CE Managers Meeting
10-28-16
Compiled by Yolanda Anguiano
CE
Update: (Elizabeth Sargent)
Liz thanked Dominick and Jungman staff for a
successful opening on Thursday, October 13th at 10AM. There was an additional grand re-opening
celebration for the community on October 15.
Liz also recognized Ana Frade as the acting Assistant Manager.
Young Library is scheduled to open Saturday,
November 5th. Liz will be
sending out an email to staff asking for volunteers to work the grand
re-opening. They will need three
different shifts. Djuina shared that the
celebration will be carnival themed.
Staffing
Changes:
·
Young will become a stand-alone location. The Manager will be Cedric Clark and Jerome
Hurt will be the Assistant Manager.
·
Smith and Melcher will be paired
together. Shirley Singletary will be the
Manager. The Assistant Manager-Sr LSS
position will be posted soon.
·
Karen Luik will become Manager of Southwest
Express/Walter. Kitty Myers will be
serving as interim Manager of Kendall while the position gets filled. Transition
will happen by December 1st.
·
Billy Glasco from Gregory School has left the
system and moved to Georgia to be with family.
Miguell Ceasar is the interim Manager until Danielle Wilson returns to
the position from maternity leave at the end of November.
Learning Link: The initiative was launched on October 3rd. Please allow students to use their
account. If there are questions
regarding the program, Fred Schumacher or CE Admin can be contacted, so the
answer can be given and disseminated to all staff. So far, the feedback received has been
positive. Library tours of HISD students
have now been able to leave with items checked out on their Learning Link
account.
Staff Development Day: Please make sure all staff completes the
Staff Development Day survey. All
feedback is welcomed.
CMC
2017: Managers need to remind staff that CMC ends
on Monday, October 31st. HPL’s
CMC goal is $50,000 in donations, 100% participation and an increase in the
number of “Above and Beyond” donors, or those staff who give 1% or more of
their gross salary.
This
year the City is recognizing those employees who have been “Above and Beyond”
donors consistently over the years.
Those employees who done so for 5-9 years, 10-14 years, and 15 or more
years were placed in the “Hall of Fame”.
Clayton’s Irene Walters was featured because she has been that type of
donor since 1998. Other CE staff members
that were acknowledged were Kitty Myers and Fred Schumacher for the 10-14 years
club.
Employee
Discounts: Liz informed staff of a new employee
discount on Harlem Globetrotter basketball performances held on December 26-27. There are also discounts if employees use the
“Parking Spot” parking garages at both Bush and Hobby airports. Staff can show their City badge and receive a
25% discount in parking charges. There is also a 10% discount on all other “The
Spot” facilities across Houston. Visit
http://cohemployeenews.com/events-activities/city-nights
for more information on other discounts.
Pensions: On Wednesday, 10/26 City employees received
the following email about Pensions. This
email followed up on a message received from Mayor Turner on Monday, 10/24 that
included a video message to staff.
City
Council Endorses Historic Pension Reforms
On
a 16-1 vote, Houston City Council has endorsed Mayor Sylvester Turner’s
historic package of pension reforms. The
vote clears the way for the City to move forward in partnership with the
pension systems to seek legislative approval of the reforms.
“I
am bubbling over on the inside,” said Mayor Turner. “I am thankful to everyone who has helped get
us to this point. That includes City
Council, the pension systems, our City employees and many others. This plan is historic, transformative and
budget neutral. We are solving our pension
problem permanently and we are doing it without needing a tax rate
increase. There is no other plan out
there offering the same benefits. The
Houston solution can be the model for other cities with similar challenges.”
The
police, fire and municipal pension systems all signed off on the package of
reforms prior to today’s City Council vote, marking the first time that the
City and all of the pension groups have been united. The plan immediately reduces the City’s
nearly $8 billion pension debt by over 30% and then sets a 30-year fixed payoff
schedule for the remaining $5.3 billion of debt. This immediate reduction is accomplished
through a combination of benefits changes that include scaling back
cost-of-living adjustments, higher employee payroll contributions and phasing
out the Deferred Retirement Option Program, known as DROP, which allows
employees to accept retirement benefits while continuing to work for the
City. In return for the concessions, the
City has agreed to issue $1 billion in Pension Obligation Bonds to make up for
years of prior underfunding of the pension systems.
“It
is a big deal that employees have agreed to these benefit changes,” said
Turner. “I know that it has not been
easy, and I thank each of them for their patience, understanding and
service. This plan will provide stable
and sustainable retirements at an affordable cost to the taxpayers who foot the
bill. Retirees won’t have to worry if
the check will be there.”
