CE Managers Meeting
9-25-15
Compiled by Leah
Fraser and Yolanda Anguiano
CE Update: (Michele Gorman) Michele and
staff congratulated and honored Theodora Muokebe for her 10 years with HPL.
Today was her last day. Theodora is the first person Michele spent time with at
HPL and she was her first introduction to how people should be treated here. We
are transitioning Patrick Atkins to serve in Theodora’s former role and Djuina
Hammett will take over Patrick’s position as Sr. Manager. We will notify
library staff soon regarding the transition. Monica Siboldi was introduced as
the new Customer Service Supervisor at Collier.
Collier will be
posted as an Administrative Supervisor. It will be posted within 2-3 weeks.
We’re continuing to provide opportunities for internal promotions. It’s part of
our new HPL model. An MLS degree will be preferred, but not required. We
want to keep our options open. We’ve done a lot of interviews recently.
Many staff members have been on interview panels and Michele thanked them for
their hard work. We have completed interviews for the new managers of Stella
and Mancuso. They will be announced soon. Vacancies will be posted for
Collier and Alief in the next few weeks.
Janna and
Christy were recognized for two things: they did a stellar job at the community
engagement event and they’ve done a lot of work in the realm of international
services. They did a really good job on their presentation. They spent several
months working to get a naturalization ceremony with a federal judge at the
Southwest Multi-Service Center for 100 new citizens who have gone through
citizenship classes with us. The ceremony will be held on November 19.
Also, we need to continue to help make sure they have everything they need to
get a job and build their resume.
In only 4 months
under Kallie’s leadership, we’ve made tremendous strides. We’ve hired new
Children and Teen Service Coordinators. We have changed how we’re doing Youth
Services meetings, and now we’re back to how they were done in the past. The
meetings will be held once a month, for 3.5 hours from 8:30AM until noon. We
need a commitment to Youth Services from everyone, which means its mandatory
attendance for someone in each location. If you’re not sending someone to this
meeting, you’re missing vital information. Please send the right person for the
meeting, and ideally if you can send more than one person – that is great.
Special Collections libraries don’t have to send someone but they can.
Employees in youth services at locations can rotate their attendance to the
meetings. These meetings are very important to the success of our library
system. We want a very dynamic and engaged Youth Services team.
Kallie
introduced teams to Youth Services in her last meeting and Michele will
introduce teams to Customer Experience in today’s meeting. In order for teams
to work, we need support at the highest level. We’re going to talk about how it
impacts the system. Large scale events, like CBC, LibroFest and others
shouldn’t always have the same six staff members to make it work. We have 400
front line staff employees. When Michele went to a Children Service meeting,
the staff talked about their talents, skills and abilities. Six staff members
shouldn’t be staffing the event by themselves when we can have 30 youth staff
to support a large scale event. Think of the time and effort of six people
versus the time and effort of 30. We need to do a better job of supporting our
youth staff and figuring out how to support these large scale events. The usual
mentality is you’re too busy at a location. When that happens, talk to your
Senior Manager. They can talk to Liz, and Customer Experience will help figure
out how to make this work. We’re working together as a team.
Read Across the
Globe is an event that’s happening on October 19. Staff got an email about it.
HPL is doing this in partnership with HISD. We are trying to break a record
with Guinness World Records. We’re signing up staff to play various roles on
the day of the event, Monday, October 19th. If your location is closed or you
have someone you can send, we need readers, timekeepers, witnesses and other
various roles. Send Rebecca Denham a list of employees that can assist that day
as soon as possible. We will send your staff member(s) to an HISD school as
close to your location as possible. The goal is to have as many kids as we can
read the same book at the same time to break the Guinness World Record. We’re
trying to create relationships with your local schools and with HISD to get you
in the door and have kids read.
Tweens Read is
an event on Saturday, Oct 3rd from 9:30AM to 3PM, in Pasadena, to
promote reading and connecting tweens with multiple guest authors. It’s for
students in grades 5-8 and approximately 1,000 children attended last year. We
need 4-6 people to cover this event. This is about sparing someone and being
flexible, helping to make this work. Contact Rebecca or Kallie if you have
staff that can make it or if you have questions.
Houston’s Mini
Maker Faire will be held Nov 14th from 9PM-6PM at the George R.
