While I'm gone

Hello everyone,

As I told everyone at the staff meeting, I will be out all next week on vacation.

There have been a few scheduling changes to reflect this.  Please be sure to check the schedule closely.  Those who I've asked to work a slightly different schedule should see it reflected on our webpage.  If there are any problems that you notice, please let Drew know immediately.

Additionally, several people will be out next week.

Pedro will be out all week so address any queries that would normally go to him to the NL office at 32707.

Drew will be out on Saturday.  In his place, Neisha will be at TUT.  Jeremy is at PLE as normal this Saturday.  They are each going to be in charge of their respective buildings.  If there are any issues they cannot handle, please call the Neighborhood Library office at 3-2707.

Monday will be Neisha and Jennifer with a sub from Kashmere Gardens.  Rosa is out that day.

Finally, Wendy will be out on Wednesday.

I've asked John Merullo to handle our KRONOS issues while I'm gone.  He is the manager of VIN/BLU and his numbers are 3277/32129.  If it's an issue that does not need immediate attention, it can probably wait until I return on 3/21.

ANY CHANGES TO SCHEDULE (Sick Days, late Arrivals, etc.) PLEASE EMAIL ME SO I CAN KEEP TRACK AND MAKE THE ADJUSTMENTS IN KRONOS NEXT WEEK!!!!!

Next week should be fairly quiet at PLE since it is Spring Break, but will probably be a little busier at TUT.

Thanks everyone and I'll see you when I return,
Brandon

Meeting Minutes 3/10/2016

The meeting was held at the Pleasantville Neighborhood Library Thursday March 10, 2016 at 10:15 AM.

1.      Brandon began by covering announcements from the Manager’s Meeting

a.       Brandon shared the updates to the Budget. The Mayor asked the Library to submit a proposal for a potential 5-7% budget cut in FY17. For HPL that equals approximately $1.9 - $2.2 million. The plan Dr. Lawson proposed takes those funds from others areas, and not personnel.  At the Library-sponsored event on 2/13 featuring author Will Haygood, it was encouraging to hear Mayor Turner say very publicly he would not balance the City’s budget on the backs of children. He believes the Library is a partner in education, and that it serves young people in our community in a very positive way.  We should have some more information about the budget in the next few weeks, and when we have more information we will share it with all staff. 

b.      Concealed Carry Signs have arrived at Pleasantville and Tuttle to be put in front of the door before any School Sponsored Event stating that weapons are not permitted in the building during the event.

                                                              i.      For Pleasantville this covers our two storytimes with the first and second graders but NOT our After School Zone. We currently do not have any School Sponsored Events at Tuttle.

                                                            ii.      Staff discussed the Open Carry Law asking for clarification on how it applies to staff and other rules. We clarified that staff must keep their weapons locked in their car and decided to repost the Open Carry Law and FAQ on the blog.

                                                          iii.      We shared the good news that since the Open Carry Law has been in effect, we have had no incidents come as a result of it. Seeing as people should be most likely to test out the boundaries of the law after is just passed, we are optimistic that this will continue to be a non-issue at the library.

c.       Brandon covered the changes to the Discard Process. New Stamps have arrived that say “Friends of the Houston Public Library”. All items in good condition are stamped with this and boxed up for sale. All items that are damaged are stamped with “Discard” and boxed up as Discards. The exception is items with yellow spine labels as they are leased and we send them to LMS.

d.      Brandon confirmed that the trainings for Lynda Library and Cyber Security had been completed by everyone. Only Yadira had yet to receive a Cyber Security email invite.

e.        Brandon updated everyone on the Digital Strategies Report.

                                                              i.      Digital Strategies is also working on updating the entire network; replacing equipment across the system, physical and wireless.  They are working with AT &T to get a new network that is more responsive to our bandwidth needs. 

                                                            ii.      Maurice Williams has returned to Digital Strategies from City ITD. 

                                                          iii.      Rick’s team continues to explore paper/printing solutions.  Ricoh copy machines will be giving a demo to see if they are a good match. 

                                                          iv.      The HELPDESK is getting a major reorg for better customer service.  Please continue to report issues to them and be more pro-active in reporting possible problems. 

                                                            v.      Digital Strategies is still working on the online registration process.  The matter is with Legal on what the proposed guidelines will be.  Saima will be helping with the transition.

f.       Brandon shared the announcement of our New HPL Foundation Director,  Sally Swanson

                                                              i.      Sally started on 1/4/16 and has a 20 year background in fundraising.  She worked previously with the Girl Scouts.  She sees herself as a link between donors and our programs.  She is an advocate for HPL and her goal is to raise money for us. 

