Stella Link Team Meeting February 22, 2017 Notes

Present: Ade Odusanwo, Nhu Le, Jesse Farias, Frances Saldan, Jose Zamora, Jacob Hornbeak, Alex Gabitto, Linda Shen, Amethyst Taylor, Ray Williams, and Tim Siegel

Leading: Edgar Fuentes

Not Present: Carol Wu and Patricia Tucker

Thank you: Thank you for assisting the customer who fell yesterday in the library. Anytime there is an incident such as that one, please notify the person in charge immediately.

Great work on the Linking to Us: Stories from HPL – Stella Link now has 3 submissions. Keep them coming!

Great work on passports this weekend – 107 passport applications were processed!

Exploring Museums with Houston Public Library: Amethyst will be hosting the second of the museum field trips today, she will be going to the Museum of Natural Science. Only those students who have signed up and have permission slips turned in will be attending. She will have a list.

Newspapers: A few changes have been made regarding newspapers. For a number of reasons, we have had to reduce the number of back issues (previous copies) of newspapers.

Houston Chronicle: latest 30 days
New York Times: latest 30 days
USA Today: latest 30 days
Wall Street Journal: latest 30 days
Barron’s: latest 6 months
Houston Business Journal: latest 6 months
Investor’s Business Daily:  latest 6 months

Please apologize to any customers who may be affected by this change, and direct them to the online newspaper databases as an alternative: http://houstonlibrary.org/research/resources-by-category/249

Lost & Found: Please continue to put dates on lost & found items so that we keep them as a courtesy for 30 days. Anything left past 30 days we will consider abandoned and deal with them accordingly.

Office 365: HPL has been upgraded to Office365 as of this morning. This change allows us 100G of email storage! When you first log in to Outlook Web Access you will get the message:

Use the following link to open this mailbox with the best performance:
http://outlook.com/owa/houtx.mail.onmicrosoft.com

When you enter your email, you will be redirected to the City of Houston log in page, where you will log in using your email address and your email password. If you experience any issues with your email, please contact the HPL Helpdesk at 832-393-1570.

Express Checkouts: Please continue to provide any feedback on how the express checkouts are working for customers. Continue to let them know that they can check out 2-3 items at a time now, saving them time.

New IT HelpDesk Hours

From IT:

"As part of our continuous improvement efforts, we are adjusting Help Desk hours to improve service during peak call times (8:00 AM to 4:00 PM).   After analyzing Help Desk call activity over the past year, we discovered that we consistently receive less than 5 calls per month between the hours of 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.

We are redirecting some staff time to provide additional coverage during Help Desk call peak times. Starting February 20, 2017, Monday through Thursday Help Desk hours will change to 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM.  After-hours coverage and support will be provided via the on-call/emergency line (713-742-3978).

Friday - Sunday Help Desk hours will remain unaffected:

Friday, 8:00 AM – 6: 00 PM

Saturday, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Sunday, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM"

ACE Scholarship

Announcing the 2017

HPL Academic and Continuing Education (ACE) Scholarship Program

The HPL ACE Scholarship Program provides financial

support for Houston Public Library employees to further their education. Scholarships are

available for continuing education workshops or for regular course work as part of a degree

plan. Eligible applicants are full-time and part-time employees, in good standing, with one or

more years of continuous employment with the library.

Full-time employees may be awarded up to $1000.00.

Part-time employees may be awarded up to $500.00.

Applications are available on the intranet at https://hplnet.houstonlibrary.org/personal.html

Application Deadline:

Friday, March 31, 2017

How To Submit Your Application:

1. Click on Open Form. Save the electronic form to your computer.

2. Fill out form electronically.

3. Attach completed form to an email and send to:

HPL ACE Scholarship Program Administrator

andrea.lawrence@houstontx.gov

Newspapers

A few changes have been made regarding newspapers. For a number of reasons, we have had to reduce the number of back issues (previous copies) of newspapers.

Houston Chronicle: latest 30 days
New York Times: latest 30 days
USA Today: latest 30 days
Wall Street Journal: latest 30 days
Barrons: latest 6 months
Houston Business Journal: latest 6 months
Investors Business Daily:  latest 6 months

Please apologize to any customers who may be affected by this change, and direct them to the online newspaper databases as an alternative.

http://houstonlibrary.org/research/resources-by-category/249

Express Checkout Payments

Two of the express checkouts are now working, and are able to take credit card payments at those stations. The left-hand side express checkout is currenlty not booting up correctly and therefore is down.

Please note:
The machines work with Google Pay.
American Express is declined.
Visa is accepted and asks for a customer signature at the self check.

Stella Link Team Meeting Notes February 8, 2017

Present: Nhu Le, Alex Gabitto, Frances Saldana, Patricia Tucker, Carol Wu, Jacob Hornbeak, Jesse Farias, Linda Shen, Amethyst Taylor, and Tim Siegel

Leading: Edgar Fuentes

Not Present: Jose Zamora, Ray Williams, and Ade Odusanwo

Thank you: We did 109 passports two Saturdays ago and 88 passports this past Saturday. Thanks again to everyone – Nhu for switching weekends with Ade and for staying an extra hour, and Jacob for working through lunch when we were inundated with customers. Thanks also to the rest of the team for helping customers with computer issues, for taking passport photos, and helping answer customer questions.

Customer Compliments: Kudos to Frances, Amethyst, and Nhu for getting a customer comment for Tune Time, Baby Time, and Toddler Storytime.

