Tax forms

We got in the 1040, 1040A and 1040EZ forms.
Will put out tomorrow.
Patrick

Items due 1/28/2014

Greetings all.

Since the Library was closed yesterday, please deal with items due 01/28/14 but returned today, 01/29/14, as though they were returned on time.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this instruction, please contact Circulation Administration at 832-393-2222 (choose option 3). 

Thanks.

Fred Schumacher

Circulation Administration Manager

Staff Meeting Notes 01/22/2014

Stella Link Staff Meeting Agenda
Wednesday 01/22/2014

·      We are doing a great job in circ stats, passports, and programs.

·      Statistics – Stella Link is circulating 30,000+, just 600 short of Central. We are doing 94% self-check, which is our highest. (Renewals and laptop checkouts are not included in these stats).

·      Passports – We have been averaging 500-600 per month, the highest in the system. In January, we processed 518 passport applications.

·      Programs - November 2013 we had 100 programs, and 2,000 people attended. Next highest in the system is an attendance of 900.

·      Thanks to Edgar for covering Renee’s Scratch Program.

·      You will be called shortly for your monthly individual meetings with Patrick.

·      Leland Building downtown for Passport Applications (for expedited hand carry) will be reopening Monday, January 27, 2014.

·      Passport overnight fee is increasing from $12.85 to $14.85 effective January 26, 2014.

·      Please don’t leave items in the grocery basket –type carts. When they are “parked” in their home position near the exceptions bin, they should be empty.

·      Books on top of our sorting machine (Bertha) should not stay there for a long time. If possible, put them on an empty cart.

·      If you are working on the Exceptions cart and you are scheduled for the desk the following hour, try to finish before you are scheduled on desk or stop to give you enough time to clear out the ones you processed in order to clear those out for the next person who begins working on Exceptions.

·      Please do not hand out large scissors to customers. It is a safety issue. Allow them to use the safety scissors at the desk.

·      Any issues you may have with coworkers please do not hash it out in front of customers. Talk it out in the work room.

·      Reminders about Roving: Rover stands at the Self-checks, assists with returns on Bertha, shelving holds, etc. Roving is only a station, both Rover and Desk staff can help customers when the other is busy. Make Roving an active activity. Approach customers before they encounter any issues.

·      Sharise asked about assisting customers with computer questions. If questions are involved, politely remind the customer that you are at the desk and can only devote a certain amount of time. You can advertise computer classes to the customer or get someone from the back to help them if you are at the desk.

·      Books in the lost and found should be kept in the bottom cabinet at the circ desk, not the drawer. Only our stuff (keys, 3M card, etc) goes in the small gray bin in the drawer.

·      Christine asked about handling a customer who harasses staff and disrupts other customers. Patrick offered to help if you have problems with any customer.

·      Ade asked for clarification on the Library’s policy on pornography after an incident over the weekend. Patrick reminded staff that customers cannot watch pornography because children are around. Patrick will also bring up the issue at the manager’s meeting.

·      Edgar reminded staff that we need to remind students that there is no snacks in the computer lab.

·      Candace pointed out that teens in the computer lab are playing videos too loud and scaring passport customers who enter the computer lab to enter the passport office. Teens will need to bring their headphones or turn the sound off when in the lab.

Skills Test

The Skills Tests will start tomorrow and should be completed by the first week of February.
I have put them on the schedule.

Patrick

Viewing Obscene Material

Long-term suspension for viewing material deemed obscene, child porn or harmful to minors.
First Offense: 90 days
Second Offense: 120 days
Third Offense: 180 days

From the ALA site:

Intellectual Freedom’s Meaning and Scope

Libraries are a major information source in our society for access to the larger world of human expression. For some, they are the only available access point. Libraries connect individuals with the ideas, information, and images they seek. Libraries that raise barriers to access damage their credibility with their users.

By providing information across the spectrum of human interests, and making them available and accessible to anyone who wants them, libraries allow individuals to exercise their First Amendment right to seek and receive all types of expression, from all points of view. Materials in any given library cover the spectrum of human experience and thought, even those that some people may consider false, offensive, or dangerous.