                                                            ii.      She will seek opportunities for communities to learn what we do.  One big way she sees that staff can help her is by sharing stories of impact. She recognizes that frontlines staff see how the library is making a difference in our customer’s lives every day, and she wants to hear those stories so she can share them with potential funders.  Staff can send your stories to Laurie and she’ll share them with Sally. 

g.      Brandon announced the new Customer Services Review Program

                                                              i.      It is designed to survey and report general customer satisfaction levels and establishes a baseline for customer service. It also allows us to work toward continuous improvement. This evaluation program begins shortly, and will be spearheaded by the Organizational Development department.

                                                            ii.       It’s based on the HPL Way, and it measures the five expected behaviors covered in this core training: smile, make eye contact, use the customer’s name, thank them for visiting, and use a pleasantry to close the interaction.  Brandon asked the staff if they remembered the HPL way and went around the table with everyone contributing to state the five ways.

                                                          iii.      Volunteers will pose as customers and visit locations online, in-person, and by phone.  They will evaluate the service they receive by answering a short online survey and will be asked for suggestions.  This will be an opportunity to get more feedback and the overall findings will be posted for all staff to see.

                                                          iv.      The outcomes will spur improvements, but will not be used against someone’s individual performance, location ranking, or used to provide incentives or demerits. 

2.      Brandon moved on to upcoming Branch Business

a.       Brandon began by opening discussion on how to spend the Staff Appreciation Money.

                                                              i.      There was a lot of interest among staff about buying Kuerig Machines, with the understanding that staff would be paying for their own cups.

                                                            ii.      Brandon invited people to spend the next week thinking of ideas and to email him with suggestions or areas they did not want to see the money spent on. He offered anonymity for anyone shy about nixing a popular idea.

b.      Brandon stressed the importance of as many staff members as possible being trained for the Summer Lunch Program. We need everyone that works Tuesday and Wednesday at Tuttle to be trained and enough for coverage in case of staff shortages. We passed out the dates of the classes to everyone and urged them to sign up soon.

c.       Brandon shared the exciting news of the Harriet Dixon Reynolds training day. Drew, Jeremey, and Neshia were all invited to attend in the day long staff training event.         

d.      Brandon covered the staffing changes during Spring Break to bolster Tuttle during his vacation. As the kids are out of school, Pleasantville will be much slower and can easily accommodate the changes.

3.      Brandon finished the meeting by opening the floor to the staff, who took the opportunity to welcome back Shine and to thank each other for always pitching in to help when a team member needs it. The meeting ended at 11:00 AM 

YS Meeting Tab Now Available

There is now a YS Meetings tab available next to the Home tab on the YS Blog.  

This page will contain information about the date and location of the next YS Meeting as well as links to the PowerPoint files and Meeting Notes for past meetings and training.

All links should be live at this time, so if you experience problems accessing a link please let Rebecca know.

(This is cross posted from the Youth Services Blog but I wanted to make sure everyone saw it. Now if you are curious about what is happening at Youth Services meetings, you can see the minutes here)

Lynda Library

Hello everyone,

In the next two weeks, *everyone* must watch the online webinar for Lynda Library.

It can be accessed here.

https://www.clearslide.com/view/mail?iID=LksqRZJF8zrM2k2dkMht

Once you view this, please let Drew or I know.

There is a sign in sheet that much be filled out and turned into the training group.

One copy will be in the office at PLE and the other at TUT.

We will be putting time on the schedule for each of us to watch this important webinar.

Thanks,
Brandon

Meeting Minutes, February 6, 2016

The meeting was held at the Tuttle neighborhood library Friday February 05, 2016 at 8:15 AM.

I.                    Brandon began by covering staffing changes old business at HPL

a.       Brandon reminded us that Cyber Security training would be due next week and asked if anyone had yet to complete it. Only one staff member had yet to complete it and so they were scheduled to finish it next Saturday.

b.      Brandon informed everyone about the new phone kept for the security guard at Pleasantville. Drew shared that the decision had been made to keep the phone locked in the safe and that it would be brought out Tuesday mornings and charged.

c.        Brandon reminded everyone that there is now a staff suggestion box available on the blog and that anonymous commenting had been implemented to keep all suggestion anonymous if they so desired.

d.      Lastly, Brandon asked for feedback on the new stats sheets. Staff responded that they liked having sheets available at each computer so Brandon decided to continue using them.

II.                  Brandon moved on to new branch business

a.       Brandon discussed the new schedule.

                                 i.            Schedules will mostly stay the same with the exception of Wednesdays when Tuttle regulars will work at Pleasantville and vice versa.

                               ii.            The exception to this will be Early Release Days when we will beef up the Pleasantville staff with one of the Pleasantville regulars.

                              iii.            This led to a brief discussion about the success of the After School Zones most recent Early Release day and the general improvement of the kids’ behavior in response to the hard work of the Pleasantville staff in finding more activities to engage the kids.

b.      Brandon handed out the new shelving assignments.

c.       We discussed the new Lynda Library webinar.

                                 i.            Staff will be notified when the webinar recording is posted to the training portal.

