STE is currently undergoing a shift of its Reference, Non-Fiction, Biography, and Language and Exam Resources. Both the Exam books and the differing formats offered to learn another language (books & discs) are being inter filed with/into Non-Fiction. The Reference books were permanently moved to the area Exam and Language resources used to occupy.

The Non-Fiction collection is being permanently moved geographically eastward. Its 001.3 dewey will start where our Reference collection once started/occupied.

The Biography collection is temporarily found on tables in the north-west part of the Library. Its permanent shelves will be the area where Non-Fiction 900.0 dewey once occupied.

Staff Meeting Notes 3/18/15

STE - Team Meeting
3/18/15 11:15AM
Notes Prepared by: Nhu Le
Team Members Present: Marcos Martinez, Nhu Le, Tim Siegel, Le'Derius Seay, Carol Wu, Doria Jackson, Frances Saldana, Demonesha Ballard, Mo Ahmad, Mark Hall, Ray Williams, Patricia Tucker

Team Members Not Present: Ade Odusanno, Jesse Farias

NOTICE TO USERS: LIBRARY RULES:

• Notice to Users: :Library Rules has been updated. At the moment please refer to the HPL website for the current Notice. to Users: Library Rules.
• Please see Library Rules to note the changes to rules 3, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14 under prohibited behaviors and activities.

MYLINK CARD CAMPAIGN: BAGS & TELL US YOUR STORY:

• With HPL’s partnership with H-E-B, we now have 400 plastic bags to be given out to customer for them to load their checked-out books. Each bag will contain a “Tell Your Story” bookmark. There will be bags by the roving station to assist with the process. The bag can be given to the customer to load the books themselves or we can load the books for them. It is okay if the customer declines a bag.
• We may be placing the “Tell Your Story” bookmarks inside the books that are on the Hold Shelf. Stay tune for updates.

UPDATES:

• Book sale will continue today. Whoever is roving will check in on the room from time to time.
• LMS will no longer be tagging our holds before arriving at our location. LMS is going through a re-organization and some of their staff has been relocated out to different neighborhood libraries. We are now responsible for checking holds to make sure they are tagged. The 3M pad by the roving station will be moved to the workroom to aid with the checking of tags.

OPEN DISCUSSION:

• If a customer reports a suspicious activity occurring in the library or on the property, please let a supervisor know so that it can be followed up if needed. Please also file an incident report so that we will have a record to look back to in case it is a habitual occurrence or if an incident actually does take place or if we need to refer back to that particular report.
• During ASZ, students are not allowed to be standing outside in front of the library, back of the library, or on the sidewalk. It is for the safety of the tweens/teens. If they are getting picked up at the library, they must come inside and attend one of the ASZ programs. If the student says this is not their pick up point, they will need to move onto their pickup location or final destination. If they say their ride is around the corner, have the student wait inside the teen lounge. The teen lounge has windows to give the student a view of the parking lot for their ride.
• Current issues of JUV periodicals should be shelved on the acrylic holders located on the side of the shelving unit (the shelf holding the flimsy). Older issues of JUV periodicals can be interfile in the acrylic magazine holders which are found next to the flimsy.
• Do not put away the passport camera in the drawer with the cord still attached. The closed drawer pinches the cord and causes the cord to work improperly
• During the last hour before our closing time, everyone should be out on the floor helping with clean-up which includes pickup and fixing the shelves. The only one who should be in the workroom would be the person checking in items from the Others Bin. 

STE Passport Team Meeting: 2/11/15

Passport Staff: Photo Mtg.