In the millions of Web sites available on the Internet, there are some—often loosely called “pornography”—that parents, or adults generally, do not want children to see. A very small fraction of those sexually explicit materials is actual obscenity or child pornography, which are not constitutionally protected. The rest, like the overwhelming majority of materials on the Internet , is protected by the First Amendment.

Obscenity and child pornography are illegal. Federal and state statutes, the latter varying slightly depending on the jurisdiction, proscribe such materials. The U.S. Supreme Court has settled most questions about what obscenity and child pornography statutes are constitutionally sound.

According to the Court:

Obscenity must be determined using a three-part test. To be obscene, (1) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests; (2) the work must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct as specified in the applicable statutes; and (3) the work, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Child pornography may be determined using a slightly less rigorous test. To be child pornography, the work must involve depictions of sexual conduct specified in the applicable statutes and use images of children below a specified age.

Many states and some localities have “harmful to minors” laws. These laws regulate free speech with respect to minors, typically forbidding the display or dissemination of certain sexually explicit materials to children, as further specified in the laws.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court:

Materials “harmful to minors” include descriptions or representations of nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement that appeal to the prurient, shameful, or morbid interest of minors; are patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors; and lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

Knowing what materials are actually obscenity or child pornography is difficult, as is knowing, when minors are involved, and what materials are actually “harmful to minors.” The applicable statutes and laws, together with the written decisions of courts that have applied them in actual cases, are the only official guides. Libraries and librarians are not in a position to make those decisions for library users or for citizens generally. Only courts have constitutional authority to determine, in accordance with due process, what materials are obscenity, child pornography, or “harmful to minors.”

Obscenity and child pornography statutes apply to materials on the Internet; such materials are currently being regulated there. The applicability of particular “harmful to minors” laws to materials on the Internet is unsettled, however. Because of the uncertainty, various federal and state legislative proposals are pending specifically to “protect” children from sexually explicit materials on the Internet.

Customer Service Training

From Suzy Benton, a separate training opportunity that we should all take advantage of when time allows.:

Greetings, Team:

Happy New Year to you all!!
In 2013, we all learned the foundations of the HPL Customer Service philosophy with the Exceptional Customer Service – The HPL Way training.  As a continuation of this innovative way of thinking about customer service, I have some exciting news to share with you all!  With the support of the Executive Leadership Team, the Training and Professional Development Team is able to offer an awesome, new Customer Service e-learning program called Give em the Pickle. 
The Give em the Pickle e-Training program focuses on customer service and provides training in a fun, yet incredibly effective way.  The program centers on four key learning points: service, attitude, consistency and teamwork.
The program will take about an hour to complete and will include the following components:

·         Pre- Assessment

·         Give em the Pickle video

·         Post-test

·         Certificate of Completion

When you are ready to begin this program, please click here to be transferred to the Training Portal for registration instructions.

Please complete the program by Friday, May 16, 2014 at Noon. You will receive 1-hour of training credit for doing so.  The Training Team will monitor completions via the Administrative site and update training records accordingly. There is no need to send your certificate to us. 

As a reminder, each staff member should have completed 4-hours of Customer Service Training by the end of the fiscal year per FY 14 Performance Measures that were submitted to the Mayor. Thus, please make completing this training a priority.

While we know that you all are already providing exceptional customer service to the citizens of Houston, we are offering you this opportunity to sharpen your saw a bit more!  Learning new skills and continuing to grow on a professional level is an on-going journey for us all. 
We hope that you find this training program useful and will transfer the concepts learned into your daily interactions with customers that visit your locations!

Happy Training to you!  

Ethics and Public Service Training

Good Afternoon,

Everyone is going to take the Ethics and Public Service Training over the next few weeks to further improve our ability to run an efficient library as well as to satisfy the training requirements we each have.

The link is below:

http://libraries.idaho.gov/files/able/able12/player.html

When you see Ethics Training on your schedule, this is when you should take this particular training.