Brown Convention Center. We’re looking for 8 staff members to help with this
event, but we don’t need them the whole day. We can do it in shifts, so maybe a
two hour shift on Saturday would work. Kallie will send out information on this
and what they are looking for soon.
These events are
all about building relationships with the community, and it’s going to be
important in the next year or two. We’re looking at the model of HPL and
considering how we can incorporate the community in our quality of service. We
at the NL level need to participate. That is part of the reimaging of Youth
Services at the system level. More than just Youth Services can participate.
Staff needs to be given the opportunity to go to these events so everyone has
the chance to get away from their usual tasks and enjoy fun
opportunities/events. This is a return to how HPL used to be.
Learning Link
was launched at Blackshear Middle School on September 24. Brochures were passed
out along with a letter that went home to parents. The new card is fine free
and will allow 3rd graders to check out up to ten items. The card
doesn’t accrue fines or go into collections. This is a program in partnership
with HISD and their NCAA Read to the Final Four Literacy Challenge. Houston
will host the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four in April 2016. HISD has
pulled together 68 schools to participate in the literacy competition based on
the amount of time their students spend reading. Schools with the highest
average number of reading minutes will continue in the completion narrowing
down the schools into brackets just like March Madness. The final two schools
get to go to a big event and the winning school will receive $5000. We’re
piloting the Learning Link Card to facilitate the reading by the students. The
card can only be given out to 3rd grade students at the schools who
are participating in the program. We signed a data sharing agreement with HISD
for the first time. We will create the cards and give them to the schools. If a
kid loses their Learning Link Card, library staff needs to look it up in the
system. The children can have another card as well which is fine. Replace the
Learning Link Card if necessary, even if they have issues will their full
access card. More information will be sent out. The goal is to make it work and
next year the card will hopefully be handed out to more kids.
Digital
Strategies: (Rick
Peralez & George Metcalfe) Rick and George Metcalfe presented at our
meeting. George is involved with desktop collaboration and HPL Enterprise
refurbishment. He displayed a new telephone with a built in camera that
we will be using. A limited number of them have been purchased but
Digital Strategies is actively looking for more funding. They will be
used for training, inventory control as well as video conferencing.
Network refurbishment is being done to improve the design, accommodate more
apps, increase internet speed and add more firewalls. Digital Strategies
is waiting on the E-rate committee for approval.
SPACES: (John Middleton) John shared the
Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment spreadsheets with managers. This list
includes the branch requests for repairs or replacements of said items.
If you don’t see a request on this list which you think needs immediate
attention at your library, please email Jason Stephens and cc John. This
spreadsheet marks the progress made on these requests for every quarter.
Those items in green have been approved to be done or are completed
already. Those in yellow are upcoming fixes. If the requests are in
white, there hasn’t been a decision made on them. The pink line is JIB
funding. Some requests may not be found on this list because they are CIP
items or are being done in-house, so they’re completed quickly and for less
money.
We’re getting
into our regular programming with reupholstering, window washing and other
things that GSD doesn’t do. GSD is saving their budget to work on things like
the elevators. There’s no extra money to fix everything. If there’s no budget
for fixing those things then we look into the Private Budget, but that takes
away from programming. Please let John know if there’s a vital need or if
something needs to be fixed that’s in a highly visible area. He has been
visiting locations and seen staff furniture that is torn or in disrepair.
Please call to have them replaced. They have many chairs in stock that they can
switch out. We want the staff furniture to be just as comfortable as the
furniture for the public. They’ve kept used furniture and reupholstered it, so
that’s available as well. Light fixtures from JIB are also available. We have
to follow protocol to order furniture.
GSD typically
takes care of painting and there is a very small budget for it. If there is a
highly visible place that needs to be painted, please let John know. The hand
sanitizer covers are donated to the City. There’s no budget for them, but they
will be replaced when more are donated. Blinds will be taken out or replaced in
the next few years. During the summer we asked for blinds to be closed but with
cooler weather, the directive to keep blinds open at all times is back in
effect, unless it gets really hot in the area near the window. If someone
breaks into a library, they can go unnoticed with the blinds closed. Window
washing is also being taken care of. If you have something that needs to be
fixed, Mary Wagoner asks that you take a photo of it and save it on the G:
drive. When she meets with John Middleton, she can show him the photo and
discuss the issue. In your group, start thinking about where you save photos,
so that you don’t have duplicates everywhere and only save each photo in one
location. Later on, we will work on information management and send out
information on it. Part of the problem is if everyone saves the same
photo/video, then we will have duplicates take up space on our servers.
