CE Managers Meeting Notes
June 19, 2015
Compiled by Yolanda Anguiano
Human
Resources: We were introduced to our new Human
Resources representatives. Valda Dewitt is our Senior Client Relations Manager. She replaced Darnesha Davis-Callier. Maria
Gomez-Toledo is our HR Manager in General Relations--Staffing, and Susan Lopez
is our HR Generalist who offices at Central. Susan is our primary contact for
hiring new staff members. An org chart
of the Human Resources Public Services Cluster and a contact list of HR reps
for the Library were distributed, so you can see who reports to whom, if you have
a question. Valda will be coming out to the branches to introduce herself and
answer questions from staff.
Statistics:
(Mary Hammond) Mary is our new stats person who replaces Steve Hill. We keep statistics to report our performance
to the City, other state agencies as well as grant foundations. Our performance measures are accounted for on
a monthly and annual basis.
In FY16, we will be entering our stats
slightly different. By July 1st,
every location’s FY16 stats workbook will be on the G-drive. There will be
language access and circulation report tabs added to your workbook. The Language Access tab has a place for you
to enter your reference/directional questions answered in other languages by
the language. You can enter your data
there instead of on the separate spreadsheet that was used this year.
The Circ and Computer User numbers will
automatically populate in your report. Programs will be reported by audience
type in your monthly data entry sheets.
There will be a separate tab for Programs by Subject. This tab replaces the Program by Service Priorities.
It has a pre-set list of program titles to choose from, and general headings
for adult, YA and juvenile programs. Use
the general headings if your program isn’t in the list of titles. Record the number of programs for the month
and the total attendance. Both numbers
from the Program by audience type and Program by subject tab should match.
The information from your data entry
sheets will automatically create a monthly report. The FY16 Report tab will build automatically
through the year and be ready for review as soon as your June numbers have been
entered.
Mary
is adding a comprehensive guide to the stats workbook with definitions in the
G-drive<Statistics<FY16 Stats folders.
Stats workbooks will be in sub-folders for CEN, Express, Neighborhood
Libraries, and Special Collections. The
Managers Circ Report will be added by the 15th of each month. The compiled FY16 Programs by Subject and
Language Access report will be included.
All stats are due by the 7th
of each month. If you have a power
outage at your location and the gate numbers reset, please continue to report
those numbers even if the stats result in a negative number. Please let Mary know to be on the lookout for
it so she can account for the discrepancy.
CE Update:
(Michele Gorman) Tomika Price has resigned and taken a position in California. LeRoy Robinson will be over Mancuso while we
find a new manager. Our new Youth
Services Advocate Kallie Benes will be meeting with youth services staff on
July 10th at Central. Michele
asks that all staff that does youth programming complete the youth services
survey that was emailed. The message
with the survey will be resent after this meeting as a reminder.
HMRC
just received a grant for $3,000 for an exhibit and programming on Latino
Americans.
A
new Administrative Specialist was hired for Michele. Her name is Leah Fraser and she comes from
the Mayor’s Office and starts after July 4th. Digital Strategies is also getting a new
Assistant Director, Ricardo “Rick” Peralez.
He will be coming to one of our CE Managers meetings to be introduced
and discuss his digital strategies plans for the Library.
The
solicitation of city employees policy was distributed as a reminder to talk to
your staff and have them understand its purpose. No outside organization is allowed to
advertise their services or products in the library. If you have a question about possible
solicitous material, you can address it with Naomi Brandenburg (x31330) in Mr.
Weeks’ office or go to the executive orders site: http://www.houstontx.gov/policies/exec-orders. Choose E.O. 1-51.
You can allow qualified material at your
library, provided there is space. Don’t
create a cluttered environment to accommodate other organizations’
material.
Theater organizations that are library
partners are allowed to display material, but tutors that charge for services
rendered at the library are not. Performers
and authors who wish to sell their merchandise at their program should be
referred to the Programming department.
There was still some confusion on the
policy, so the subject will be formally discussed at another CE Managers
meeting.
Michele reminded everyone to check your
locations and your personal line’s voicemail message and update it. Directions on how to do so have been posted
to the NL blog.
Michele wants all programs and
activities, especially food programs that are missed due to temporary closures
reported to Yolanda for her monthly closure and service interruption
report. She also asks that you track JCI’s
response time to your location’s issues.
If your location is without a summer
food program, you can refer customers looking for that service to an app called
“Range.” It can be found in the App Store under Range: For Youth. This app was
created by TechSoup to provide geographic information about free food and safe
places for youth.
The Summer Reading Program is going
well. The numbers are up. Dynamo and Dash rewards still haven’t been
received.
Celeste
Diaz has created a “welcome” overview and instructions for timesheets for our CE
Admin summer interns that she can share with any interested manager. You should treat your interns like you would
your volunteers. They don’t handle any
money transactions or have access to private customer information. They still need badges. You can contact
Celeste for processing them.
The
new fiscal year starts July 1st.
You will be hearing more about budget.
There will be new staff incentives and an outreach campaign.
