Public Services Managers Minutes - February 14, 2019

WA was the host library but the meeting was held at Rainbow Fleet (3024 Paseo)

Tour of Rainbow Fleet - Carrie Williams, Executive Director 

Rainbow Fleet (RF) provides child care assistance for parents/guardians across OK. They have a database of licensed care providers across OK that contains rates, payment information, and information about the type of care provided. Callers can provide specific child care needs (workday, overnight, weekend, etc.) and RF will provide list of facilities that meet their needs at no cost to the customer for the research. RF staff help parents/guardians find assistance paying for childcare, educate them as what to look for when looking for care, and provide training for child care providers (behavior, first aid, developmental, etc.). RF staff visit childcare facilities and mentor childcare providers in their facilities. RF aims to increase quality of care and parents’ access to it. RF has a lending library of toys, books and games that are age- and developmentally-appropriate. This library is sorted by age and skill set (e.g. can help develop specific skill set like motor skills). Anyone can be a member ($40/yr, checkout 10 items and keep up to 1 month; all items sanitized upon check in). RF has a model classroom in which to train providers on what’s appropriate in the classroom. RF can reimburse childcare providers who agree to serve food that meet USDA healthy guidelines.

Core Value Discussion

Review: Integrity and Trust in Us and by Us: Public confidence can only be achieved when we demonstrate honesty, accountability, and stewardship of the community resources committed to us, including people, time, assets, and funds. In addition, we can only be trusted when we trust our customers, colleagues, and partners.  

This core value was discussed at staff meetings and it was shared with managers that:

This core value has made staff acutely aware of stewardship of customers’ (both internal and external) time. It means knowing coworkers have your back when a situation arises. Perception: if they see you trying, that equals trust. Assume the best in everyone. Take the time to follow up, take the community’s unique information needs into account. The system puts enough trust in staff to be professionals when it comes to issues like waiving fines and relying on their educational experience, having that trust and respect. We need to acknowledge how our lens impacts our perception of what others are doing.

Discuss:  Respect for Customers and Each Other: We treat the questions, ideas, and contributions of each of our customers, colleagues, and partners with the highest level of respect. 

Managers felt this core value meant getting to know our customers, being professional with one another, and recognizing everyone’s inherent value. Trusting that the people around you know how to appropriately share information and protect customer privacy. It means being aware of conflict triggers and keeping in mind that excellent customer service is our goal, not judging the quality of the customer or their information need.

Managers will discuss this core value with their staff at their next staff meeting.

Upcoming Trainings  

There are upcoming Collection Development Module 3 sessions for managers and sessions for Access and Engagement managers. Regional Directors (RDs) will attend CD trainings, too.  

Budget-Chris  

This year’s budget will be a scaled back version of the previous year’s business plan process. RDs will meet with Chris to discuss goals for the year and then depts/libs will discuss how to meet those goals. We want to nail down the goals before we move into budget process. The budget goes to Commission mid-summer and then final approval will be in the fall.

Furniture  

• Requests are entered in this year’s fiscal budget. The final dollar numbers are accurate but what you see regarding furniture pieces may/may not be accurate. Talk to your RD about furniture approvals. Morgan holds the master spreadsheet of furniture purchases and will be doing bulk ordering. It’s a goal for the upcoming year to have better communication regarding the budget process so that it will be clearer upfront what is approved and what is not.

Conference registration  

• OLA: Wed, 3/13-Fri, 3/15. we want to get back to providing a list of budget cost/allowances at the beginning of the budget year to clarify the costs and the reimbursements for attending specific conferences and to make it available ASAP. We hope to get back to a point of providing funding to send someone from each library to a big annual conference.
• A new approval process for OLA 2019 was discussed and directions were emailed to managers. Please let your RD know if you have staff going. OLA reimbursement is $180/person.  

Injuries on the premises - Chris  

Ensure you complete the accident form whether it’s an injury to staff or a customer. If you call 911 for a customer incident, also fill out an ROCV. Staff are empowered to call 911 if they determine the situation warrants.  

