News for the Week

Heather is working with Kenosha Lifecourse Initiative for Healthy Families to provide “welcome baskets” at area hospitals that include info about the library, a library card application for the new baby, early literacy tips, developmental milestones, and a board book (The Very Hungry Caterpillar). The “baskets” are just high quality, water resistant, closing file folders. Lifecourse will provide funding for 20 kits!


Congratulations to Zander for his appointment to the BadgerLink Advisory Board!

KCLS (our library system)  has won LSTA funding to tag Community Library's collection. CL will tag at their locations and we'll tag their items coming through the AMH at NS and SW to speed things along and greatly reduce our exceptions bins at those locations. As soon as those tags arrive, we'll hold some tagging refresher courses for Circ staff.

On September 24, National Voter Registration Day, our staff will be joined by Forward Kenosha
volunteers to offer sign-up tables in our lobbies. Only city and county clerks are authorized to register
voters in Wisconsin, but we can verify registrations online and help people navigate the online registration
system, as well as answer any questions about polling locations and registration requirements. This
activity supports our Civic Literacy efforts.

The libraries are officially "zoned up." We've done this to set the expectations for staff and provide a
means to talk to people about their behavior in any zone. For instance, if two people are holding a friendly
but loud conversation back in the stacks, I can intervene by saying, "Hi, I'm Barb. I work here at the
library. I don't know if you noticed, but you're in the library's Study Zone. Only quiet conversation is
allowed in this area. I can show you where the Social Zone is if you'd like to continue your conversation."

Posters and table tents are up. Please familiarize yourself with the zones in place. We welcome any feedback
about this system as we implement it. We're open to shifting zones as needed- let us know how it's working.
This system is in place and working well in Oak Park, IL and Miami-Dade libraries. We're hoping it makes
things easier for everyone.

Here are the initial zones:

Uptown 

All areas - Study Zone

Simmons 

Upstairs - Study Zone

Downstairs in Children's - Social Zone

Southwest 

Children’s Area, Lobby, Meeting Room/Conference Rooms, Study Rooms,                         

The Hub, Teen Space - Social Zones

Adult and YA stacks, public computers, circulation & ref desks and all tables not along the windows -
Study Zones

Tables along the windows - Quiet Zones

Northside 

Area from the public Printers to the Children's area and the Teen Space - Social Zone

Area from the public computers to the tables along the windows - Study Zones

Tables along the windows - Quiet Zones

This week's Bright Spot Award goes to the KPL Outreach Team for continuing service in the wake of the unexpected bookmobile downtime. Reloading, rescheduling, pushing carts around, calling contacts... you made it look so easy! Way to provide exceptional service! 
Sharing honors is our amazing maintenance team who fixed the bookmobile generator in-house and got us back on the road ahead of schedule. What talent! 

Brandi reminded me earlier today what the public always says they love most about KPL- the friendly
atmosphere. Thanks to all of you who greet the public with a smile. They feel your warmth!

Barb 

Have a greet weekend, everyone!