April 2010 Report

Presented at the May 11, 2010 Library Board Meeting

1. STATISTICS Circulation: Adult YA Juv. Total Year to Date 2010 39,609 4,014 20,436 64,069 262,860 2009 38,898 3,738 21,797 64,433 259,893 2008 35,359 3,706 21,558 60,623 243,842 2007 33,363 3,398 18,214 54,975 232,357 2006 33,459 3,320 16,220 52,999 219,089 2005 31,559 2,585 14,273 48,417 196,713 (2005-10 +/-) (+25%) (+56%) (+43%) (+32%) (+34%) Self-Service checkouts: 3M ITG ITG#2 Total % of total 2010 6,429 6,499 9,099 22,027 34% 2009 6,353 7,773 7,649 21,775 33% 2008 5,189 5,702 10,891 18.0% 2007 4,328 5,652 9,980 18.2% (2007-10 +-) (+220%)

Library cards issued: Adult Juv. Sr. Org. Total 2010 88 17 0 0 105 2009 94 11 0 0 105 2008 105 23 3 0 130 2007 86 17 2 0 105 Dynix holds: From MID’s collection From other LINK libraries 2010 19,164 20,537 2009 18,966 18,858 2008 17,469 16,979 2007 16,254 14,906 (2007-10+-) (+18%) (+38%) Miscellaneous: ILL Visits Study rooms use 2010 69 29,181* 601.25 hours / 391 bookings 2009 41 47,883 575.5 hours / 424 bookings 2008 43 43,683 499 hours / 371 bookings 2007 41 39,712 468 hours / 361 bookings *Actual count.

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2. LIBRARY PROGRAMS / TOURS / PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES Date Program Attendance

4/1/2010 Baby Storytime 24 4/1/2010 All Ages Storytime - Spring/Rain : 19

4/2/2010 Bilingual Storytime : Bunny/Conejo Theme. Bilingual and Spanish books. 23

4/6/2010 Toddler Storytime- Families : 24

4/6/2010 Intro to Word 2007 Computer Class : Detailed introduction to the Word 2007 program.

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4/6/2010 Big Kids Storytime: Families 4

4/6/2010 'Tween Knitting Club : 4

4/6/2010 Drop-in Needlework : Shared conversation & needlework assistance and suggestions. Evaluation: The regulars love this opportunity.

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4/7/2010 Toddler Storytime - Family 28

4/7/2010 All Ages - Family : Books: My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks, Bear's Busy Family, Hello Lulu, Spot Visits His Grandparents ---- 19

4/7/2010 Young Illustrators Club 7

4/8/2010 Baby Storytime : 26 4/8/2010 All Ages - Family 35 4/10/2010

Minnesota Crime Wave : Q & A about their series, their writing practices, how they started in the business, etc. Evaluation: It was wonderful afternoon. The audience had a great time & made a point of thanking me profusely for arranging for these three to come. The authors themselves were so gracious; kudos to Pamela for encouraging me to invite them.

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4/12/2010

Bilingual Storytime : Spring theme. Books in Spanish, English, and Bilingual. Songs and activities in Spanish. Evaluation: Katy was happy with the program and commented on what a joy it is to see the core group of Spanish speakers every week.

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4/12/2010 Teen Advisory Committee : Icebreaker, Nature walk, bands suggestions for Sept, prize ideas for boxes, materials suggestions. Evaluation: Great turnout!

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4/13/2010 Big Kids Storytime 10

4/13/2010 Intermediate Word Computer Class : Formatting pages & paragraphs Working with text Creating lists using bullets, numbering Working with headers and footers Creating page numbers ...more

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4/13/2010 Drop-in Needlework : Conversation & sharing of tips between crafters.

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4/13/2010 Toddler Storytime: Elephants : 28

4/14/2010 Books & Brownies: Hero Type : Discussion of Hero Type and what defines a hero. (brownies & juice)

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4/14/2010 'Tween Knitting Club 2

4/14/2010 Toddler Storytime - Elephants 21

4/14/2010 All Ages Storytime - Elephants 14

4/14/2010 Young Illustrators Club 7

4/15/2010 Baby Storytime 24

4/15/2010 All Ages Storytime - Elephants 26

4/15/2010 Book Discussion for Adults : A discussion of Curtis Sittenfeld's "An American Wife."

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4/15/2010

Krafty Kids - Get Ready for Mother's Day : Mother's Day projects including bear magnet, #1 Mom sign, floral bouquet, greeting cards, coloring sheets Evaluation: Children and parents worked together to create Mother's Day gifts including a bear magnet, the #1 Mom sign, a floral bouquet, and greeting cards with stickers.

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4/16/2010 Bilingual Storytime 14

4/17/2010 PAWS to Read : Participants read with therapy dogs through the READ program. Evaluation: Children and 'tweens love this program! The dogs are very friendly and gentle.

