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DIRECTOR'S REPORT
May 2009

Director’s Report and Highlights May 19, 2009
Pamela Nyberg Kiesner, Director
Bellingham, Washington

See You at Barkley Branch!

Please note that our meeting this month is at the Barkley Branch Library. We will have the opportunityto experience the branch activity eight months after opening. See you there at 4:00 p.m.

Circulation Services
Our trustee education topic is about Circulation Services. Iris Kaneshige will share highlights of circulation at all of our locations, our Interlibrary Loan activity, self check-out statistics, and our delivery operations.

A few words about circulation. Circulation Services are really the heartbeat of the library. We check out, check in, inspect, and re-shelve. We solve mysteries about materials locations, and set up payment plans for customers who are having difficulty paying their fees and fines. Staff negotiates with customers who are unhappy, and receives compliments from patrons who love the library.

Our delivery driver makes sure that items get delivered to the right place in the city for pickup by a customer, and he unloads the community book drops. We show people how to checkout by themselves, we help people find their holds, we issue new cards and provide welcome packets to new residents. We answer questions about accounts over the phone, and we counsel folks who have never used a library before.

Iris supervises and schedules pages and clerks, making sure we have adequate staff scheduled to serve the public at all circulation service points in the system. She conducts staff meetings and encourages staff participation in all-library programs – and morale-boosting after-work activities.

So much has changed in the last few years in Circulation Services. We removed long, customer-unfriendly counters and installed self checkout stations. We’ve implemented self pickup of holds at all locations, we added the WCC Connection, and the Coop Book Drop for customer convenience. We no longer have “due date stampers” at the desk – our patrons receive a printed receipt upon checkout and email notification.

Always on the move, and always seeking ways to improve our procedures, the Circulation Staff at all locations – Central adult and children’s departments, Fairhaven, and Barkley – does an amazing job. Kudos to all the staff members who work in Circulation Services!

FAST Final Report
By the time we meet, the City’s FAST (Fiscal Alternatives for Stability Taskforce) Report will have been distributed to all city staff, City Council, and the Mayor. I’d like to take a few minutes during our meeting to share some highlights with you, especially as they may affect the Library in 2010.

Facilities
We’ll talk about what we heard from the Mayor at last month’s meeting, the Waterfront, and new information about the proposed renovations of Central. We’ll also provide an update on the Fairhaven project, which is moving along very well.

Internet Policy
A revised version will be ready for your review at the June Library Board meeting.

Happy reading! See you on Tuesday.