Managers
need to watch the archived ULC webinar on Public Libraries and Hispanics, if
you didn’t watch the live event. It is
archived on the Training Portal. (http://training.houstonlibrary.org/archived-webinar)
We will be discussing it at the July meeting.
Hurricane
Preparedness: (Gwen Walters & Karrington Burnett)
The Emergency Preparedness Plan brochure is coming to you in delivery. This is a staff only document, not for public
use. It contains private contact
information.
You will be receiving a few items to
replenish your hurricane emergency kits: military blankets and lanterns. Please dispose of any MREs you may still
have. This year’s Hurricane Disaster Guide is the same as last year’s. Please familiarize yourself with it.
Safe Workers of the Year have been
recognized. They included staffs that
haven’t had a worker’s compensation claim in excess of $100 for ten to thirty
years of service. Please nominate any
“caught being safe” workers you feel deserve the recognition. We’ve only had four people nominated. Laurie will resend that email.
Karrington
explained that every location should have a red emergency binder in their staff
workroom. It includes an emergency
supply checklist. Check the items you
have in your emergency kit against that list.
As money becomes available, we will replenish those supplies. You should’ve already received a first-aid
kit and batteries.
More of the binder content will need to
be updated. You will be notified when
those documents become available. If
your location doesn’t have a binder, please notify Laurie and Karrington.
Karen Luik suggested sending text
messages to staff in emergency situations, since traditional phones may be
rendered inoperable.
Team Building
Exercise:
We all participated in a game of telephone. Six of us were selected to start the game,
and whisper the message down the rows of participants. Needless to say, the original message morphed
into different things, intentionally and unintentionally. Michele wanted to illustrate the importance
of communication and the different styles of communication. As leaders, it’s important to recognize our
own preferential style as well as the type our staff responds to best.
Harwood
Institute Public Innovators Lab: (Will Mayer) The Harwood Institute is a
non-profit organization that has focused on working with ALA libraries. They offer a 3 day public library innovator’s
lab where they focus on change to help you and your organization learn what it
means to turn outward – to use the community, not your conference room, as your
reference point for choices and action.
They focus on five steps: being turned
outward, understanding your community, creating conditions for change &
sustainability, deciding on the right path and making an agreement with
yourself. Authority, authenticity and
accountability are part of being turned outward.
Will distributed some exercises that will
get you thinking about your community, its needs and yourself. The handout also includes the stages of
community life where you can create conditions for change and sustainability:
the waiting place, impasse, catalytic, growth, and sustain and renew.
Authority is hard to achieve because you
need to have understanding of the community and it needs to permeate everything
you do. You can have community
conversations where you identify leaders and begin to get them to talk to each
other, similar to what we are doing with Larry Payne. For more details, you can
refer to the handout that will be posted with the minutes or go to the Harwood
Institute’s website: http://www.theharwoodinstitute.org/activate-your-community/public-innovators-lab/.
No Tape:
(Mary Wagoner) The results of the No Tape survey are in. The most useful alternatives were the hanging
strips (small and medium) and removable mounting tabs. The least useful were the cord organizer,
hanging hooks and glue dots. We will
recommend the hanging strips and mounting tabs to be added to our standard
supply room items. Most of you agreed
that the tape alternatives reduced the look of clutter. If you experience any peeling paint as a
result of one of the options, please share this with Celeste and Mary. We will be ordering another item to test:
damage free large picture hanging strips.
They are supposed to support up to 16 pounds.
Branding:
(Mary Wagoner) New end caps are coming for five locations as part of the
branding effort.
HOLDS:
(Mary Wagoner) A copy of the new holds label was passed out. This will begin in FY16. We have already received the printer and
cables needed to set it up. There is one
negative to this label. It has no expiration date, so clearing holds may be
more difficult.
Weeding:
(Mary Wagoner) Weeding trainings will take place at Blue Ridge, Kashmere and
Park Place. See Fred Schumacher’s email
sent on 6/17. LMS will offer these
Hands-on Weeding Workshops for staff. They will address multiple criteria
for weeding, including CREW, and participants can practice what they learn by
weeding at the host site. You will get two hours of training credit. You can register staff on the training
portal. The weeding party for Alief has been rescheduled for Friday, July 17th.
Announcements:
(Laurie Covington) Please continue to update your Friends/Discards box counts
on the G-drive every Friday. In FY16, we
will be adding a column for number of boxes picked up. If you have a question on whether to discard
or keep an item, you can refer to Sara Karow.
Please weed your juvenile materials.
There is a max of 50 boxes of discards that you can have, except for
those locations doing the weeding trainings.
Please add “Teens” or “Juvenile” to your box labels for easier
identification by the Friends.
Every
supervisor should have access to the W-drive.
If you don’t have it, please notify Laurie. More importantly, you should see if you can
access the HPL Supervisors folder.
Every
supervisor needs to attend the PCAP training.
The last session is this afternoon.
The
July 4th holiday is observed on Friday, July 3rd. If Friday is your normal day off, you will
accrue a holiday. If you would normally
work on Saturday, July 4th, you need to adjust your work schedule,
since that day the library will be closed.