Staff: Ade, Tim, Nhu, Marcos, Mark, Demonesha, Jesse, Mo, Patricia
Host: Ray

Date: 2/11/2015

·         Distance from subject

o   No zooming

o   Pixilation

o   –re: photo editing*

·         Lighting issues

o   Complexion

o   Time of day

o   Weather

o   Area/location

o   Shadowing

o   Camera settings

o   Environmental Light Reflection

o   –re: photo editing*

·         Photo editing

o   Cropping

o   Brightness

o   Contrast

o   Cutting

o   Sizing

o   Moving

o   Copy/pasting

o   Replacing

o   Multiple subjects

o   Printing

·         Height difference

o   Tall to short v. short to tall

o   Reduction of camera angling

·         Size difference for babies

o   Use of table/flat surface  v. wall v. carriage v. parental support*

o   –re: customer service

·         Facial expressions

o   Eyes

o   Smiling

·         Hair vs. hair line

o   Hairline to chin ratio

o   Subjects with bangs/long hair

·         Glasses

o   Camera angling

o   Glasses angling

§  Reduce glare

§  Reduce reflection effect

·         Movement

o   Blurring

o   Speed capturing

·         Attire

o   No military/gov’t  uniforms/camouflage

o   Nothing blocking hairline

o   Hair no hiding clothing (nudity effect)

o   No clothing that blends with background (floating head effect)

o   Religious attire exemptions

·         Maintenance

o   Saving photos

o   Deleting photos

o   Printer functions

§  Replacing ink

§  Replacing photo paper

§  Manual overriding

·         Customer Service

o   -re: children

o   Gaining focus

o   Regaining composure

o   Building a comfort zone

o   –fashionistas (i.e. parents/ amateur models)

o   Pictures  they want that shouldn’t be in a passport

Customers are allowed to bring their own photos but all should be reviewed before being attached to the customer’s application.  If a photo is believed to be invalid, inform the customer of your concerns of the photo and give them the option of using the photo anyway or having it retaken by us or their photo provider.*  DO NOT ARGUE WITH CUSTOMER NOR TELL THEM WE HAVE TO TAKE THE PHOTO.

If a customer provides their own photo via flash drive, we will still charge them for the printing of the photo per photo page used for printing.  Customers also are allowed to request additional photos to be printed, and if they do, let them know they will be charged per page, NOT per photo.  Allow the maximum of 2 photos per photo page.

For customers with DS-82 forms, inform them that their photos can be taken here for our price. 
DO NOT INCLUDE PASSPORT PROCESSING CHARGE
Charges for individual passport photos without the processing fee can be transacted at the circulation desk register.  Inform Customer that we do not accept American Express.

All photo requirements are listed here at trave.state.gov:
http://www.travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/passports/photos/photos.html

*use discretion

Team Meeting 3/4/15

STE - Team Meeting
3/4/15 11:15AM
Notes Prepared by: Nhu Le
Team Members Present: Marcos Martinez, Nhu Le, Ade Odusanno, Carol Wu, Jesse Farias, Doria Jackson, Frances Saldana, Demonesha Ballard, Mo Ahmad, Mark Hall, Ray Williams, Patricia Tucker

Team Members Not Present: Tim Siegel, Le'Derius Seay

PROCESSING HOLDS:

New process for processing holds coming soon. Using stickers instead of paper wrapping which will cut our time down to about 20 seconds rather than the usual 1.5 minute per item.

EXPRESS CHECK & SERVING CUSTOMERS:

Please use the term check-out station/machine or express check out with each other and with customers.

If a customer refuses to use the check-out station, we can check it out ourselves at the station for them. If they still refuse and rather you do it at a computer, you can use the roving station to check out the items. If that still gets a refusal from the customer and they demand that it is checked out at the desk, please go ahead and do as the customer ask. Do remind them that they may beep on the way out since we do not have the 3m pad at the desk.

SECURITY:

Josh Norris is no longer our head of security. Fredrick Lee is our system Security Manager.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM:

This is a work in progress. HPL is working on getting all library location to have a consistency in the way the collection is shelved. This will help customers feel familiar when they visit different locations. It will also help us internally when, if needed, we go to other location to help or if we receive help at our location.

The first item on the agenda is interfiling concept picture books with all the other picture books.

HOUSTON EQUAL RIGHTS ORDINANCE (H.E.R.O.):

Passed by the city in May 2014, H.E.R.O. prohibits discrimination of any kind. Under no circumstance do we discriminate any person from using the bathroom they self-identify with.

If a customer complains, the complaining customer is in the wrong and not the person the customer is complaining about.

HEALTHY LIFE:

“The Houston Public Library’s (HPL) Healthy L.I.F.E (Literacy Initiative For Everyone) is an innovative health-based library literacy initiative designed to empower and equip families, specifically low income families, with the information, resources, and tools necessary for healthy living.” –HPL

Healthy L.I.F.E. offers programs we can request to have presented at our location. They also offer training to staff who would like to present the program themselves at their own location.

