Children's Services Meeting Minutes for October 2006

Date:  October 4, 2006  1:00pm - 4:00pm

Location:  Village Library

Attendance:  Kelley Riha (OUT), Janet Brooks (MSL), Lisa Wood (OUT), Emily Williams (OUT), Dana Morrow (OUT), Tulin Lafollette (CT), Barbara Johnson (BI), Helen Shelton (CH), Lynda Bahr (OUT), Daniel Fields (BE), Mary Strasner (DN), Fran Harbert (DC), Heidi Port (DVS), Karen Lehr (ED), Carol Hunter (ED), Lois Cross (JN), Adrienne Butler (ODL).

Welcome:
Lisa read Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Exist by Mo Willems. The staff introduced themselves to guest Adrienne Butler, the new youth coordinator at the Oklahoma Department of Libraries.

Handouts:
CV of Maria Elena Escribano de Ruffin (bilingual children’s artist), “Learning through Play at the Public Library” by Sandra Feinberg, “Lack of Creative Playtime Plagues Children” by Karen Uhlenhuth, a children’s literature quiz, “Fun Learning Games” from the August 2006 Parents, children and teen 2006 summer reading sign-up/goal statistics

Lisa talked about the book Consuming Kids by Susan Lynn.

Kelley brought Family Place materials for the programmers to take back to their libraries: schedule, boxes of handouts, brochures, and fingerprint kits in English and Spanish.

Emily mentioned the Get Caught Reading literacy campaign and told the programmers that Outreach could order some posters for them.
Summer Reading:

Lisa led a discussion about the 2006 summer reading program.

What worked: ED- the supplies worked and liked Outreach mailing the cards to schools, good prizes, liked ribbon and reporting statistics through mlsRoomMgr; DC- overall it was better; Dana- numbers were up, felt the program had better promotion; CH- clear instructions and posters helped; VI- every staff member worked sign-up desk at beginning of the summer, better communication, Arts Council survey was easier, PowerPoint helped in training teens.

The programmers agreed to Dana’s suggestion of getting VISA gift cards next year instead of Target/movie theater cards.

What didn’t work: ED- coupons for completely free meals are better (suggested Chic-Fil-A), would like distinct coupons handed out at every level that can be numbered to help keep track of statistics, confusion in the public over Neighborhood “Arts” not being drawing/painting, DN- would like people in public service to look over materials before they’re printed to help with the wording, BE- Big Magic Book description should have included puppets, some schools didn’t distribute flyers they were mailed, felt unlimited prize entries might not be fair.

Heidi suggested that coupons could be requested from sponsors in pad form so that numbered prizes don’t get disorganized. Barb shared that BI got a numbering machine that helped make keeping track of numbers easier for them.

Summer Volunteers:
Heidi discussed the summer volunteer report. She congratulated the supervisors on the good job they did.
Materials Information: Janet handed out bibliographies and the Catalog Search Tips from extension training.

BREAK 2:15 - 2:30pm

Dana talked about Spring Fling. She asked programmers to please double check dates and times. She reminded everyone that for publicity purposes, programmers can request marketing posters in .pdf format and e-mail them to community contacts.

Family Place:
Lisa distributed Family Place handouts and discussed centralizing the program’s name, description, and paperwork. Heidi suggested using volunteers to help with registration and toys for the Parent/Child Workshops. Lisa asked that programmers send her the documents they use for FP so she can work on standardizing the forms, literature, and practices. Lisa suggested using mailed reminders that include possible questions for the professionals. Dana talked about the importance of open playtime, and she and Lisa suggested a 4-week format for the workshops.
Lisa gave the answers to the children’s literature quiz, and awarded prizes.

Sharing:
ED- Karen talked about the therapy dogs program and the sign-up process for the children’s computers.

BI- Barb had some Spoticus-like rainbow dalmatian bags.

DN- Rhonda is doing a superhero program over fall break.

CH- Joan is working on a story time program that makes reading fun for boys.

DC- Fran had the Grossology program in September.

VI- The children’s bookclub is reading Walter Wick’s new book and making their own I Spy boxes.

The meeting adjourned at 4:00pm.