Summer circulation takes off – Petting zoo attracts 260 people – Annual statistics
Circulation
July circulation activity was 6,422, a 41% increase over
last month. We are finally seeing our
summer rise in circulation, but this number is still 8.1% lower than July of
last year.
Laptops: 11. Nooks: 6. Games: 51.
Unique Patrons
As of August 2nd, we had 2,963 items checked out
to 652 unique patrons.
Digital Content Use
BYKI: 7 users for 11.6
hours.
The most popular languages were French and Russian.
Overdrive: eBook
circulation to Upton
patrons: 324, eAudio circulations: 77.
This is a new record high for eBook downloads.
Wowbrary: We have 141 active subscribers to Wowbrary. (+3)
New Patron Registrations: 34 new patrons registered in July. This is tied for a record high, last time we
had 34 new patrons was July of 2011.
New Items: We
added 382 items to the collection in July.
Passport Applications
processed in July: 11.
Programs
Library book group: 9 people met on July 30th.
Senior book group: 10 people met on July 8th.
Library book group: 9 people met on July 30th.
Senior book group: 10 people met on July 8th.
Thursday storytime
6 sessions, averaged 6 children.
TinyTots lapsit 3 sessions, averaged 5 children.
TinyTots lapsit 3 sessions, averaged 5 children.
Library Table: 5
visits, averaged 8 patrons and 29 items.
ESL classes: 5
classes, averaged 2 students.
Summer Program Events
Total registrations:
188
Movie Nights: 5
sessions, averaged 5 children.
Science Experiments:
July 10th, 16 participants, July 24th, 27 participants.
Beatles celebration:
6 participants.
Ed the Wizard
science magic show: July 16th, 83 attendees.
Big Bang Theory
trivia: July 23rd, 8 participants.
Lil Folk Farm
petting zoo: July 30th, 260 participants.
Upcoming Events in August
Life size Clue Game
: August 6th
Science Experiments:
August 7th
Stuffed Animal
Sleepover: August 12th
Ice Cream give-away
/ Summer Reading Finale : August 14th.
Friends of the Library – Meeting 10am on Tuesday August 12th.
Plans for Next Month
1) Matthew on vacation Aug 12th – 19th.
2) Advertise RFQ for Consultant
1) Matthew on vacation Aug 12th – 19th.
2) Advertise RFQ for Consultant
3) Finish Summer Reading Program
New Web Address
You can now get to the library’s website by using
uptonlibrary.org. The new address is
shorter to type and easier to remember.
Planning and Design Grant
The RFQ for Library
Building Consultant is ready for approval by the Trustees.
The schedule for the
consultant is: advertise in August, interview and offer contract in September.
Meanwhile, we should
be forming the Feasibility Committee, brainstorming possible sites to examine,
and sending a grant acceptance letter to the MBLC.
Library Facility Improvements
The final invoice
for Barbato Construction has come in, and Vertex has indicated that there are
no more outstanding bills on our account, so I can finally give a solid figure
for available funds in the Library improvements account: $9,106. I am very happy we have this much left over, it’s
a few thousand more than I was expecting.
We are still paying $80 per month rental on the remaining storage
trailer, and some of these funds are earmarked for the additional
lighting. Hopefully these funds will
give us more options when it comes to utilizing extra space in the K-R building
after the Town Hall is complete.
Lighting – I need to
place another call to the Electrician.
Circ Desk – Delayed until
end of August, but still on track.
New public chairs –
delivery should be mid-August, waiting for them to be back in stock.
New office chairs –
no progress, have not selected chairs yet.
Powerwashing –
According to the companies that have looked at the building, normal
powerwashing techniques would damage our metal siding. If we want to pursue cleaning the building,
we’ll have to look into some gentler means.
Board of Health space / Program room
I’m starting to
think about the logistics of turning the current BoH space into a Programs
room. These are all still in the
brainstorming stage, and I’ll have to talk to other town departments, and then
have some recommendations for the September meeting:
-
Can we
move our storage trailer to the K-R parking lot and keep it permanently to
solve the attic weight issue? How much
parking would we lose?
-
At a
minimum I’d like to replace the carpet and paint the back hall and programs
room. Maybe purchase materials and
volunteer labor?
-
How do
we handle the door? No staff sight line
or security on that door… can we make it an emergency exit only? Any fire/building code issues?
-
Can we
coordinate with other departments having a dumpster dropped off for a
combination of building clean-out and dispose of old carpet?
-
Expand
the alarm / security system to cover those rooms?
Collection Development
The experiment of
keeping the required summer reading titles for students in stock has gone
well. Our stock of titles has stabilized
in the end of July, and I expect them to stay that way until the week before
school starts, when we will get another rush of demand. Interestingly, the BVT titles have been in
higher demand than the Nipmuc titles.
Nicole and I have met
with a number of book salesmen in July, and placed some large orders for Series
non-fiction and Early readers. Typically
each year we do a couple of these large orders in the summer, and then again in
the end of winter.
ARIS Report
The first part of
the ARIS report is complete and ready for the Trustees to approve. ARIS is an annual report of information about
the library and its services that we make to the state each year as part of our
certification process. It provides a
wealth of useful information and statistics about the library, which is then
archived and made publically searchable by the MBLC.
The first part of
the ARIS, due in mid-August, is a report on the services and usage of the library. The second part, due in October, focuses on
the finances and materials expenditure.
Also this July,
staff completed a 1-week “observational study” of the library, by recording
every half-hour the activity in the library.
This study is recommended is part of the needs assessment process, and
gives us some insight into library usage that doesn’t appear in circulation
statistics. This is the second time we’ve
done this type of study, the first was back in December as part of the grant
application.
Here are some interesting tidbits from the reports:
Total physical items
in collection: 27,459.
Number of books
decreased by 3,310 or 13% from last year, due to the weeding projects before
the renovations.
Total circulation
was 58,345 items, a 13% decrease from last year.
Interlibrary loan
activity was 16% of our total circulation.
We borrow 25% more
ILL items than we loan out.
Number of registered
borrowers: 4,596
Estimated number of
visits to the library: 25,870
9% of our visitors
came from towns other than Upton.
The library was open
2,038 hours, including all 52 Saturdays.
From the Observational Study in July:
Our visitors were
62% females, and 38% males.
Visitors were 33%
juveniles, and 15% senior citizens.
Out of 482 observed
activities:
10% were reading, 20%
were using electronic devices, 25% were using library seating, 28% were
browsing the collection, and 17% were interacting with library staff.
Only 2 people during
the week were observed talking on a cellphone in the library.
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