Community Engagement also offers programs and staff training. To book a program, an online event request will need to be completed.

Healthy L.I.F.E. and Community Engagement webpages can be found under Learn& Explore on HPL’s website.

FLIP KITS:

Please send all flip kits back to CMH once customers return it to us. If there is a hold on the kit, still send it to CMH, but please write hold on the transit slip to assist CMH with expediting the material to our customers. Do not rubber band the transit slip. Just tape the slip to the side of the tag that does not have the barcode.

Flip kits have their own catalog: flipkits.org

This catalog is also linked on the right side of our blog.  Once a customer finds a title they want, they can click on the title which will take them to our HPL catalog for them to place the item on hold.

There are 300 flip kit titles in 4 langauges: English, Spanish, Chinese, & Vietnamese.

INCIDENT REPORTING:

We will have staff training soon on this to familiarize everyone with the process.

Incident reports can become legal documents (may be asked for in court). Incident reports need to have written facts. There should be no opinions or assumptions.

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT:

If there are customers that ask about civic engagement, please bring them to Marcos’ attention. If Marcos is not available, please take down the customer’s information for Marcos to contact them when he’s available.

SMART MONEY MANAGER (SMM)

There have been quite a few incidents with SMM throughout our system. There is training in the works for SMM to refresh and retrain the staff.

Please continue to be attentive to your transaction and when doing the deposit.

Make sure to get a sign copy of the credit card receipt from the customer.

Ring up the transaction on both the telecheck machine and the SMM on the computer when doing credit and check transaction.

When finishing up the deposit, counter and confirming need to sign and print their name.

CUSTOMER COMMENT FORM:

If customer asks for a comment form, there is an online one on our HPL website, and also a paper one we can give the customer to fill out. Please give all comment forms to Marcos.

Do not forget to offer comment form to customers who are pleased with our services.

GALE eCOURSES:

Gale eCourses have been approved for training hours. 6 hrs of training credit for each course taken. Please check with your supervisor first to receive approval for the course before starting the course.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT DAY:

It will be May 1^st from 8am-5pm at the George R. Brown Convention Center. It is mandatory for all staff (full and part-time).

SUMMER FOOD SERVICE PROGRAM (SFPS) RETURNING:

SFPS is available this summer at many of our HPL locations. We will not be a location.

 MISSING & CLAIMS RETURNED LISTS WEEKLY:

The list is available every Thursdays. The list needs to be completed so that we can make sure that books that are missing are actually missing. When a book goes missing for a long time, the record gets deleted. If that missing book is found (usually by a patron) and its record was deleted, it becomes an item on the fly and has to be sent into processing to have a new record created. Doing our missing list weekly will decrease the work load in the long run.

CUSTOMER SERVICE:

We received a customer complaint about an incident on Monday. The customer needed assistant in finding books for her to read out loud to her children. She asked two staff and did not receive the help she needed and was told to browse the collection.

Always remember to ask for assistance from your fellow teammates when you are not sure how to help the customer or if you feel that your assistance was not enough help for the customer.

We are all talented in a variety of areas. We do not know everything, but we each know something.

For future references, we do have novelist in our database that can offer assistance if you are completely stump and cannot find staff assistance. Also, at the top of the HPL website is the ASK link where customer can get a personal reading list from HPL’s reader advisory staff.

We will have training on reader’s advisory for the staff coming soon. 

February Fun!

As we march into the new month, here's a look back at February.

Jesse and Nhu held the first Blind Date with A Book event for the tweens/teens for three weeks. Books were wrapped and labeled. Patrons had to read the label on the front to base their decision on whether to check the book out or not. No judging the front cover of the book with this one. It was a success with 37 books taken out on dates.

Frances and the tweens/teens in her ASZ Studio created some fantastic robots all from recycled materials. A contest was held from 2/27 through 2/28. Patrons big and small had the opportunity to vote for their favorite. In case you were wondering, #5 (the cat robot) won 1st place. 

Let's see what March will have in store for us,

-Nhu