The meeting was held at the Tuttle neighborhood library Friday,
December 04, 2015 at 8:15 AM.
I.
Brandon began by covering staffing changes at
HPL
a.
Staff changes discussed included welcoming
Rodger “Drew” Alvey to the Pleasantville/Tuttle branches as well as noting the
new hires of Alexandra
Drake (HEI) and Jenny Phengdara (ROB).
b.
Brandon also introduced Parent Resource Library’s new manager Beck
Gorman, who also manages the FLIP program. She can be reached at 713-535-7254
or
bgorman@cmhouston.org
c.
Shammi Gill is retiring and Melcher Assistant Manager Michelle
Perry is also leaving us to join the team at United Health Group
Insurance. It was also revealed that Kallie Benes is expecting her second
child, due in June.
d.
Lastly, Brandon announced the new hire of Jennifer Snoddy, our new
fulltime CSC at PLE/Tuttle who will begin on December 21st. Brandon
will be on vacation at that time so Drew Alvey will begin her orientation
procedure.
II.
Brandon moved on to old business
a. The no smoking signs that we are expecting are being delayed and
hopefully will be installed after the holidays. The concrete needs to be power
washed so the adhesive will stick and the signs will reflect the new city
policy banning smoking on city properly entirely.
c.
Brandon discussed the improvements made in
making the IT department more open and responsive and invited staff to reach
out to them if they had any issues they needed technical support with.
III.
Brandon moved on to reminders about existing
policies and best practices.
a.
Brandon encouraged staff to promote our system programs more, like
Season’s Readings, Children’s Book Celebration, etc. Display the flyers
advertising the programs at the service desk or appropriate shelves that have
items related to the topic. Talk to customers, share the information with your
civic groups, and place a bookmark or flyer in the books your customers check
out. Brandon encouraged more of this type of point of sale marketing.
b.
Brandon reviewed the Cell Phone policy and reinforced that
customer service comes first and called for everyone to be more vigilant in
keeping their cellphones in the back or failing that leaving it in their pocket
until they are on break.
c.
We discussed the importance of gathering accurate statistics as we
answer reference and directional questions throughout the day as well as for
program attendance and pulled or processed holds. The staff discussed it and
said that their biggest obstacle was simply remembering to input the stats. One
solution suggested that we decided to try out was to print a statistics sheet
for each terminal and combine them at the end of the day so both people working
the service desk could write down the information without having to get up.
IV.
Brandon covered important Policy Clarifications
a. The repeal of HERO
was discussed in relation to Executive Order 1-50. The distinction being that
HERO was passed with the intention of extending the rights already afforded to
city employees and civilians on city property were already protected under
Executive Order 1-50 included protections for city employees and civilians to
use bathrooms that reflect their gender expression. The repeal of HERO removed
these rights outside of city property but did not effect EO 1-50.
b. The Severe Weather Policy 7.1.2
and 7.2.3.6 was reviewed to clarify that that staff can make up
missed time or use accrued paid leave time when they can’t report to work due
to legitimate severe weather conditions. Staff should stay in contact
with their supervisors during these severe weather situations. If a staff member will be late or is unable to report to work due
to severe weather, the staff member is still expected to notify their
supervisor in advance of their reporting time just as they would if they were
going to be late or out on any other day. The weather alerts that John
Middleton sends via email are informational in nature not free passes to not
report to work. In instances where the Mayor has declared an emergency and
asked only staff of a certain tier to report to work, those staff who already
had scheduled time off will not be entitled to the disaster time pay (Section
7.2.3).
i.
Brandon
emphasized that severe weather conditions would be taken seriously by
management and that he would not put staff at risk to cover a shift.
V.
Brandon covered the following new Information
a.
The Library Information Sheet is now available
for the staff to review. Brandon encouraged everyone to take a look as it
contains valuable insight into changing trends and statistics at our library as
well as how our branches compare to other branches in HPL. He reminded staff
that these are internal documents only and are not to be shared with the
public.
b.
Covered the Open Carry Law which goes into effect January 1st.
The law permits those citizens that have a license to carry a concealed hand
gun to openly carry their weapon in a holster. We must assume that those
individuals that come in to our location sporting a gun in that way hold a
license to carry. If a customer does anything in a threatening manner
while carrying, we should dial 9-1-1, not approach them. We chose “can
you grab the blue folder in back” as a signal with staff to let them know they
should dial 9-1-1. The law stipulates that customers can’t openly carry
their gun at school sponsored events, like if a class goes to the library for a
research project however the After School Zone is not considered a school
sponsored event.
i.
Staff members raised concerns about people with guns turning
suddenly violent and frustration that they had to keep their own guns in their
cars. Brandon emphasized that this is a developing situation and that groups
are making efforts to change the law to exempt libraries and that HPL is
developing strategies and training for dealing
with armed customers.
c.
Announced that Financial Services has replaced
Paypal with Pro-pay for their online payment system would should resolve a
number of recurring errors in the system, however customers will now be charged
a .50 cent transaction fee for each online payment.
d.
Announced that TriStar Risk Management is now in
charge of overseeing Workers Comp. This will have no direct impact on the
staff. Brandon took the opportunity to remind everyone that if you are injured
on the job it is best to immediately tell him so he has the most up to date and
accurate information to submit in a report.
e.
The floor was opened to suggestions for new
After School Zone programs as well any other programs the staff would be
interested in adding, changing, or removing.
i.
Some staff felt that the middle schoolers were
left out from the After School Zone programs and suggested switching out the
game systems for the exclusive use of the middle schoolers. Others felt that
the middle schoolers were not interested in our game selection at all, due to
the fact that our selection is restricted to Teen and under which eliminates a
number of the most popular titles. We agreed to brainstorm new programs geared
towards the middle school kids which we will discuss throughout the month and
at the next staff meeting.
ii.
Also suggested was a baby-lap-sit scheduled
story time for when we begin our planned Early Literacy Story time. It could
take place before a more toddler focused story time. This was included in
Drew’s notes on story time planning to be implemented at the first of the year.
VI.
The staff meeting adjourned with a staff
potluck.
