April 2015 Staff Meeting Notes

Meetings Notes

Kashmere/Lakewood NL Grouping

April 20, 2015

In attendance:

Melissa Ryans (Manager)

Jose Santoyo (Assistant Manager)

Dionne McLaughlin (Senior Library Service Specialist)

Juan Lopez (Senior Customer Service Clerk)

Twanna Wade (Senior Customer Service Clerk)
Linda Adams (Customer Service Clerk)

Ann Perry (Customer Service Clerk)

Karl Beck (Library Assistant)

Dee Hunter (Library Assistant)

Cristal Nino (Customer Service Clerk, Part-time)

Not in attendance:

Ana Santana (Customer Service Clerk, Part-time)

Topics of Interest:

• New Staff
• Staff Discussion
• Training Session – HEAR Forms, Orphan Books, Incident Reports
• New Forms Feedback*

First Topic: New Staff

• Ana Santana is a new part-time Customer Service Clerk for the grouping. Unfortunately, she was unable to attend the staff meeting due to car trouble.

Second Topic: Staff Discussion

• Staff Development Day: Staff Development Day is May 1^st and is mandatory for all staff. All staff has until Tuesday, April 21^st to select a breakout session and choose form three options (Game of Tones, Lost in Translation, or Mission Possible). If you do not select a session by the deadline or if a session is filled you may be randomly assigned a session on May 1^st.
• Parking: Parking issue has been resolved and staff will have the option of parking in Lot H and riding a shuttle to and from the convention center. Staff has the option of carpooling and getting a parking pass to park at Discovery Green if they are carpooling with 3 or more staff members. Staff must request parking passes from the Staff Development Day Committee. See Intranet for details.
• Attire: Attire for the event is business casual, but you may wear your HPT shirt.

• Clutter: Everyone on staff is responsible for cleaning up after themselves and after their programs. The workrooms at both locations are going to be decluttered and cleaned.
• Staff should be cleaning up after their projects (e.g., returning craft materials where they belong), straightening the CSD and replacing papers and items where they belong, taking personal belongings with you when you leave the CSD, and placing books on the cart prior to leaving the desk.
• Staff should also be aware that it is impossible to store indefinitely items that are used occasionally. If it is something that will be used continuously, store it at your desk. Use one of the supply boxes (it has a lid) to store materials underneath desk so that workroom looks a bit tidier.
• With rare exceptions, staff has the time to clean up after they have completed tasks. This is a time management issue: give yourself enough time before the end of the hour or assigned task to return items back where they belong and clean up after yourself.
• Serials:
• Person in charge of serials need to check periodicals in, including the Houston Chronicle. This should be done every day.
• Programs:
• Promotion: All staff should be promoting programs as they are occurring (e.g., a patron comes to the CSD to ask for help with their resume or filling out an application and there is an Open Job Lab going on at that time) and referring customers to programs.
• Responsibility: Staff conducting programs is responsible for all aspects of the program: preparing for it, taking it down, cleaning up after the program, submitting statistics, etc.
• Engagement: While conducting a program staff should not be doing anything but actively engaging with customers to try to get to know them and monitoring the audience for issues, concerns, etc.
• Holds:
• Staff needs to check out the items they place on hold. Items should not be left on staff desks or given to them. All staff holds need to be wrapped and placed on hold shelf.
• Pay close attention to messages Sirsi give when checking in delivery.
• Do not place CEN and ILL items on a cart. This confuses staff, who might then accidentally shelve those items. Wrap items appropriately and place in delivery immediately upon return.
• Holds processing will undergo a change wherein holds will be processed at the sending location rather than at the receiving location. Holds labels will be in the form of a sticker that is placed on the book by the sending location and scanned at the receiving location to activate hold.

Third Topic: Training

• HEAR Forms: HEAR section of blog was revised to break down forms in relation to SMART goals. If you have been assigned a particular SMART goal, then you should be diligently recording the information in that SMART goal form so that your HEAR plan accurately reflects your work. All staff is responsible for logging the information for their SMART goals. Please keep up with your goals and be vigilant about recording your stats on the forms.
• Orphan Books: All non-HPL items (including Harris County Public Library items) should be processed through the online Orphan Books form on the group blog. Items should then be sent to CEN, ATTN: ILL to ensure that they are not ILL items. ILL will then re-route the items to their appropriate libraries.
• Incident Reports:
• Form is on the Intranet and blog and must be submitted to the mailing list (HPL – NL Incidents) within 24 hours of an incident.
• If supervisor is not present at the time of the incident, let him or her know as soon as possible.
• Incident reports are legal documents that can be used in court, so editorial contents are not needed.
• Use the specific language used during an incident. Do not censor the words of a customer – vulgar language should be documented
• Include full library and staff name and specify who was involved.
• If a customer does not want their information to be included in an incident report, respect their privacy.
• Children can be suspended for not providing parental information when asked by staff.
• Supervisors can submit reports on behalf of staff, and M. Ryans and J. Santoyo are willing to review reports for staff.
• All reports are to be submitted to HPL – NL Incidents
• Practice exercise was conducted: staff was asked to write an incident report about a disruptive child at Lakewood NL, who was told to lower his voice, cursed at a staff member, and pulled books off the shelf when asked to leave by a staff member. Child was 15 years old and incident happened at 11:00AM.
• Sample incident reports were sent to the manager and assistant manager for review.

*Not able to discuss the new statistics forms. Will be added to the agenda for May’s staff meeting.