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4/20/2010 Toddler Storytime: Feelings : 22

4/20/2010 Computer Class - Advanced Microsoft Word 2007 : Formatting borders and shading, inserting graphics, creating tables and columns, creating envelopes and labels, etc.

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4/20/2010 Big Kids Storytime: Feelings 13 4/20/2010 'Tween Knitting Club 3 4/21/2010 Toddlers - All About Me 20

4/21/2010 All Ages - All About Me 22

4/21/2010 Earth Day Film Fest: Sea Changes : The effects of CO2 on the ocean's life. Evaluation: All attendees were young adults, students at MHS and MATC with an interest in sustainability.

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4/21/2010 Young Illustrators Club : 7

4/21/2010 Earth Day Film Fest: Addicted to Plastic : film Evaluation: Kris said the participants enjoyed themselves.

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4/22/2010 Earth Day Film Fest: Good Food : The film Good Food Evaluation: Kris said even with just 4 of them there was some lively discussion on global warming.

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4/22/2010 Nature Walk (& plant a seed/make a pet rock) : Nature Walk with Lisa Johnson and planting a seed/making a pet rock afterwards.

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4/22/2010 Earth Day Film Fest: The Yes Men Save the World : We showed the film "The Yes Men Save the World."

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4/22/2010 Baby Storytime Evaluation: A big group today and a fun time. Lots of cute giggles! 31

4/22/2010 All Ages - All About Me 32

4/23/2010 Bilingual Storytime 28

4/27/2010 Toddler Storytime : Hello Song Meet Cranberry (puppet) Guessing Game: Kitty Book: Mouse's First Spring Song/flannel: Little Bird Book: Safari Animals Song: Bean Bag Rock Book: The

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4/27/2010 Big Kids Storytime 14

4/27/2010 'Tween Knitting 3

4/28/2010 Toddler Storytime - Mice 13

4/28/2010 All Ages Storytime - Mice 21

4/28/2010

Young Illustrators Club : Read poems about "feelings" and kids illustrated the poems and feelings, in general. Watched the film version of "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds. Evaluation: Another nice week of young illustrators. T

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4/29/2010 Baby Storytime : Books: Hello Baby, Where is Baby's Bellybutton, I Went Walking (group reading)

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4/29/2010 All Ages - Mice : 28 4/29/2010 Pajamarama Storytime! 15

4/29/2010 Introduction to Meditation, pt. 1 : Title says it all! Evaluation: Everyone seemed very relaxed and happy when they were leaving; several "thank yous!" to me for arranging it.

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4/30/2010

Bilingual Storytime : Stories, songs and games in English and Spanish. Katy and I read one book together-- I read the English, and she read the Spanish. Evaluation: Katy is really gifted at what she does.

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Number of Programs / Total Attendance Children's 42 / 795

Teens 3 / 42

Adults 12 / 112

Grand Total 57 / 949

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3. LIBRARY EXHIBITS Location Exhibit Artist/Collector Lobby display case Early Education Opportunities Middleton Preschool Allie Picture rail Oils

Linda Meyer

4. STAFF DEVELOPMENT: MEETINGS AND CONTINUING EDUCATION Date Staff Title

4/1/2010 Pamela

Get Moving Middleton : Most productive: updated one of our co. supervisors on library. She requested that I contact the new co. supervisors, shortly after they begin their new term.

4/1/2010

Pamela, Elizabeth, Vranna, Melissa, Katie A, Katie O., Joe, Jean, Karen, Sara, Cindy and Jennie

Circulation Meeting : Reviewed 2009 circulation numbers and projections through 2014. Discussed how RFID would help alleviate routine tasks. Discussed placement of self checkout option stations. Clarified policies including, fines, lost charges and partial payments. Summer schedule changes.

4/5/2010 Pamela and Practicum Student Alex

Interview for SLIS : As part of their practicum assignment, SLIS students are to interview a director. We covered many aspects of librarianship, focusing on administration. Alex has an exceptional understanding of the role of a manager and shows promise of a future successful administrator.

4/7/2010

Pamela, Patrick, Svetha, Amanda and Deb Haeffner

Consultation : Discussed congestion in Youth Services area. More PCs & appropriate furniture and YS lacks adequate book display furniture. Adult Reference Collection and reduce back issues of magazines. Deb will send ideas for YS customized tables & display options.

4/8/2010 Pamela

Department Head Meeting : All department heads met with new finance director John Lehman to discuss the financial update presentations and the preparation required. We'll be working from a template, which all departments will use.

4/15/2010 Pamela

AC Committee Meeting : Finalized goals for AC, reviewed recommendation from Cost Sharing Work Group (attorney to review, next).

4/19/2010 Peter Matiash SCLS Delivery Committee : Reviewed delivery budget and processes. Holding off on any major considerations until KOHA is implemented and running.

