Report of the Library Director for March 2008

Circulation
Circulation for March was 4,727, an 8.1% increase over last month, and slightly (3.8%) lower than March of 2007.

Collection Development
We added 144 items to the collection in March.
Lisa and I met with a sales representative from Sebco Books and ordered about $1,000 worth of non-fiction materials, mostly juvenile with a few adult items. We will need to make at least one more large order like this to fulfill our materials requirement. Usually a rep from Apple Books visits us in the spring.

Programs
Library book group: 8 people met on March 26th.
Senior book group: 8 people met on March 4th.
Teen book group: 2 teens met on March 28th.
Music and Movement averaged 61 participants per session for 4 sessions.
Thursday storytime averaged 8 children per session.
TinyTots lapsit averaged 19 participants. This is a large increase from previous months.
Teen Tuesday was attended by 12 young adults.
Library Table: 4 visits, averaged 4 patrons and 6 items.

Special Events
The library continues to organize an intergenerational music program presented by Apple Tree Arts. This program is held at the Senior Center and has averaged 20 participants. Registration for the March session is low. We will not be organizing this program in the summer months and will re-examine it in the fall to see if it can be improved.

Volunteers
12 items were delivered to 1 patron on March 12th. The use of the home delivery program has declined now that we can offer item pickup at the weekly visit to the Senior Center.

Upcoming Events in April
Lisa visits United Parish preschool for national library month.


Staff
Matthew attended a workshop on library use of the photosharing website “flickr” I have begun work on modifying our current blog at http://uptonlibrary.blogspot.com/. My goal is to combine the blog and our static webpage into a single resource for patrons.

New receipt Printers
I have installed both the new printers, and we are now making use of the ability to print “routing slips” instead of writing them by hand. A routing slip is an address label that must be attached to each item we put into the interlibrary delivery system. Printing them saves our staff time and makes delivery easier for the regional sorters.

Account Access Policy
The revised account access policy goes into effect on April 15th. The new policy boils down to:
If you have a library card, you can access that account.
If you don’t have a card, you can present picture ID to gain access to only your own account.
The important thing for patrons to understand is that if you want to pick up a held book that was requested on a family member’s account, you will be required to have that person’s library card. So if you want your husband to pick up your items, give him your library card.
We have prepared several options to help patrons adjust to the new requirements. Staff will offer key-chain cards or multiple cards on the same account. We will also offer a one-time exception to the requirement, but those accounts will be marked so the second time we will be unable to make any exceptions.

New Staff Computer
The computer in the office needs to be replaced. This computer is used for staff word processing and email as well as cataloging functions. The current computer is infected with viruses and pop-up adware, and its hardware is below the new specifications recommended by CWMARS. As CWMARS software is expanded and improved, it requires more computing power to operate effectively.
I will ask the Trustees to vote to spend up to $1,000 from the State Aid funds to replace this computer. This replacement should be in addition to the one computer per year we request from the Town Technology Expense funds. I will make the purchase through Worldband communications, the last computer we purchased from them cost $700.

Plans for Next Month

1) Redesign the library Blog and begin using it as a library resource.

2) Complete the new Library information brochure for new patrons.

3) Finalize the Summer event schedule and begin assembling registration packages.