffs’ SMART goals to track progress, but don’t change
the status or it will disappear.
Grey
Metal Stands:
SPACES needs to borrow your grey metal stands. Please label your stand
clearly, so it’s easily identified upon return. JIB will be using them
for an exhibit.
Directory: Celeste and
Yolanda are working on a picture directory of all Assistant Managers and
Managers in Customer Experience. If they have requested a picture from
you, please comply.
Liz: We were told
that all staff plans are to be placed in TMS. Scoring will not be
available in TMS until at least January. Any 5th month, 11th
month, or promotional review due before January needs to be done in the old
system (HEAR Interim Application). It is unavailable at this time.
You will be notified when it’s back up. The HEAR Interim Application is back up as of Thursday, 10/29/2015.
The plans in TMS don’t have an auto sign feature, so several plans are still in
pending status. Please follow up with your staff and reviewing authority
to ensure they have been signed.
911
Service:
To use the 911 service on a staff phone, you will need to dial “9” first to get
an outside line. To set up a test call with the 911 service, you have two
options. Option one is emailing testcalls@911.org and put “test call” as
the subject. Include your location’s phone numbers, address, state &
time that you want to set up a test call for 911 in the message. Their
slowest traffic is Monday to Thursday from 9AM-2PM, so provide times to make
the test calls within this window. They will email you the assigned time
to test your phone. The second option is to call them at
832-237-1911. They will need the same information as in the email;
however, some staff will not take your information over the phone and ask you
to send them an email instead. Consequently, your best option is the
first one. When you make the test call, read the email received from 911,
ask what phone number and address are showing up on their system to make sure
they are correct. In addition, the 311 service doesn’t work on our
phones, but you can call 713-837-0311 to access it.
Policy: 2 minor policy
revisions were done this month and an email was sent to all staff on the 19th.
AP 2-3 for severe weather clarifies the language indicating that staff must
abide by the instructions given to each Emergency Tier. Please review it
with your staff and if you have questions, address it with your Senior
Manager. The Email Business Cycle policy change AP 8-10, explains that
all email is subject to the Open Records Act and email will be archived for 2
years.
Youth
Services:
Kallie sent an email out describing the new format of the Youth Services
Meeting. Youth Services includes all youth, birth to age 18. The
meetings now include a training element that staff members receive 1 hour of
training credit and they break into groups to talk about the various
specializations within Youth Services. This is an opportunity for staff
to network and learn from their peers as well as share some of the fabulous
things that they are doing. The Teams include: After School Zone,
Early Literacy, School Relations, Marketing, Very Ready Reading Program (VRRP),
Children’s Book Celebration, Summer Reading Program, and Teen Special
Programs. It is very important for staff that serve young people (young
children, tweens, and teens) to attend the meetings. Please work to get
schedules in order to accommodate this. We understand that not all youth
services staff can attend each meeting, but try to allow as many staff members
as possible to attend. Look to Kallie’s email dated 10/22 for more
information on their work.
We
are going to participate in the Houston Mini Maker Faire on Nov 14th from
9PM-6PM at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Kallie still needs 12
volunteers to help cover our booth. Michele said we need to work with
this community and our partnership with them is important for the future of
HPL. Please encourage your staff to volunteer.
GSD
Security:
(Frederick Lee) We were introduced to our new Senior Public Loss
Investigator Zachary McMahon. His phone number is 832-393-8486. We
also have a new Senior Project Manager who is over Central, Armondo Bell.
He offices next to Central’s Security Office on the loading dock.
Café
College:
(Cylenthia Hoyrd) Councilman Ed Gonzalez has asked HPL to bring the Café
College model from San Antonio to Houston. It is a college access center
created in partnership with the City. It targets kids K-12 but it’s
especially for juniors and seniors in high school. They help students get
accepted to higher education, whether it is a traditional college or
technical/vocational one. The Café College will be housed at Carnegie and
they are actively looking for grant money. They open on December 5th
and hope to provide a VIP tour of the facility in November. Project Grad
will have two advisors on location. The hope is to push out the model to
other locations in the future.