You will then go through the same procedure as last time.  Scan and e-mail the completed certificate to yourself.  Send an e-mail(attaching the certificate) to hpltraining@houstontx.gov and to patrick.atkins@houstontx.gov stating that you have completed the training.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Patrick

Staff Meeting Notes 01/08/2014

Courtesy of Tim:

Notes from STE Staff Meeting on 01/08/2013

(As recorded by Tim Siegel)

·         Jesse F. will take over responsibility for the volunteers from Chris S. as she will be doing a Craft Program.

·         Ade O. and Chris S. will be switching the late nights that they work.

·         Re-emphasize the use of 3-letter abbreviation (ACR, CEN, etc.) to be written on labels of transfer items.

·         Hold wrappers should be placed on the long side of the item so they don’t stick out to far on the narrow shelves. (Demonstrated by Tim S.)

·         All Checkouts should be conducted at either self-checkout machines or staff workstation next to the self checkouts. Renewals of items and paying of fines may be conducted at desk.

·         Items without RFID tags should be checked out by scanning the barcode at staff workstation.

·         The color printer is to be only used to printout Passport Photos.

·         Juvenile chapter books apart of a series (Magic Tree House, etc.) may be left on shelf year round. Picture books may be kept in closet. (Allie D. gave examples of some items that should be pulled and left to be checked out)

·         Re-emphasize checking for RFID tags in delivery. Also, checking for items that are on hold or that belong to STE should be sorted out differently.

·         Use of phones on public floor during open hours is prohibited, except in extreme emergencies. During closed hours, please be mindful of extended usage.

·         Please be sure to follow proper procedures when the Gate Alarm beeps that an item has not been checked out or desensitized properly. (Renee P. gave examples on how to approach this situation)

·         A collection of Hindi language books (ADU and JUV) has been added to the STE World Languages collection. All items of this new collection will be at the end of the ADU Spanish collection.

·         The Skills Test will be given soon. It has been advised to continue to seek instruction on areas that staff need help.

·         For the building to close to the public, the internal temperature needs to be above 80 or below 60. A sprocket report should be sent if the temperature is steadily rising or dropping. In the event that the building is closed to a problem with the heating or cooling system, a report needs to be filed detailing the cancelation of programs.

·         The staff member scheduled to “Rove” should remain in the self-checkout area to facilitate rapid response to a patron in need of assistance checking out items. That staff member should not sit behind the desk. Also, please do not leave the desk entirely unattended. There should be at least one staff member in the immediate vicinity of the desk at all times.

·         A program for Special Needs children and a Spanish Computer Class have been added to the calendar for February.

·         Staff was reminded about rules for the reserving the meeting room. Parties are not allowed. Conducting business (selling merchandise) is also prohibited. All meetings should be open to public. Also the taping of signs on the door is not allowed. Use of the gray sign stand may be allowed in some situations and is at the discretion of library personnel. Staff also reminded to take the name of the person and group reserving the room. Also take down a phone number and the times for the meeting. Always place your initials next the reservation.

(Continued on second page)

Staff Comments:

Edgar: The previously named ESL Lab held on Tuesdays is now being labeled for the learning all languages.  He is calling it the Mango Languages Lab.

Francis: Inquired about a length of time the meeting room reservation should be kept if the group fails to show up. The response was that the entire time reserved will be honored even in the event of a no show. The procedures for cancelling a scheduled meeting were also discussed.

Allie: A teen craft is being held in which participants will be building “ugly dolls.”

Tim: Procedural problems will applications are few, but mistakes are still being made. Please make sure all information is correctly entered into the account.

Tax Forms

We are receiving the tax forms now.  We do not have the most critical forms or instruction booklets yet.
This was the notice received from IRS recently:

Estimated Shipment Schedule:

• Instruction booklets (1040, 1040A and 1040EZ) - by late January through late February.  Instruction booklets will ship as they become available.  Do not reorder.

• Publication 17, Your Federal Income Tax (For Individuals) - early January.

These forms are on the silver cabinet by the public copy machine.

We will add a table there as the forms come in.

Patrick