Report of the Library Director for July 2013

Busy month of July – Summer Program events – Library Pages start work

Circulation
July circulation activity was 6,991, which is 22.5% higher than last month, and 7.3% higher than last year.  However, it is 3.6% lower than the previous three year average, which includes Millenium statistics.

Our June circulation was accurately reported last month, I was unsure if the previous figure of 5,706 included June 29^th, but apparently it did.

Laptops: 16.  Nooks: 4.  Games: 90.

Unique Patrons

Upton Library currently has 2,833 items checked out to 644 unique patrons.

Digital Content Use

BYKI: In July, 12 users accessed byki for a total of 48.9 hours.  Our top languages were Japanese and Spanish.

Overdrive: eBook circulation to Upton patrons: 233, eAudio circulations: 30.

Wowbrary:   We have 130 active subscribers to Wowbrary.

New Patron Registrations:  16 new patrons registered in July.

New Items: We added approximately 66 items to the collection in July.

Passport Applications processed in July: 10.

Programs
Library book group: 6 people met on July 31^st.
Senior book group: 8 people met on July 9^th.

Thursday storytime averaged 8 children per session for 4 sessions.
TinyTots lapsit averaged 8 children per session for 4 sessions. 
Library Table: 4 visits, averaged 9 patrons and 36 items.

Lego Days: attendance has dwindled to 1-2 children per session.  I am going to put this program on hold for August, and restart it in September after school begins again.

Special Events

Lil Folk Farm petting zoo – 275 participants on July 10^th.

Sparky’s Puppet show – 44 participants on July 16^th.

Book and Movie club for ages 9-12 had 7 children attend 2 sessions.

Drop in Crafts for ages 6-9 attracted 16 children on July 11^th and 13 on July 25^th.

Author Visit with Cheryl Lampshire – 4 participants on July 20^th.

Upcoming Events

Stuffed Animal Sleepover – Tuesday, August 6^th.

Dig into Dinosaurs with the Museum of Science – Tuesday, August 13^th.

Red Cross Babysitting Class second session – Friday, August 16^th.

Ice Cream Social at Summer Program finale – Saturday, August 17^th.

Plans for Next Month
1) Finish Summer events.
2) Proceed with Library Improvements plan.

3) Financial report for State.

July at the Library

July has been a busy month, visits increased, circulation increased and attendance at programs increased.  I am happy to see the library busy and full of people after a decline in visits during the early Spring.  I hope that we can continue this momentum and remain busy in the fall.

Summer Reading Program

The Summer Program is slightly more than half-way completed.  292 children have registered and received their reading packets.

All but one of our events has been well attended.  After having to postpone the first session, the Book and Movie club is off to a good start, we may consider extending this program into the fall.

Lil Folk Farm is always a popular event, this year over 250 people visited the petting zoo.

We have scheduled a second session of the Red Cross Babysitter class, and invited the waiting list from the June session to register.

The only program that didn’t attract any interest was the Teen book discussion group.

Library Improvements

The written report on the mold inspection from Gordon Mycology has arrived and provides a number of recommendations for mold remediation in both the Library space and the Basement.  I hope that some of these recommendations can be funded from the previously appropriated Library improvement funds.

Library Pages

Our two library pages have begun working 8 hours each per week.  Along with regular library tasks such as shelving materials and pulling requests, they have started on two projects: filing past accession slips for our archives, and shelf reading / inventory control on the Adult Fiction and Nonfiction collections.  The Shelf reading project has already uncovered a number of missing items and significantly improved the accuracy and consistency of our cataloging.

ARIS Report

The annual report of library services and usage that is part of our certification requirements is completed and ready for the Trustees to review.  The financial report is due later in the summer.

There were very few surprises or revelations from this year’s report.  Circulation in all categories and interlibrary loan activity was within a few percent of last year.  Our holdings changed slightly, number of adult print items declined due to the extensive weeding project last year, and ebook content increased.  All our ebook content is purchased by CWMARS as a cooperative effort across the network.  Other services such as internet access and lack of meeting space remained stable from previous years.