The 4th is not an actual paid holiday; ELT decided that the
Library would not be open that day so that staff could spend the day with their
families. Staff members that were
scheduled to work on July 4th will need to work a Monday-Friday schedule
or take a vacation day for what would have been their day off.
We
are still working on revising the facility checklist. We will be meeting with Jason Stephens in
SPACES next week. We want to add a
section for work order numbers. SPACES
has begun to use this information in conversations with GSD, so it’s important
that you get these done monthly in a timely manner. Central and Special Collections will begin to
do this in FY16.
SPACES has done a great job getting some
upholstery and carpets cleaned. We are
aware that some stains are not able to be removed, but the cleaning should make
things look better. Some locations are
getting new carpet—MOO and HIL. SPACES
is working to set up maintenance, like upholstery and carpet cleaning, on a
regular basis. They did not have funds
to do this for years, but now that they do, they are working to have these
things cleaned more regularly. Some
items will have to be reupholstered eventually and they are working on that.
Old no smoking signs will be removed and
in their place will be medallions installed on the floor/in the ground around
each building displaying our new smoking restrictions. Managers asked what will happen at those
libraries located in other buildings, like multi-service centers. We will follow up with SPACES.
We are still working on filling
vacancies. Senior CSC interviews
happened last week. CSC for COL interviews
are happening today, and CSC & CS Sup ones will be conducted next
week. Laurie is still waiting on
part-time CSC applications and she’s working on the Gregory School postings. Susan Lopez in HR is working fast. She has already made two job offers within
days of the interviews.
Neighborhood
USA Conference Sharing: (Patrick Atkins, Pedro Fonseca,
and Theodora Muokebe) Patrick, Pedro and Theodora attended the 2 day annual
conference on neighborhoods and civic engagement.
Patrick attended a session that
impressed him about a tool lending library in Round Rock, TX. The library purchased a trailer, lawn mowers
and other Home Depot type equipment and checked the items out to the
community. They collected over 200 tons
of garbage and 3,000 homes were impacted.
The lending library was staffed with volunteers.
He also attended a session about the
Palm Center here in Houston. It was
created in the 1950s but over the years had deteriorated. The City and architects built a park with a
vegetable garden and put in an outdoor kitchen and now give classes on
sustainable living.
Pedro
attended a session that focused on geographic information systems. The City has one as part of their
website. (http://mycity.houstontx.gov/public/)
The system places layers of information on top of a geographic map of the
city. You can add different layers of
information to help illustrate things like city council districts, parks, flood
areas, or super neighborhoods. This is
helpful for new managers or other staff that are new to their location’s community.
Theodora
attended a session about the history of law enforcement. Police departments are like us,
short-handed. It’s important to consider
the seriousness of your incident before you call them. Most locations are without a security guard,
so staffs need to play the role of law enforcer. A successful manager builds relationships
with the police stations in their community.
Make yourself known to them.
Theodora also went to a session on
creating community engagement. It’s
important to value everyone, even frenemies.
Communicate and develop relationships even with those that don’t agree
with you. Never burn a bridge. Look for a 360 leader and build on that. This is part of your job as a manager. You shouldn’t pass it on to your staff. Develop your strengths, and help the
community see what is going right rather than focus on the negative.
More
information on their conference experiences can be found on the new blog that
Laurie created. You can find a link to
it on our CE blog labeled “Library Conferences.”
In attendance:
Mercedes Mayne, Janna Hoglund, Patrick Atkins, Virginia Williams, Sara Pope,
Melissa Gwinn, Sue Kaufman, Erika Cardoso, Will Mayer, Melissa Ryans, Vanessa
Gempis, Djuina Hammett, Felicia Brisco, Tony Goodwyn, Craig Bertuglia, Donnie
Byrd, Hellena Stokes, Chris Arrowood, Nathan Stokes, Jose Santoyo, Jennifer
Myers, Rebecca Denham, LeRoy Robinson, Michelle King, Tara Hornbeak, Tula
Gorden, Theodora Muokebe, Kathrine Myers, Jayla Parks, Leonore Hu, Angela
Barratt, Sylvia Espinosa, Dominick Spinelli, Patricia Ogea, Christopher
Patrick, Gary Lackey, Kelly Patton, Edgar Fuentes, Nhu Le, Derrick Spearman,
Maggie Sepulveda, Melissa Hayes, Christy Chang, Laney McAdow, Diane Doyen, Billy
Glasco, Brandon Pope, Jennifer Sessa, Alma Avina, John Merullo, Shirley
Singletary, Paty Bustamante, Michelle Perry, Karen Luik, Javier Champa, Richard
Hurst, Esther Reyes, Maria Powers; Guest:
Susan Lopez, Maria Gomez-Toledo, Valda DeWitt, Gwen Walters, Karrington
Burnett, Mary Hammond; CE Admin: Laurie
Covington, Mary Wagoner, Theodora Muokebe, Patrick Atkins, Pedro Fonseca, Celeste
Diaz, and Yolanda Anguiano
Next CE
Managers meeting is on July 24th, 8:30AM-12PM at CEN Program Place.
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