Moving
forward, predictions about the anticipated performance of pension system
investments will be based on a more conservative 7% assumed rate of
return. If there are market changes that
cause costs to exceed pre-agreed limits, there is a mechanism to force
additional changes in benefits to bring everything back in line. A requirement that both sides share
information will ensure compliance with the required 30-year payoff schedule.
State
Senator Joan Huffman and State Representative Dan Flynn are expected to carry
the Houston pension legislation. Bill filing
for the 2017 legislative session begins mid-November 2016.
As far as the direct impact on staff,
Administration doesn’t know that at this time.
For more details, staffs are encouraged to view the Mayor’s press
conference or City Council meeting online.
Digital
Strategies: (Rick Peralez & Judith Hiott): There
will be a system maintenance Symphony upgrade occurring next Wednesday, 11/2
and Thursday, 11/3. Digital Strategies
ask that staff leave their computers on but logged off. The new clients will be pushed out Thursday
morning. The system will be interrupted
for 4 hours starting at 12:30AM. There
will be a renewal change coming with this update, but staff will be notified
before it’s turned on.
There
will be a platform migration on 11/14 at 9PM.
The system may be down for 5 minutes. The changes should alleviate the
slowness. Digital Strategies should be
notified if something doesn’t work on the 15th.
Open
Athens was implemented for remote database access on September 1st. It requires customers to enter both the
library card number and the PIN. PIN
change instructions will be posted with the minutes. To report issues, staff should provide the
name of the database, whether the customer is accessing it in the library or
remotely, if the computer with the problem is Staff/Public/BYOD, Wired or Wireless
and the IP Address of internal computers.
Digital Strategies will also need to know if a library card prompt or a
vendor prompt appears and staff need to report any error messages received.
Judith hopes the
EBSCO Discovery Service will go live by early December. It needs to move to the production system and
training needs to be developed. This
will allow customers to search articles and e-books from the catalog.
With the start of
Learning Link, every HISD student and staff have an account in Symphony. Student barcodes are the first letter of the
last name followed by HISD ID number: H123456.
The Staff barcode is F and the staff ID without the dash: F12345. PINS are birth month and day: 0926. The School Number is found in User Category
8. Staff can look up the school number
from this link: https://hplnet.houstonlibrary.org/cgi-bin/hisd/school_num.pl. Student accounts allow database access and
checkout of 10 physical items and there are no fines unless a book is lost. Staff accounts only give access to e-books
and databases not physical items.
Blue Cloud
visibility is a Linked Data project with SirsiDynix and Zepheira. The goal is to make system data findable in
Google. It includes Novelist data. In September, 8 Separate Library Instances
were created. The Library is seeing new
visitors in Google Analytics, but finding specific things in Google is still
not consistent and the size of HPL makes it more difficult. Eventually, customers will be given full
library information when searching for a specific book title on Google when
they include “library Houston TX” to their search parameters. The home page for the visibility project is: http://link.houstonlibrary.org/. You can test the product by
searching Google or other search engines for book tiles with the words “Houston
Library”. Example: H is for homicide
houston library.
Youth
Services: (Kallie)
·
Very
Ready Reading Kits: Locations should use
all 20 Very Ready Reading kits by June 1, 2017 for each age group. You should request a kit 2 weeks in advance
via the YS blog. Staff can develop their own
storytimes as well but need to follow the VRR format including books, songs,
fingerplays, etc.
·
Movie
Licenses: Kallie asks
that staff make sure they show only movies that HPL has a license for. If unsure, check the YS blog. There is a link on the left hand side labeled Movie License that has the necessary
information. Kallie added that when YS
recommends certain movies for a program they are included in the license.
·
Learning Link:
o
HEB is working to print out flyers advertising Learning
Link.
o
Staff should make contact with their assigned HISD schools
by 11/1. There is no need to visit or
even schedule an outreach, just make contact with the school and offer to come
out and share info with school staff on the Learning Link. This applies to all schools: Elementary,
Middle, and High Schools. A list of the
assigned schools is here: School Contacts.
The Power Point on Learning Link is on the YS blog and can be used to
educate HISD staff and families about the program.
o
Kallie added that if a student doesn’t remember their
school ID number to access their Learning Link account, it is the same as their
lunch number. That may be easier for a
student to recall.
·
Monthly
Due Dates: Monthly programming requests
are due the 1st of the month.
