The week of 08/16 - 08/20!

It is now Wednesday and the week is nearly over!  I wanted to thank everyone for a fabulous and fun staff meeting this morning.  I also realized I forgot to share my rose & thorn - Rose ... We only have one more window left to install on the house!  Thorn... We still have one more window to install!  :)   This week has also been a very busy one in terms of staffing.  Thank you all for your patience, flexibility, and willingness to provide excellent customer service even when we are short staffed!!!

Please keep in mind ways to make our shelving competition materialize.  Perhaps we can count books shelved by category, carts, or handfuls... As Eva suggested, we could do pizza as a reward (nom nom nom!)

Below are a small recap of our meeting at the branch along with this month's manager's meeting.  Enjoy!

Melcher Staff Meeting
Wednesday August 18, 2010
Thorns and Roses

Branch Items

• Great job with SRP!  We made it through the summer with the help our volunteers and teamwork. Now it is time to gear up for the start of the school year!  It looks like HISD will be starting school next week.  Things to keep in mind include: Truancy and Unattended Children.
• Truancy and Unattended Children.  We have done a stellar job with keeping track of unattended children.  Apparently there is a unattended children packet that I overlooked on the manager's blog.  I'll be sure to take a peek at it and see how it differs from what we already do.  Keep up the good work with having kids sign in.  Please keep in mind that under-age children here with children who not 15 should sign in just to be sure the younger child is not left in the library when the older one leaves.   As for Truancy there is a city policy: 
  City of Houston Curfew & Truancy Ordinance

Manager's Meeting Items

• Dress Code - There will be a revision of the dress code... from 1995.  Hooray.  This is our current dress code.
• Noise Policy - Our noise policy applies to both people and electronics.  If a cell phone ringer or device is disruptive it falls under the same category as a disruptive patron or staff member.
• Email - Thank you for checking your email and RSVP - ing to our meeting.  I will be sending out more reminders or appointments in the future.  The point of reminders and appointments are to help us 1) Track what we do.  2) Provide documentation and acknowledgement. and 3) Help our outlook calendars and personal calendars coincide.
• Library Surveys - Please  remember to keep an eye out for moments of recognition and ask people to fill out our online surveys. The more people fill out the survey the more true our results may appear. 
• Laptops - If batteries are dying please set them aside to be recalibrated or replaced.  If we are in need of more laptop forms they may be ordered through the HPL print shop.
• Book sale - We don't have approval for spending booksale or the new guidelines for spending it yet.  What may be done this year is new... every branch will compile a "wishlist" of items they need.  The list will then be bid on and city approved vendors will be our source of supply.  When all that is done, we get the supplies we want/ need at a substancial discount = savings for the library.  That is the theory behind all that.  If it happens or falls through, we will all find out soon enough.
• Floating - Continue to discard items on condition, check the blog, and update perennial needs.  We are doing ok as of now we have floated two boxes of YA.  There is a way to find out how much of our items have migrated to other libraries through our patrons if anyone is really curious :)
• Heads up!  EPE plans may be changing in the near future.  Possible additions to the EPE plans include technology proficiencies amongst other items...

 Shout Outs!

• Carolyn - Thank you for helping Miss Escamilla at Southmayd find her back to school books!
• Eva - We will be keeping Eva as she has decided not to return to Central.  :)
• Mike - Thanks for calling for the recycling ladies and passing on building business on Monday!