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4/22/2010 Pamela Review of Board of Trustee Responsibilities : Met with individuals interested in serving on the board of trustees beginning July 1st.

4/22/2010 Pamela

Effective Board member information : Met with 3 different individuals who are interested in serving on the library board. The role of the board is to oversee the work of the Director, set library policies and provide an overall vision for the organization. Monthly and annual documents, short term and long range goals, and expectations were reviewed.

4/26/2010

Patrick, Liz, Elizabeth, Svetha, Rebecca, Sarah, Amanda, Jason

Individual Conferences --Annual Reviews : Performance Evaluations: Reviewed position descriptions, library mission, goals and last year's individual goals. We set goals for the coming year; discussed what tools are needed for staff to obtain these goals; and discussed our overarching goal to achieve a sense of teamwork within each department and within the organization.

4/26/2010 Svetha CCBC Webinar : Great Books for Younger Children

4/27/2010 Pamela

Planning meeting with Wisconsin Chiba, Inc. : Three representatives (Mr. and Mrs. The Miyazakis) from the Wisconsin Chiba, Inc. met with Westby to discuss the Goodwill Delegation program, including sword fights, drummers and dancers.

4/27/2010 Pamela New Board Member Orientation : Met with Gurdip Brar to discuss his new appointment to the library board.

4/28/2010 Pamela

WAPL Conference : Keith Michael Fiels from ALA presented a "State of the Nation." Joel McNally from Milwaukee discussed the impact of the media on our society. A business meeting to update members on the WLA restructuring. I attended a reception sponsored by the library board and Friends at the Mead Public Library; and heard a panel discussion on Libraries & E-books and their evolving digital future.

4/22/2010 Pamela

SCLS Continuing Education Sessions : Recruitment & Retention session in the morning and Performance Evaluations that Work in the afternoon. Presenter was Pat Wagner. Good employees will stay if there is room for career growth, appropriate compensation and competent supervision.

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5. DIRECTOR’S REPORT

Circulation. During the month of April 2010, circulation of the adult and teen

collections rose slightly over the last year by 1.8% and .07%, respectively. The children’s

collections showed a slight decrease in usage in April from 21,797 in 2009 to 20,436 in 2010.

As a result of these shifts, our overall April circulation stats went down by 1%. However, there

is a significant increase (32%) during the past 5 years in the year-to-date column, which

compares 2005 (196,713) to 2010 (262,860).

Self-checkout use showed an astounding 220% increase over 2007 from 9,980 to

22,027. We continue to see high interest in the do-it-yourself method, as indicated by the 34%

of self checkout activity. It is worth noting that the most popular machine used is the touch

screen station at the front service desk.

Program attendance. In April of 2010 we offered 57 programs attracting 949

attendees. This was slight a drop from last year’s offerings of 67 programs with 1,124

participants, but calculates to more than 2 programs per day.

Resource sharing. We continue to see the exchange of materials rise. This month,

the number of items we shared with other LINK libraries was a 38% increase over 3 years ago,

from 14,906 to 20,537. Likewise, the number of Middleton items we sent to other LINK libraries

rose from 16,254 to 19,164, an 18% increase. The inequity of these two numbers may be a

direct result of the decrease to our materials budget. This places a great burden on the other

libraries in the system.

More April 2010 Stats: Fax Statistics:

50 user sessions 154 pages faxed Public Computer Usage: Number of Computers Logged: 35 Number of Days Open: 29 Total Sessions: 8,572 Total Hours Used: 4,543 Total Printed Sides: 26,823 (plus 74 pages color) 492 Walk-in laptop WI-FI access sessions

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6. LIBRARIANS’ REPORTS

Liz Dannenbaum, Head of Adult Services Emily weeded and updated the travel collection to get it ready for summer.   Emily will also 

examine the circulating map collection to make sure they are up to date.  Jenny took over the 

selection of DVDs for adults; she will focus attention on making sure we are in compliance with 

the SLCS holds ratio rules for this collection.  Liz set up a display of poetry books to celebrate 

National Poetry Month and a new Picturing America display of books on Southwestern pottery 

and basketry.   National Volunteer Week was also in April; Liz set out keychains and lots of 

candy on the volunteer sign‐in table as well as in the book sale and book sorting rooms.  Liz 

spent time finalizing details for the Adult Summer Reading Program and organizing fall 

programs for adults. 

Svetha Hetzler, Head of Children’s Services  

We continued our spring program offerings of Storytimes, Krafty Kids, and Young Illustrators

Club.