Monthly discretionary purchases are due by the 15th of the
month. Youth Services sends out requests
for monthly programming 4 months in advance.
It is typically due by the 15th so staff can get them entered
into the event module. Staff should be
working on March now.
·
Programming
and Events on the webpage: Lists of
events that are showing on location web pages were distributed; any monthly
programming information not in the online calendar should be shared with the
location’s event publisher and editor and added as soon as possible. Remember that if the event is listed as
“other activity” and it doesn’t fit under an existing program title, staff can
submit it as a new program for approval.
Managers asked that the 2017 Holiday Calendar be shared with them, so
they can plan ahead.
·
Youth
Services will send Managers and Assistant Managers a link to the monthly
programming submission document. The
FY17 In house program list is on the YS blog: FY17 In house Pgms.
Each Evanced Calendar editor and publisher should review the list and
use the listings to complete their events submissions.
·
The
Parent Resource Library’s new manager was introduced: Evelyn Draven. She was a HISD school librarian before
serving in different positions at the Children’s Museum Houston.
LMS:
(Fred Schumacher) Fred is working on
updating the power point. Texshare databases are not allowed in schools. The terms of use for Tumblebooks need to be
shared with HISD. Fred also offered options
to use when a student doesn’t remember his/her school ID number and there is
more than one user with the same name. The
“Category 8” number in the user record can be used to look up a student’s
school campus number and uniquely identify the student along with other
information like a birthdate.
The
floating hub policy will be revised.
Some of the items sent to the floating hubs are showing up in the system
as missing. Each location will be
getting a specific floating account to check out
items to so they will not show as on the shelf at the location. More details and instruction will be coming
next week.
Fred also mentioned
that between 30 and 40 percent of the items sent to the float hub are things
that should have been weeded, so he asks staff to evaluate material before sending
them. A weeding workshop is forthcoming
at Johnson. Encourage those who are
unclear about the process to attend.
There is a 30 person limit. Staff
can sign up on the training portal.
Dealing
with Problem Patrons:
(Alex Drake, Melissa Hayes, Cylenthia Hoyrd, Shirley Singletary, Drew
Alvey, Sylvia Espinosa, Robert Lewis)
The group shared that sometimes the difficult patrons are staff. They presented different examples of how to
handle these difficult situations. One
situation was how to deal with a customer that comes in with a service dog and
other customers/staffs are afraid of the animal or allergic. They suggested not jumping to conclusions
when a customer appears to be having a seizure or an outburst of
obscenities. The behaviors may be
attributed to an illness or condition that is uncontrollable by the
customer. Tourette’s syndrome and
narcolepsy were mentioned.
An example of the
proper and improper way to handle a customer who is smoking on library premises
was presented. It was recommended that
there be more consistency in how staff handles rule violations throughout the
system.
Mary Wagoner and
Jerome Hurt volunteered to perform a sketch on how to deal with teens trying to
get a library card. Even though they may
think they’re adults, they aren’t until they turn 18 (or have emancipated minor
paperwork) in the eyes of HPL.
Cylenthia offered
advice on how to deal with homeless customers.
Staff should approach them in pairs, introduce themselves, ask the customer’s
name, explain the rules, and offer assistance. For mentally ill customers, staff shouldn’t
touch them or play into their fantasy. Keep
them at arm’s length and set boundaries but do provide quality customer
service. If staffs need to call HPD, let
them know that you require MHMRA assistance and tell them the issue involves a
customer who may be mentally ill.
The links to
several of the video examples provided by the presenters are listed here: Eating in Library, Mentally
Challenged Customer 1, Mentally Challenged Customer 2
Safety
Minute: (Laurie)
A new Safety Campaign begins in November. A handout regarding the first topic “REDUCE
slips, trips and falls” was passed out and will be posted with the minutes.
Emergency
Alerts and Active Incidents:
Liz encouraged staff to sign up for Emergency Alerts from the City. A month ago, staff contacted CE Admin
regarding an Active Shooter incident in the West University area. Staff wondered if there was a way to be
alerted to emergency situations in Houston.
Another example of why this would be helpful was the situation at 611
Walker that had people conjecturing about what was really going on.
AlertHouston
is the City’s emergency notification system that quickly sends out an email to
residents who have registered with the system.
It is used to communicate when there is an isolated emergency in a
resident’s neighborhood, as well as when they affect the entire city or
region. Anyone who lives or works in
Houston can sign up by visiting http://houstontx.gov/emergency.
