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HomeMy WebLinkAboutOperational Report from MarshaTo: M. Rebecca Loader, Library Director From: Marsha Tubbs, Children’s Librarian Subject: October 2000 Operational Report Date: October 27, 2000 I. PROGRAMS A. Storytimes—Attendance at storytime has been very good despite the addition of all day kindergarten to the District 13 program. I am still considering cutting back to just two sessions during the winter months. I will base this decision on the responses from the group at the close of this session. There is a large number of very young children (2-3) in this session and care givers frequently refrain from taking this group out in the cold during February and March. 1. Attendance: October 3--- 28 children and 10 adults October 4--- 14 children and 10 adults October 5--- 17 children and 8 adults October 10---36 children and 12 adults October 11---13 children and 8 adults October 12---17 children 8 adults October 17---28 children 9 adults October 18---10 children 6 adult October 19---17children 8 adults October 24---33 children 9 adults October 25---12 children 4 adults October 26---17 children 8 adults October 31--- 28 children 8 adults B. Twilight Tales---- Our evening Storytime is not drawing as well as I had hoped. We have flyers out in the community at ECFE, Headstart, and ICS extended day. We have also had at least one note in one of the local papers. Storyteller Patty Wheeler Andrews and I have set a tentative meeting for the first week in December to discuss options for the winter session. 1. Attendance: October 10 --- 5 children and 3 adults October 17 --- 6 children and 4 adults October 24 --- 1 child and 1 adult C. Field Trips--- I was contacted by Lynne Witmer of Central Middle School and asked to speak to her th 7 grade classes on the importance of reading to infants and preschoolers. The classes are involved in a project within the school district where they volunteer to aid in the preschool and younger classes. Four classes came to the library on October 23 and October 30. We discussed brain and learning development in preschoolers and I demonstrated techniques for reading aloud to groups. Each member of the class received a copy of “ Start Smart with Libraries” and “Raising Readers”. II. COLLECTION: A. With the help of John Brosnahan, supervisor, we are progressing through the weeding and collection development of the J600’s. I will be preparing an order for updating this area based on the items missing and replacements. This section contains the medical books along with some of the popular subjects like crafts and cooking. I plan on emphasizing the popular materials over the specialized items as we do not get a lot of call for specialized medical books in the children’s department but do get a lot of usage from the popular sections. I expect to have the order ready sometime in January. B. We have finished the weeding of the Readers. This section gets used heavily throughout the year and is in need of NEW titles. Econoclad and Turtleback have some very up-to-date listings and our publisher’s rep offering us a nice discount. As soon as possible I will be preparing an order for these two publishers. C. During the month of November we will be weeding our paperback collections in order to prepare for the renewal of the BWI standing order in December. D. The County has been sending me items for withdrawal consideration on a weekly basis for the past month. For the most part, these materials have been very out of date and probably would have been withdrawn at the time of our last collection development except that at that time the County also had copies. I believe that this situation has been resolved and that the County will now be forwarding notices to me when we have the last holding of a book being withdrawn. II. PROJECTS A. The Storytime Kits project is progressing toward completion. The deadline however has been extended into April or May, 2001. This project has become a very time consuming endeavor. Each Kit required the selection of 5 separate book titles, location of 2-3 activities, location of 2-3 fingerplays, requesting permission to reprint from numerous publishers (yet to be completed), selection and ordering of 80-100 toys, NEW cataloging for a NEW type of material, and NEW and varied processing to accommodate new material. I anticipate that the vast majority of the work on this end is nearly finished or will be by mid-December. But the project will not be completed until sometime this spring B. National Children’s Book week is scheduled for November 12 through 18. The children’s department will be having the usual array of activities dealing with reading to children. Flyers on the activities and the celebration are scheduled to be released by November 6. III. STAFF A. We are still short handed in the department, as is the entire building. The pages are doing a great job of keeping up with the shelving. Considering we have one person shelving the entire days circulation this is no small task. Our first bulk loan was returned this last week and the pages with help from Kelly and myself checked in and shelved over 1500 books in one evening. Kelly Olson, Clerk Typist, placed and received two large orders for new materials, aided the librarian in the weeding of the readers, aided in the preparation of materials for Storytime Kits, prepared new shelf labels, aided in the selection and distribution of the bulk loan materials.