Quality
Management System:
(Michele) We are still looking for authors to work on the Quality Management
System (QMS). There are still many processes that need authors, editors,
and experts to review them. Michele wants you to examine the list and
think of whom on your team would be good to get involved. She went over
the FAQ sheet regarding the QMS and asked that each manager do the same with
their staff. Present this as an opportunity to help with communication
and consistency. Managers asked if we could include visual aids like
screen shots or flow charts to the descriptions of the processes. Michele
said that someone would need to take the lead on keeping those items
current. Another suggestion was to have date stamps on each document to
track revisions. To become part of the QMS team, you can send your Gmail
address or create a special google account and send it to Laurie. She is
the project leader. Once the QMS is done, you can use it as a tool to
supplement new hire training.
Discussion: We split into
teams and were tasked with finding solutions to different problems that exist
in HPL. Subjects included Teamwork, Communication, Morale, Time, Customer
Service, Facilities, and Consistency. Each team was to come up with three
solutions and name one thing that is already being done to address it.
Administration wanted to express that all staff should be problem solvers and
it doesn’t fall to just one person to make things right.
IV
An E-mail signature has everyone
done it? Couple of people still working on this go to web page search branding
and pull up the format for the email signature.
The web base outlook is fussy about the HPL graphic if it doesn’t load
do everything else.
V Schedule
Csd/RM we are being asked to have
Roaming every hour of the day to walk the building and see what is happening in
the corners and deal with issues before they grow. Also at times when it is slow we need to get
out from behind the desk and walk around.
Branches are being spotted with 2 or more staff hanging out and talking
at the desk. In a world where city
workers are called lazy and entitled we don’t want to be seen hanging out. Also computer use need to be library
related. Not shopping or other none
library activities.
Conversations
at the desk can be heard, take out of context, should not be negative related
to the city or the library.
VI Dress code rules Clean, no wrinkles, and
no ripped jeans
VII Young NL
Presentation
went well last night – it seemed like everyone there was pleased with the
updates on the construction progress and building design. I’m not sure what you
guys already know about all of that (almost all of it was news to me, ha), so
I’ll summarize what I learned.
-
Summer
2016 is goal completion date, currently on schedule
-
The
chosen building design was made with a focus on sightlines across the library
from the desk, for safety and customer service reasons
-
Also
strong focus on bigger and better YA and JUV sections, and meeting/training
rooms that fit community usage needs
-
$400,000
planned spending on new material to fill in the larger space
-
$400,000
planned spending on new technology
-
There
will be 1 meeting room (up to 200 person capacity), 1 conference room (up to 10
people), and 1 training room (10-20 people depending on set up)
John
Middleton showed some pictures of the interior and exterior building design.
The presentation attendees all seemed to like the furniture and color choices
and the open layout of the spaces. There was also a positive response to the
news about having a dedicated training room in addition to the larger meeting
room and conference room.
There
was also a good amount of discussion of the planned artwork. John reminded
everyone a presentation of the 2 finalists for the artwork are on display at
Young, along with comment cards to gather feedback from the community. I got an
email from Karrington today letting me know that we’ll keep the display up
through this Saturday.
Thanks
for sending along the meeting info and suggesting I attend. It’ll be good
information to share with the SMI/YOU staff.
Thanks,
Dominick
VIIII Questions or comments
Invitation
to Attend HPL's Staff Holiday Celebration on Saturday, 12/12/15 at 7:00 PM
(RSVP DUE by COB Friday, 11/13) Please
use VOTING option located in Outlook Message Header (between Reply and Delete)
to RSVP. If you do not see a voting button option, please simply RSVP by
replying to this email.
We
decided to do a combined Thanksgiving / Christmas / Hanukah /Kwanzaa / 6 St. Nicholas
Day /
23 Festivus
/ Mawlid Un Nabi on 12/4/15 during the next full staff meeting. We will do a potluck. Bring what you would like homemade or
purchased. Kitty says she is bringing
Smoked Gouda Mac and cheese.
Questions
about the coughing man came up we will follow security policy 2.3
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