Additionally,
the Greater Harris County 9-1-1 Emergency network operates the region’s 9-1-1
emergency notification system, which allows public safety agencies throughout
Harris and Fort Bend Counties to send automatic notifications to telephones about
local area emergencies. If you would
like to receive notification on your landline phone or cell phone, you MUST
register your phone with the system in order to receive them. Visit 911.org to register.
There
is a third way to keep up to date with what is happening around Houston. It is called the City of Houston Active
Incidents: Active
Incidents-Houston.
This page contains current information about active incidents being
handled by Fire, Police and EMS Personnel.
The contents are updated on five minute intervals and generated by the
Central Command dispatch system.
Drug
Test Policy/Reasonable Suspicion: Last month we discussed the Drug Test Policy
and the Reasonable Suspicion clause. We
are still waiting on information about how exactly the process is supposed to
work once a report has been made by a supervisor. Human Resources is currently reviewing how to
handle this across the City to standardize the process. More will be shared once received.
Wellness
2016-2107: The
health assessment part of our Win For
Life wellness program is open until December 5th. Only 29% of city employees and 9% of covered
spouses have completed it so far.
Remember to complete the health assessment employees need to have blood
pressure, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, height, weight and waist
circumference measurements. This is the
first step in the wellness program.
Fake
emails: Liz
said to take notice of emails coming from the @hous.hr-resources.org
address. This is a fake City
account. Please delete all emails
received from that sender.
FIDS: (Laurie) Managers need to make sure updates
to the FIDS Box counts are happening each Friday. The totals should include all of the boxes at
each location and not just the new boxes that have been added since the
previous month. For example, if there
were 30 boxes in Sept. and 25 more have been added, the box count should read
55 in the total in October section. FIDS
will complete the column for picked up.
Financial
Services:
(Laurie) Make sure all checks are run through Telecheck. If unsure of how to do this, please check with
Financial Services or another staff member.
Make sure that once cards/checks are run through Telecheck, they are
properly entered into Smart Money.
Notary
Service: (Laurie)
Please make sure notary stats are being recorded in the daily
stats. There is a column on the main
page next to Outreach. Laurie reviewed
the stats for September and only some of the notary transactions have been
entered.
iTeams: (Mary)
Mary needs those locations with iTeams to send details of their
incidents. When possible, please include
the time, library card number, and computer number. Send information to the IT helpdesk and copy
Robin Cabrera, Mary and Celeste.
SPACES:
(Mary) Make sure staffs are submitting the correct Sprocket work orders and
adding them to the Facilities Checklist.
Submit the Work Order first, then follow up with an email to Mary and
copy Celeste.
If the issue doesn’t fall under Sprockets,
consult with the Senior Manager. For furniture
and salvage, please share with the Sr. Manager; then contact Mary and
Celeste. Please do not contact Jason
Stephens directly. CE Administration
uses the Facilities Checklist to review with SPACES what needs to be done for
every location.
Location
Highlights:
ALI: On September 30th, Henington-Alief Regional
Library participated in LibroFEST with Author Rene Colato Lainez and 156
children of the Martin Elementary School, part of Alief ISD. This event highlighted Hispanic Heritage. Special thanks to Carmen Abrego from the programming
department, Jayla Parks and the sponsors who ensured that each child left with
an autographed copy of the author’s book.
We have restarted our open job lab in October and have two customers who
have found jobs so far. All Alief team
members have signed up for Yammer.
BRA: BRA participated
in four outreaches in October. Staff has started a crocheting/knitting
class for customers.
CAR: Carnegie had a great Halloween haunted house.
They utilized the hallway and staff worked together to decorate and make sure
kids came out scared and laughing.
FIF/FLO: FLO had a successful Halloween Bash on
10/27. Between 70 & 80 customers participated in crafts, movies, and
trick-or-treating around the library.
FRX/MEY: Frank hosted a Refugee Leadership Academy,
presented by Refugee Council USA on Saturday. The workshop included information
about public speaking, media/civic engagement, and community building. Manager Felicia Brisco was also on the agenda
and shared information about library services and programs, and we registered
several refugees, they were also very excited about several of our services,
namely passport, citizenship classes, computer training classes, etc. There was
a very large turnout. The tagging of
Meyer was completed thanks to LMS and the RFID team.
HMRC: HMRC is having a public event on Saturday,
November 12th. It’s a Closing Day
lecture series to accompany the exhibition, We Serve Humanity: Stories of Hope
and Commitment. Historians will address
aspects and themes of the exhibition:
•
10:15AM-11:00AM, Barbara Humphreys -- "The Intrepid Miss Ideson."