III.                Brandon moved on to sharing announcements from the manager’s meeting

a.       Brandon began by addressing “the elephant in the room”, the budget

                                 i.            Mayor Turner has called for all departments to participate in a “shared sacrifice”. Brandon put this in perspective by pointing out that this is not the first time the city has been under budget or even our greatest shortfall and that this sacrifice would be spread out among other city departments as well so there was no reason to believe the library would absorb an undue amount of cuts.

                               ii.            There would be a slowdown in hiring, but it is not a hiring freeze. This means that all city positions that become unfilled will remain so for longer than previous, if they are filled. All positions must be examined and justified before they fill them. Brandon reiterated that this did not mean we would NOT be filling Nadine’s position, just that we do not know one way or the other at the immediate moment.

                              iii.            The goal of the Mayor’s office, Michelle Gorman, and all the way down the line to Brandon is to be as transparent as possible during this process. That means sharing what they know, when they know it, and waiting for accurate information while decisions are still being made.

                             iv.            The library is not currently talking about layoffs and the hope is that by saving money with slowing down hiring and in other areas that the library will not even have to begin these discussions. HPL is dedicated to avoiding any layoffs if it is at all possible.

b.      Brandon shared the exciting news about ConectED.

                                 i.            The current March Madness race to the final four program with select third grade classes worked as a pilot program for this.

                               ii.            Dr. Lawson went to Washington DC to participate in the national discussion.

                              iii.            Details are still being worked out, but ultimately when the program is finalized cards will be issued to every HISD student at every grade level.

                             iv.            That means Esquire can finally get a library card!!!

c.       Brandon shared the new developments in Digital Strategies

                                 i.            We will be getting a new reservation system with more details as they are worked out.

                               ii.            This is one of many new projects Digital Strategies is working on and we will continue to share their progress.

d.      Brandon announced the new craft room at Central Library

                                 i.            We know have a central location for die cuts, cri cuts, rolls of colored paper and more at room 455 of the Central Library.

                               ii.            Requests for simple things can still be requested via email but the hope is to get as much hands on use of the room to continue and expand its use.

                              iii.            Time can be made when going to youth or manager’s meeting, but if this runs into traffic jams Brandon will schedule time during the week for people to head over.

                             iv.            Eventually there will be a photo directory to help prepare for visits!

e.      Brandon announced the introduction of “Outcome based programing to HPL.

                                 i.            Brandon covered the difference between output: “we had 18 parents attend story time” versus outcome: “of 18 parents surveyed, 90% say they feel more comfortable reading to their child at home after this story time”

                               ii.            Brandon announced that Very Ready Reading will be the first program to benefits from outcome based programing.

                              iii.            We reviewed the basics of the Very Ready Reading program and how adaptable it is to suit individual story telling styles while still maintaining the vitally important consistency of songs, rhymes, stories which include a participation element, and including the three literacy tips per story time.

IV. The meeting closed with Nadine wishing all the staff the best and thanking us for all we do here as she departs for her new career and the staff expressing their gratitude and best wishes in return.

GSD updated property management information

Happy New Year everyone! Karrington Burnett has shared the Custodian Supervisor Assignments for each location.  This information is also posted on the intranet under Sprocket Work Order Instructions.

Supervisor Building Assignments

Kenneth Hicks - Jungman,  Westchase,  Alief, Frank, Blue Ridge

Juana Perera, Arthur Chatman & Ronnie Allen

Ray Harris – Montrose, Meyer, Stella Link, Clayton

Maria Morales, Staffon Elmore, Kim Jackson & Jarrell Jackson

David Killebrew - Flores, Smith, Young, Melcher, Park Place, Mancuso, Johnson, Bracewell

Mary Anaya, Ana Lopez, Diane Vasquez & Byron Simmons

Jacquelyn Dixon – Oak Forest, Moody, Scenic Woods, Lakewood, Dixon, Kashmere, Tuttle, Pleasantville, Stanaker, & Heights

Elvia Garza, Jim Johnson, Sandra Miles, Eva Perla, Luther Taylor & Rita Jefferson

Norma Garcia – Kendall, Hillendahl, Ring, Collier, Acres Homes & Looscan

Johnny Taylor, Patrick Broussard, Tracy Cheatman & Keisha Ardoin

Both Carnegie and Gregory have custodian contractors.

Karrington has sent some updated information to the Sprocket Work Order Instructions that have included the emergency contact number for TDI. In the event of an after-hours HVAC emergency issues, please have staff contact David Nicholson of TD Industries (TDI) @ 832.309.0564. Also, please have staff to email Karrington when, and if, there is an HVAC after hours issue.

Best regards,

Mary Wagoner

x32711

Cyber Security Training

Please check your email for the Cyber Security Training email.

I will try to schedule everyone to take this online training this week.

The training takes about an hour and 5 minutes or so.

If you have any trouble taking this training, let Drew or I know ASAP.

Thanks,
Brandon