Grafton Public Library Publishes Weekly Report For April 18-23

Grafton MA

24 April, 2022

9:21 PM

Description

Press release from Grafton Public Library: April 23, 2022 The Library was closed in observation of Patriot's Day on Monday April 18. In the last week, we circulated 2,875 items, placed 266 requests and filled 350 requests. We sent out 466 items in delivery and received 354 items. We added 19 new items and 25 new borrowers. The most requested title remains The Maid by Nita Prose. Beth met with Evan and Mary to review salary increases for Library staff, a result of the salary and classification study, and with Dana from Capital Campaign to discuss a few outstanding projects. She attended a Friends of the Library meeting; worked on agenda, minutes and reports for next week's Board of Library Trustees meeting; covered the teen room; dealt with building issues including a leak in the Community Room; continued tracking down construction invoices to close purchase order loops; planned upcoming programs for adults; worked on the Library's Food Permit Application; corresponded about meeting room use; and spent a lot of time on scheduling as numerous staff were out unexpectedly, on top of scheduled leave time. Advantage continues their site work on the HVAC system. The architect and a millworker were on site to formulate the plan to lower non-compliant counters to ADA standard. The clock in the historical room is still under refurbishment. Evergreen Environments will be on site next week for maintenance to the green roof. The Friends still have a number of book bundles and puzzles for sale for the bargain price of $4 ($5 through PayPal). They are planning to raffle off and give away Star Wars themed items on Wednesday May 4, and are planning their Spring Book Sale (May 21-22) and Annual Meeting. Sarah completed the CR tech inventory, contacted nonfiction rep about placing an order, ran two sessions of a craft and movie program, planned for summer, troubleshot programming space conflicts with construction to come up with a backup plan, and prepped for next week's school visit. Jen cleaned LEGO bricks, updated Event Keeper and social media, worked on the May newsletter, and planned for programming for babies. Cyndi ran a successful tornado in a bottle program. Stacie planned summer programming, began working on spring and summer room decorations, and assisted patrons during a very busy school vacation week. Mare and Cyndi coordinated with volunteers. Kristin planned upcoming book club programming and summer reading, and coordinated with the schools. All scheduled staff assisted patrons during a very busy school vacation week. This vacation week Teen Services offered a movie/craft night, doodling workshop, and drop in LEGO building. Allison also completed our department's IT inventory, and met with Sarah S. to talk about upcoming programs. Summer reading prep continues. The Evergreen upgrade over the holiday weekend went off without a hitch. Borrower Service Staff handled all the usual circulation functions, including holds, delivery, lobby, AMH system, museum passes, room reservations, and patron assistance. Allie created signage for the changes in the Large Print room, worked on the newsletter, trained a new substitute staff member on holds, pull list, check-in, and transit bins; completed the Historical Fiction sticker document for regular print fiction; watched a training video on the new catalog design; and reset the lobby gate (twice). Ranjita worked on Library of Things and did the monthly AED check. Jane handled the NYT bestseller list and the technology inventory. Sandhya created and affixed stickers to museum pass envelopes and updated museum pass information, requested and processed out of network and out of state loans, and worked on notary training. Susan supervised the team, oversaw a volunteer working on a list of Lost items; worked on an upcoming employee review; ran a department staff meeting, did some receipt printer troubleshooting, worked on the IT inventory, followed up with Bibliotheca and Orion Manufacturing to get timelines for receiving equipment, and submitted audiobook and Large Print orders. This week Heidi hosted the Daytimers Book Group. We discussed the Friends of the Library Community Read title, The Overstory by Richard Powers. Heidi also hosted the GPL Mystery Book Group—they met to discuss Hold Your Breath, China by Qiu Xiaolong. Heidi also hosted an Invasive Plants lecture as part of the Community Read. The speaker was Karro Frost, the Conservation Planning Botanist for the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. Heidi also answered reference questions, created library cards for people, worked on statistics, worked on program planning and continued to advertise for the Friends of the Library Community Read events. Eric worked on automating some functions of the very large library statistics spreadsheet. Kate continues to work her way through a list of approximately 2,700 non-fiction titles that have not circulated in 5+ years, identifying candidates for weeding using the library standard CREW (Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding) method using MUSTIE criteria (is the item M = Misleading—factually inaccurate; U = Ugly – worn beyond mending or rebinding; S = Superceded – by a new edition of/or by a much better book on the subject; T = Trivial – of no discernible literary or scientific merit; I – Irrelevant to the needs and interests of the library's community; and/or E = Elsewhere – the material is easily obtainable from another library). This week, she made her way into the 600 range. Since de-acquisitioned books need to be rehomed, Kate reached out to a couple book donation services in order to find a company who will accept our weeded items that might not merit a place in the book sale; Kate is working with Aaron from the Friends, who is embarking on a similar project for Friends items that cannot find buyers. This press release was produced by Grafton Public Library. The views expressed here are the author's own.