Carts and
smaller items can be ordered. Contact Mary Wagoner and Laurie Covington and let
them know which carts you prefer that were ordered last year. We will be able
to buy new carts at a cheaper price in bulk and replace the broken ones. In the
new calendar year, we will start tagging carts and chairs so that we can
replace them under warranty for free if they break. We really want to get stuff
back to you as quickly as possible.
We’ve waited a
long time, about nine months, for no smoking signs. A part of the issue was
since we expanded the no smoking ban, we really wanted signs on posts all over
the place. We worked with Legal to get a sign on the ground. John Middleton
showed prototypes that we will hopefully see in November on library properties,
on the ground near parking, sidewalks leading to the property and porches.
These won’t be on signs that can get broken and ugly. That’s what is taking so
long. We haven’t done anything like this before and there are a lot of hands in
it. The signs feel like asphalt. We will have to power wash the spot before
they are put on the sidewalk.
John Middleton
showed renderings of Jungman and it’s almost ready. These architects are the
same ones that designed Oak Forest. They had thought about tearing the building
down, but it will now have much more space. The biggest difference from before
is the new entrance from the parking lot. We started design of
Robinson-Westchase and another in the queue is Meyer. We’re still looking at
available sites. Blue Ridge is being divided in half and will be shared with
the Health Department’s WIC program, and we will be running the library as a
little more family focused than before. The library will get new furniture and
new finishes. Alief is finishing up on its last phase of design. We are
trying to make the passport office a real office in the front. Passport offices
will be branded going forward. We are working on some images. The Homeland
Security’s Global Entry program will move to Jones on September 28. We
will combine our services with their services in a new travel office on the 1st
floor. They will have their own signs.
LMS work started
this week. Shelving was taken out and we’re waiting on electrical, which we
think will be done before the end of the year. We will have three new
conference rooms added on the floor. One will hold 30- 40 people and 2 others
will hold 10 or less people. We will have a break out space which is really
helpful.
We started
putting together the city art process for Young. We had 114 people enter into
an open call art entry to compete to have art put on the location. On October
9, five artists will present their ideas and proposals to the art committee. We
are hoping the chosen artist will use the whole site.
Collier’s roof
will be fixed, and it wasn’t as bad as we thought it was. Pleasantville’s roof
was patched, and we will see how good it holds up. It will be patchwork for
now.
Update on
Holds and Renovations:
(Mary Wagoner) Most people raised their hands to show that the new holds
solution is saving them time. Some staff said they are saving 1-2 hours per day
(they had about 300 holds a day), others said they are saving about 20 minutes
per day with the new holds solution in place. We are cutting our book drop
processing time in half. Staff also estimate that we are saving reams of
paper and tons of rubber bands. Most people said they like the new yellow
labels but they have an odor. We think the yellow labels are less confusing,
and they stand out on the shelves.
Handouts were
given to update the pickup location for holds, and they are attached to the
minutes. Please share this with your staff. New renovation projects have made
it necessary to designate new locations. We have to close locations for a week
or so, and then find another location for holds pickup. We want to make sure
you’re aware that this is the proper procedure. The image on the last page of
the handout, attached to the minutes, shows the correct placement for the holds
labels. The last photo on the far right shows the correct place to put the label.
The biggest problem is having the label put in the wrong place on CDs and DVDs.
The label goes on the side where you open it. We’ve asked for consistency. The
other item where the hold labels are misplaced is the Flip Kits. The label goes
on the side that does not have the barcode. It makes the process so much faster
if the label is placed on the correct side. Please don’t cover up the barcode
on the items. The handout also answers common questions. Some Sr. Managers are
offering training at your locations. Contact them if you can’t make training on
other days provided. Staff must sign the training document letting us know they
attended. It’s a stipulation, and it’s not counted unless they sign it. Please
share with Mary if you have suggestions for making a better workflow.