We focused a lot of energy in collection development and readers advisory services. The

Parenting Collection was updated with a new “bibliotherapy” collection. This is a collection of

picture books about sensitive issues for children. Many bookslists were crated including:

Bullies, A New Baby, Moving, Earth Day, Bibliotherapy, Potty Training, Separation & School

Anxiety, and Learning Disabilities & Differences. All book lists are on the library’s website. The

Easy Reader collection was expanded. This collection is heavily used and the additional

shelving will allow this collection to grow. To accommodate the growth, the bulk of the Holiday

collection is now in storage but there is still a collection on the main level for patrons to access

year round.

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I continued to weed the picture book, board book, concept book, and pop-up book collection.

The picture book weeding is more than half-way done and I hope to be finished before the

summer reading program begins.

The Summer Reading Program planning continued. Some loose ends with a few area sponsors

still remain. The opening for the Youth Services Summer Page I was posted. All summer

events are finalized and paper and online brochures are now available. School visits were

scheduled for May and June.

I interviewed a SLIS student, Angela Manderfeld. Angela will be starting her practicum in May

in youth services under my supervision.

Elizabeth Bauer, Head of Circulation Services The second of three probationary reviews have been held with our Library Page IIs,

Circulation. Both Jean Javenkoski and Joe Goad are doing very well and are an asset

to the circulation staff.

All page I positions are filled, for the moment, and staff are staying on top of PICK lists

and returns.

We hope to have the new self check machine up and running by the start of summer

reading, although that is dependent on delivery by ITG.

Rebecca Van Dan, Head of Young Adult Services Teen Section: In April, we trained 2 new teen volunteers, added quite a few names to our list of

teen volunteers hoping to volunteer in the summer, and discussed with Liz the possibility of

sharing a practicum student over the summer. (The student would work at the Ref. Desk, but

assist with some teen programs.) Teen volunteers took on a special project of letter-labeling the

board books, which should help greatly in finding specific titles.

Weeding and collection development were a priority this month, and we finished weeding teen

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paperbacks and started focusing on teen non-fiction. More teachers also called to set up

booktalks in May and June, and time was spent reworking and memorizing booktalks, as well as

checking/ordering supplies and prizes for summer reading events.

Patrick Williams, Head of Information Technology

A touch screen computer was set up on top of our “Green Books” display, and software

developed for touch browsing. It features lists of informational websites on “green” topics which

patrons can navigate; and the PC itself has an energy efficient processor.

The two Internet stations in the teen area have been replaced with the same energy efficient

ones that are in the computer lab. They now have the same added utilities as the PCs in the

lower level, rather than just a restricted-site web browser.

Sarah Hartman, Technical Services Librarian After experimentation with the new disc repair machine revealed that the paper hub labels we

use were damaging the discs because they wore off during the repair process, Patrick Williams

and I searched for an alternative. We have settled on hub labels that are glossy and water-

resistant, as well as large enough to cover the old labels if we need to run an older disc through

the repair machine. They can be printed individually with the library’s name and a scannable

barcode, so an additional benefit is that we will no longer have to write barcode numbers on the

hub labels by hand.

I continued to work on the collection code changes we need to make before our migration to

Koha. We are approximately one third done now. The science fiction and fantasy paperbacks

are now separate collections on two separate spinners with two separate collection codes; the

parenting collection is separated into three codes for bibliotherapy picture books, DVDs, and

nonfiction; the fairy tale collection code has been eliminated and all fairy/folk tale books

integrated into the children’s nonfiction; the adult large print has separate codes for fiction and

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nonfiction; and the Playaways have separate codes for fiction and nonfiction. These changes

will allow for correct displays in the new catalog.

Amanda Struckmeyer, Youth Services Librarian This month, I finished an aggressive weeding project in the juvenile hardcover fiction area. I

created a bibliotherapy booklist for ‘tweens, which lists books dealing with difficult issues. This

booklist is available online and on paper in the children’s area. At the DIY station, I generated

and maintained five poetry-themed activities.

Preparations for the Summer Reading Program continued this month. ‘Tween program

offerings are available online and in brochure format at the Help Desk. I created a DVD to send

to the local schools to promote our ‘tween summer program. Feedback from teachers and

school librarians has been overwhelmingly positive.

My biweekly newspaper column, “Booking It,” was written and submitted to the Middleton Times

Tribune. I also continued my work as the treasurer for the board of the Friends of the

Cooperative Children’s Book Center.

On the national level this month, I reviewed one new book for School Library Journal . I

continued to serve Priority Group Consultant for the Association for Library Services to Children

(ALSC), a division of the American Library Association. Between conferences (January and

June), this involves communicating with committee chairs and the ALSC Board of Directors to

answer questions, assist with procedures and planning, and oversee committee activity.

7. AGENDA OVERVIEW

Study Room Policy—Proposed revision—See Appendix A Appropriate Library Behavior Policy—Proposed Revision—See Appendix B Financial Review—Background information will be reviewed. Way finding sign proposal will be reviewed at the meeting.

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Appendix A:

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Appendix B:

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