Customer Testimonials: HPL is wanting to document customer testimonials about computer classes, children’s programs, language classes, or passport services – a brief 2-3 minute story about how the library’s services have impacted their lives (or a simple, “I love the library because…”) Please record with whatever is at hand (your cell phone, tablet, or the passport camera). I will ensure they get submitted. If you need help recording the video, please ask for help.

A media release form will be required. Photo/Media Release form can be found in Inside HPL > Miscellaneous https://hplnet.houstonlibrary.org/forms.html# 

Doors: Dr. Lawson sent out an email reminding all library locations to “not prop open doors that have secured electronic access as this defeats the purpose of these security measures.” The same applies for our staff exit door, which last meeting we mentioned should remain locked at all times – please do not leave the door propped open, as it could put us all at risk.

Delivery Bins: Delivery Bins should only be used for delivery, not for float, discards, for storing items in, or any other purpose other than for sending delivery to other locations. They are running out of bins and need our help in complying with this request.

Book Drive: The Barbara Bush Literacy Foundation contacted HPL about a Book Drive at 5 HPL locations, including Stella Link. The box will be about 2 feet by 2 feet by 2 feet, where visitors can deposit gently used or new books into the marked boxes during the drive. The book drive chairman will check in with us to check on the boxes and see if they need to be emptied. The book drive runs from February 15-March 2 and they have a Boy Scout group lined up to pick up all boxes and books on Saturday, March 4th.

B/O Items: Please continue to check in any items from the Exceptions Bin. Please check for:
- see if the item has a hold
- missing/damaged tags
- see if there’s a problem with the record (it might say it’s an adult picture book, for example)
We need to ensure that holds that need to go to other locations do not end up on our shelves. We have been doing much better, so please continue to process these items carefully.

United Way Resource Guide: Please take time to review the United Way Community Resource guide at the desk. This week I had a customer asking about adult literacy programs, and the guide was helpful in getting the customer some contacts.

Emergency Preparedness: Please also take a look at the Emergency Pamphlet which lists contact information for a number of scenarios, including how to handle a bomb threat, where the emergency exits are in the building, how to handle an active shooter in the building.

This is also a good time to get reacquainted with the 5-minute Run Hide Fight video that was posted on the City of Houston website over a year ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VcSwejU2D0

Item on the Fly: If the item is not found in the catalog, please follow the following procedures to add item on the fly so that the customer can check out the item right away:

There’s a quick 2-minute video on the HPL Training Portal that shows how to create an item on the fly record: http://training.houstonlibrary.org/content/how-create-item-fly

Click on the “Items” wizard group.
Click on the “Add Item” wizard.
In the Search for box, type “Item on the Fly” after ensuring the Index setting is set to Title and the Library setting is set to ALL and that the Type setting is set to “Keyword.” Click “Search.”
Select the ITEM ON THE FLY record, and click on the “Modify” button at the bottom of the screen.
Scroll down to the ONTHEFLY - HOU-LMS record and click on the “Add Item” button at the bottom of the screen.
Enter the Barcode in the Item ID box, and select the appropriate type in the Type box (book, DVD, CD, etc).
Click on the box next to “Shadow Item.”
In the CIRCNOTE, please be sure to add the call number of the item and the title of the item.
Finally, click on the “Save” button.

The item can now be checked out by the customer. When they return the item, it will have a “return to LMS” message. Send the item to LMS with a processing flag explaining the item is a temporary record (On the Fly).

New addition to the STE family!

Welcome Adelene Rayne Williams!

6.15 lbs

Born on 2/1/2017

Mommy, Daddy and Baby are all doing well.

Overdrive Changes

The number of items that a patron can have checked out at a time has been increased from 10 to 15.

The second change is the Recommend to Library feature. Currently patrons can recommend up to 5 titles a day, which results in HPL receiving more recommendations than we have money for, and difficult and time consuming to manage. With these factors in mind we will be lowering the number of titles a patron can recommend to the library from 5 to 2 per day.

IRS Forms

We currently have 1040, 1040A, and 1040EZ forms and the instruction booklets. For other forms we can print if less than 5 pages. Some forms we can not print such as the 1099 and 1096. Customers have to order those from irs.gov or by calling 1-800-829-3676.

Middle 3M Express Checkout

The middle checkout is recycling the start up countdown window. The issue was reported to IT at 1PM.

Tim S.

AARP Tax Help

AARP Free Tax Help Locations & Times:
Appointments are not necessary. All sessions are offered on a first come, first serve basis. You may experience a long wait.

• Central Library: Mondays and Thursdays, 2 PM - 6 PM; Saturdays, 10 AM - 2 PM (Spanish-language assistance available only on Saturdays); starts on Monday, February 6; no tax help on March 4.
• Heights Neighborhood Library: Tuesdays, 12:30 PM - 4 PM
• Henington-Alief Regional Library: Wednesdays, 12 PM - 4 PM
• Hillendahl Neighborhood Library: Wednesdays, 11 AM - 3 PM and Thursdays, 1 PM - 5 PM (Spanish-language assistance is available)
• Johnson Neighborhood Library: Wednesdays and Thursdays, 12:30 PM - 3:30 PM
• Kendall Neighborhood Library: Wednesdays, 12 PM - 4 PM and Saturdays, 10 AM - 2 PM
• Oak Forest Neighborhood Library: Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 10 AM - 2 PM; Thursday, 10 AM - 3 PM; Saturdays, 10 AM - 2 PM
• Vinson Neighborhood Library: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Check with the individual library for date and time before your visit.

More information can be found here: http://houstonlibrary.org/search/node/TAX%20RESOURCES