We should have
access to Jungman at the end of October, and anticipate opening in January. We
will tag staff to help with inventory to prepare for collections. Because Blue
Ridge has been a holding center, please shop their shelves heavily and it will
help in the process.
For the No Tape
Update, Donna Jackson is working with Rick Peralez to get a globalized email
signature, so that it will look the same when we send out emails. We are
working on branding the end caps and working with the Sr. Managers on verbiage.
We’re hoping for consistency. For the Crayola kiosks, we’re waiting on funding
for the apps and then they’ll be ready to roll out. Mary Wagoner will contact
10 locations to work with Digital Strategies and Spaces for the installation
and discussing placement. Spaces will have final approval due to ADA
compliance. Digital Strategies and Spaces came up with the funding for the
kiosks and we’re very excited and thankful for their support. After the pilot,
we will see if we want more kiosks for other locations. At this point, SPACES
and Digital Strategies are committed to expanding the program and will fund the
project in the future if possible.
CE
Announcements: (Laurie
Covington, Liz Sargent, and Michele Gorman)
Laurie - Financial services says everyone’s doing
a really good job with deposits and they are seeing very few errors. Thank you
for sending staff to training for Smart Money and they are adding that as part
of onboarding. Please train them yourselves as well. Make sure you send in the
signed credit card receipts with your deposits and treat the slips like they
are cash. It is our audit proof if the customer disputes that they ever signed
it.
Meeting room
policy and guidelines are live on the webpage now. Were waiting for approval
from Financial Services to use the meeting room category in Smart Money for the
food fee, but start using the guidelines as of now. The form is on the webpage.
The guidelines provide a simplified version of the policy because it has too many
complicated parts to it. Please let Laurie know if you see something that needs
to be added and we can work on getting the language.
All 15 people
that signed up for Thuy’s technology training actually attended. Thank you for
getting that message to your staff to cancel if they can’t make the training.
Please continue to notify Training if you need to cancel, since they have a
waiting list and can fill those spots. Thuy is working on an Intermediate Excel
class but doesn’t have a date for it yet. She is also working on an eLearning
version for Overdrive. You should be able to do everything online and get
credit for it. She’s hoping to have it ready in January.
Liz – Please refer to Executive Order
1-39 attached to the notes. It deals with the establishment of the Office of
Inspector General for Investigation of Employee Misconduct. OIG has had to
contact Liz for employees not responding to their calls. Please share a couple
of points with your employees, including 5.7.3; 5.7.4; and 5.7.5. Please share them
verbatim with your staff, so they understand how serious it is. When they
receive an email or a phone call that they need to come for some sort of
interview for OIG, you need to make sure that the employee actually shows up.
Generally, OIG will start with the employee and if they don’t hear from them,
they will contact that employee’s supervisor or manager. If they don’t hear
from them either, then they will escalate up to Liz. We’ve had instances where
the employee wasn’t responding and the supervisor wasn’t telling the employee
to respond. Please make sure you tell your staff to respond. By not doing so,
an employee could be guilty of misconduct. Also, they shouldn’t share anything
that goes on in that meeting when they return. It is confidential information.
Another item to point out is 5.7.8. You want your employees to understand that
based on other disciplinary actions they might have it could lead to a
suspension. Make sure every location manager and supervisor is sharing this
with their staff. Everyone should know to respond accordingly and that it’s
very serious.
Michele - In the nomenclature of HPL, we often talk
about committees. Several committees exist but there’s no list of all of them.
In CE, were going to start doing things a little bit different. Please refer to
the HPL Teams handout which is attached to the minutes. The document will help
you understand the shift and how were going to start doing things around here
and how it relates to teams. Committees are people talking about things. Teams
are people coming together and getting things done. The attached document shows
a structure for teams to get things done. A Standing Team is a group of staff
assembled to support the work of a department, a large-scale initiative or an
ongoing service or population. More details can be found on the attachment.
Youth Services and Kallie will develop a new section to get the work done. The
new Children and Teen Services Coordinators created a standing team, named
School Relations. This team will always exist and have 6 staff members on it.
The attachment lists the teams charge, goals, meeting frequency, team term etc.
These members will be determined, and annually these members will roll off.
