New Vision and Mission Statements

The Library Board met Saturday afternoon to articulate KPL's mission and craft a vision. I wanted to share both with you right away, even though there may be a little wordsmithing before they are completely finalized. The vision is for the community, the mission is our role in creating that vision. I find them both very inspiring. You are looking at a very exciting future!

Food for Fines Returns for National Library Week

National Library Week returns April 9-15 and we are celebrating big this year!
We'll also offer Food for Fines. Sean will be sending out all the rules soon, and Aaron will send out announcements about the celebration.

Northside Activities Room Upgrade Coming Soon!

Thanks to the generous support of the KPL Foundation, the Northside Activities Room will soon be upgrades with a ceiling projector and front control panel for projection with sound!
Also funded from the wish list is a tent for Outreach activities and a video camera and tripod for capturing our wonderful programs on film.
Thanks to KPLF  for their continued generous support!

Delivery Moving to Circulation

Beginning April 3 (no fooling!) we're moving responsibility for Delivery back to Circulation. Delivery, including the van,  will now be housed @SW. Here's why the change is necessary and a win-win proposition for everyone involved:

• Outreach currently manages Bookmobile, Deposit Collections, Home Delivery, Lobby Stops, Outreach Programs, and has a whole lot more on their list of library-related service they want to do! That's a lot for a little department. 
• Scott used to manage Delivery as Team Leader in Outreach. His background is in logistics, so it was the perfect fit. Scott cannot return to Outreach due to health challenges. Outreach activities are strenuous, no matter what position you hold, and the requirements are just too much for Scott right now.
• We cannot afford to hire an additional Team Leader for Outreach. Outreach can do without a Team Leader if we remove Delivery from their responsibilities.
• Scott is skilled in Delivery logistics.
• Scott is very willing to handle Delivery for us.
• So Delivery is following Scott to SW, where he's been in a temporary position since he returned from medical leave. 
• Sean benefits from Team Leader support @SW. SW Circulation is a large staff handling 60% of our total circ activity. It makes sense to have a Team Leader there. With automation coming to SW shortly, extra leadership will be very helpful in that transition period.
• KPL's strategic plan calls for pushing resources toward direct patron service. Outreach will now have more time to focus on growing their services.
• By moving delivery to SW, we can reduce the time it takes to accomplish delivery by 30 minutes per day.

Additionally, I have asked Scott to take on a role of Ergonomics Officer for the library. He will be working with Michelle to organize and provide ergonomic training to all our staff in order to prevent work-related injuries.

Jill will be working with Scott to finalize a new delivery schedule where SW is home. This may affect the time the van reaches your location. They will be sure to communicate out to you with new expected times.

Brandi will be returning to Admin full time beginning April 3, when she will take on her new position as Communications Specialist. All questions about Outreach will need to go to Jill. All questions about Delivery will need to go to Scott.

Please join me in thanking Brandi for her tremendous support to Outreach during this transitional period!

Barb

News Update from SHARE Council

As new members of the SHARE consortium, Lin and I have been participating on the SHARE Director's Council. This past week, the council met at NS to view our AMH installation. We are hoping to persuade other SHARE libraries to tag their collections so we can automate sorting of Lakeshores materials that are returned to KPL or borrowed by KPL patrons. Racine is already tagging and Elkhorn is tagged. Every month should see more transit items recognized by our AMH equipment. Our guests walked away understanding more about our workflow and why we can no longer place a printed transit slip in every item. 

There are also committees in SHARE and our staff are taking leadership roles. Sean Murphy has been persuading the Circulation Committee to adopt Family Cards (linked accounts) so we can restore that option to our patrons. The decision should come to council soon and we'll be voting YES!

Also on the next council agenda is discussion of a pre-registration system where patrons can fill out their forms online before visiting or before they approach a service desk. The information they type will simply need to be verified with their ID. This, of course, will be completely optional for patrons, but for those people new to the community who find us online and want to avoid a longer wait at a service desk on their first visit, this will be a welcome option. Seattle Public Library has been offering this for many years.

Anne is participating in the SHARE Customer Experience committee and we are getting ready to switch our phone notifications to an automated voice system to let people know their holds are ready for pickup or items may soon be due. The other SHARE libraries have been using this for a while and have no complaints. 

There's some frustration with our drivers license scanners when using them for new patron registration. Not all fields transfer in correctly. We'll continue to work out the bugs with those. 

For those of you who work with the online catalog, you will soon see the "Database" tab removed from the search field. Apparently, the search results were pretty wonky. 

That's a quick summary- we'll continue to keep you informed as our new consortium moves forward!

News for the Week

Thanks to managers and their families who came out for the SW tagging party Friday night. We made a real dent in the collection in preparation for AMH installation. There's a lot more to do! Please sign up and tag whenever you can. The more we have done before AMH, the less repeat circ work we need to do at SW.

Thanks to all staff who worked the Kenosha Expo booth this past weekend. We met a lot of happy customers and educated a few people who had been out of touch for a while. I heard much praise for staff, our new spaces, and the Kenosha Connects program!

We host Lakeshores Library System directors tomorrow morning at NS for their monthly meeting. We'll be touring the AMH installation between 10:30 and 11.

The Kenosha Creative Economy community meeting happens at Uptown tomorrow, beginning 6:15pm. If you are an artist and want to contribute to the conversation, please attend!

We have three internal candidates for the new Communications Specialist position. We will begin interviews next week.

Supervisors meet on Tuesday the 14th. The city attorney's office will be present to answer questions related to library service.

The Wisconsin Marathon takes place in downtown Kenosha on Saturday, May 6th, beginning 7am. The track includes streets around Simmons, but leaves 7th Ave free for parking that day.

I'll be at a library conference Thursday and Friday this week. Lin and Anne are in charge during my absence.