•
11:15AM-12:30PM, Thomas Kreneck -- "Felix Tijerina, Alfonso Vazquez and
the Mexican-American Collections at HMRC." A screening of the film Forgotten
Minds, the 13-minute promotional piece for Felix Tijerina’s Little School of
the 400, will accompany the lecture.
•
1:00PM-1:50PM, Bartee Haile -- "Edward Mandell House: The Colonel Behind
the Curtain"
•
2:00PM-3:00PM, Betty Chapman -- "Breaking Down Barriers: Houston Women and
the Road to Equality"
JOH: JOH is hosting a
weeding workshop conducted by LMS 11/10.
KAS: Kashmere had a great election program. Four kids
from the Kashmere Elementary school came over and were asked questions
concerning school policies. They spoke about where they stand on the policies
and why. Community leaders, the principal, and teachers all attended the event
with their students.
LOO/MNT: MNT has wrapped up a successful self-publishing series.
MAN:
After school food
is going well about 40 meals served daily.
MCH:
The Little Library
that could: The Melcher team raised
almost $300 for CMC at the Fall Festival.
They have started bilingual computer classes.
MOO: Moody had a build
party in October. It was a great partnership with the Council Member Cisneros
office and building a lot of Little Free Libraries.
PAR:
The new Baby Time
program is popular. They are planning a
Holiday Open House for customers on December 12th, complete with a visit from
Santa!
SMI: SMI participated in the Touchdown Tour Houston
outreach on 10/22. Staff are currently
weeding in preparation for RFID tagging.
STE:
Halloween Happening: The Youth Services Team organized a special
Halloween event which featured crafts, games, a monster-themed storytime, and a
costume contest. Lots of children came dressed in their costumes. The YMCA next
door provided volunteers who acted as judges and also helped give out candy
during the trick-or-treat portion of the event. There were about 231 visitors that
attended the event!
SWX/WAL: New initiative at SWX, staff collaborated
with the Chinese Community Center, Senior programs department to provide 8
sessions of the senior exercise workshops on Fridays ( 4 sessions in Sept and 4
in Oct) at the Southwest Multi-Service Center (SWMSC). A total of 215 seniors attended the workshop
and received the completion certificates on the last day, Oct 21. At SWX, 10/13, staff raised more than $200
for their team CMC fundraising garage sale and bake sale at the SWMSC parking
lot. SWMSC Health Dept. joined the event. Walgreens donated 25 free flu shots to
employees and customers. At WAL,
Saturday, 10/22, staff member Ivy Bao hosted the Halloween costume contest and
trick or treat parade, more than 100 children and families attended.
VIN: We have added a whole track of Monday
intermediate computer classes.
Congratulations to all the locations that had
a successful Halloween party and great displays for their customers.
In
attendance: Chris Arrowood, Melissa Ryans, Jennifer
Myers, Shirley Singletary, Jesus Villegas, Mercedes Mayne, Melissa Hayes,
Monica Siboldi, Dominick Spinelli, Cedric Clark, Robert Lewis, Derrick
Spearman, Leonore Hu, Angela Barratt, Craig Bertuglia, Jerome Hurt, Sara Pope,
Kallie Benes, Miguell Ceasar, Jayla Parks, Jennifer Sessa, Ana Frade, Melinda
Campbell, Laney McAdow, Michelle King, Cylenthia Hoyrd, Karen Luik, LeRoy
Robinson, Felicia Brisco, Kelly Patton, Alexandra Drake, Maggie Sepulveda, Iona
Joseph, Diane Doyen, Helen Chou, Dena Melvin, Fred Schumacher, Sylvia Espinosa,
Vanessa Gempis, Hellena Stokes, Christopher Patrick, Rebecca Denham, Jose
Santoyo, Erika Cardoso, Virginia Williams, Tara Hornbeak, Drew Alvey, Gary
Lackey, Edgar Fuentes, Donnie Byrd, Nhu Le, Maurina Powers, Christy Chang,
Marcia Cameron-Denton, Nathan Stokes, Tula Gorden, Tega Zoma; Guest: Rick
Peralez, Judith Hiott; CE Admin: Elizabeth Sargent, Laurie Covington, Mary
Wagoner, Patrick Atkins, Pedro Fonseca, Djuina Hammett, Leah Fraser, Celeste
Diaz, & Yolanda Anguiano
Next meeting will
be in Program Place on November 18th 8:30AM-12PM.
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