A Quick Team is
a group of staff assembled to work on a longer-range project or initiative for
a finite period of time, usually 6 months to a year. More details can be found
on the attachment. These teams don’t always need to exist. For example, in
Youth Services, we’re going to introduce this program called the Very Ready
Reader Program. This is a story time program, so for 6 months to a year, Kallie
and Youth Services will pull together staff members to work specifically on the
Very Ready Reader Program and follow the format or model of the others. After 6
months – 1 year, this team will dissolve, because it’s a Quick Team. They can
meet in person or virtually.
Michele is
working with Roosevelt Weeks, Dr. Lawson and others to develop methods and
figure out how to meet virtually. They’re working on something right now as a
platform for how we’ll start meeting virtually and the idea is to roll it out
soon. We will be able to log in online sort of like GoToMeeting and you can
share things back and forth without driving somewhere for a meeting. For the
VRRP group, they know there is a set curriculum. One group of story times
already exists but one of the subgroups of the team might try to enhance the
story times. They can find new songs or other additions to go to the story
time. Two members can look at songs, 2 can look at additional poems etc. and
then pull it all together, saving time and doing the work quickly. That’s how a
Quick Team works. They are pulling different pieces together and then once a
month they are coming back together and sharing their work.
A Work Group is
a group of staff pulled together to work on one specific project for a finite
period of time, usually less than 6 months. More details can be found on the
attachment. This happens virtually. For example, look at the Quality Management
System; you may have 3 people working on a project for 3 months and that’s all
they are going to do. Each of them share their thoughts, edit each other’s work
and talk about it again. If that’s all they did, then it’s a work group. It’s a
much smaller focus. If we need 2-3 people to work on something very specific,
this group can be very helpful. The handout is a very basic FAQ of where we’re
going and it shows the structure of the Teams. You’re going to start hearing
these terms as we move forward. We’re doing this so we can create a structure
for how we get work done as a library system. The other reason we are doing
this is because we have a lot of very, very talented individuals and they
aren’t given the opportunity to serve in this capacity. It’s usually the same
people being chosen to work on things because we know who they are. In the next
few months, we will roll out an application process so that when a new
opportunity comes up for a team or work group, we will ask for staff members
who want to be involved. We can tell them the goals, number of meetings and
what is expected of them, so they will know exactly what they are committing
to. The staff member can be held accountable, since they know what to expect
from the team or group. This is about being very specific and very accountable
for your participation. Shammi created the International Services Advisory team
using the new template, and more details can be found on the handout which is
attached to the minutes. To get started, she will choose 6 members, and she is
working on an application for the team. It takes a while to get a team like
this started. Eventually, you will have 3 members roll off the team and 3 more
will start each year. We will provide more information and look forward to
feedback on this. Teams are open to everybody. Front line staff members want to
be engaged and this gives staff the ability to lead.
In attendance: Brandon Pope, Melissa Hayes, Melissa
Ryans, Tula Gorden, Alma Avina, Jennifer Myers, Christy Chang, Chris Arrowood,
Leonore Hu, Derrick Spearman, Kathrine Myers, Tim Siegel, LeRoy Robinson,
Cylenthia Hoyrd, Billy Glasco, Felicia Brisco, Janna Hoglund, Djuina Hammett,
Nhu Le, Kallie Benes, Angela Barratt, Nathan Stokes, Richard Hurst, Patricia
Ogea, Craig Bertuglia, Mercedes Mayne, Tony Goodwyn Hellena Stokes, John
Merullo, Karen Luik, Paty Bustamante, Dominick Spinelli, Jennifer Sessa, Laney
McAdow, Diane Doyen, Jose Santoyo, Erika Cardoso, Virginia Williams, Esther
Reyes, Sylvia Espinosa, Michelle King, Tara Hornbeak, Lauren Wilcox, Sue
Kaufman, Vanessa Gempis, Edgar Fuentes, Fred Schumacher, Christopher Patrick,
Jayla Parks, Kelly Patton, Monica Siboldi; Guests: Rick Peralez, George
Metcalfe, & John Middleton; CE Admin: Michele Gorman, Elizabeth Sargent,
Laurie Covington, Mary Wagoner, Theodora Muokebe, Patrick Atkins, Pedro
Fonseca, Celeste Diaz, and Yolanda Anguiano
Next CE
Managers Meeting is on October 23rd at 8:30AM at Central’s Program
Place.
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