Break    

 Reports:  

Access Services – Risa/Tricia  

• Updates coming to Carl.X/Connect that will fix issues with: mobile catalog renewal, fill list, suggest a title (more than 40 chars for title and allow special chars, add more fields like ISBN).
• Bringing back Launchpad workgroup. Access Managers should evaluate Launchpads by Monday, 2/18 (inventory and updated missing ones to missing/traced).
• In May, we’ll be evaluating ASI priorities to ensure consistency in task-focus across locations with priorities (e.g. shelf-reading, appearance check, etc.) and determine whether it’s achievable with current staffing levels.

Central Information Services – Tim  

• Please email your branch’s book club titles for 2019 to [email protected]. 
• We are rolling out chat reference on the redesigned website in March. 
• CIS provides tech support for questions about digital collections and databases so if you/your customer are having problems and have tried to find a solution without luck, please contact us.  
• If your branch copier/other equipment goes down, please include CIS on email to branch staff so we can share that with customers who contact us.
• If your staff have a lengthy digital collection question that they've already worked on for a while, if a weekday, call Sam Karns(x3824) or Tim (x3825); Evenings/weekends/if we don't answer: probably call 231.8650 and due to staffing and our primary focus on call queue, we will have limited real-time support; PLEASE UTILIZE THE FAQ at help.metrolibrary.org. 
• Jan 15-Feb 12: CIS has fielded 682 tax questions (184-tax forms 498-tax prep). 

Collection Services and Development – Janeal  

• Vox books still coming; open CD Librarian position interviews coming; started annual visits to branches.

EPS – Emily & Kellie   

• Website launch pushed back to Mon, 3/25. Calendar and room booking trainings begin the week of 2/18. Please ensure all mgrs. are signed up for these trainings because they will then go on to train their staff. If anyone is wait listed, they can bring their own laptop to participate. Tim and Kellie will lead trainings. Information is forthcoming about blackout dates (e.g. when to stop accepting registrations, etc.).
• Projects teams have started meeting. SRP is coming, marketing pieces being finalized, and we hope to have pieces next month. SRP training is in April and more info is forthcoming soon. With SRP this year, we’re transitioning away from a focus on reading minutes and towards tracking points for reading and activities. There will be a push to use the app this summer.

Outreach – LaVetta

• Forthcoming outreach event postings coming soon. Please encourage staff to participate.  

Public Services – Chris

• RDs and Chris met with Julie, Ed and Anthony to discuss security and determine what is our philosophy across the system. Please share concerns, thoughts and ideas with your RD. Leadership Team meetings are moving from meeting 1/mo to 2/mo. Chris and RDs are meeting weekly (Th AMs).
• Position updates: Rondia started at BE. We’re moving along to fill 4 branch manager positions and the Director of Collection Services and Development. We still have money available to reimburse up to $50 of a professional association membership so encourage staff to apply for it. 
• Be sure that you and your staff are completing 2019 mileage forms and not 2018 mileage forms. 

Special Collections – Buddy

• Processed 450 photos, applied 6532 units of metadata, cleaned/inventoried 192 plans, scanned 3588 pages of school board records, entered 1463 names into the necrology index, 672 podcast hits (1895 total), provided 128 hours of supporting other depts (106-service 22-programming), 12 hours of research on ?s (e.g. Worked with Blackspace OK for the text for the Page Woodson Memorial, worked with design firm to develop histories of OKC schools planning districts, provided photos to new City Manager’s office, scheduled to meet with new City Council member James Cooper to discuss the city’s history of vice and corruption, met with a home flipper about the history of a home at 8^th and Klein that was discovered to have underground tunnels). 

Libraries

• Heidi Johnson is retiring on April 30^th (her 40^th anniversary to the day).
• VI renovation is moving along and so far, we’re still on track to reopen M, 3/11.
• CH doing Latino Youth Film workshop and will have a 2-day film festival with the Sat portion at CH, screening the student movies.
• New DC library progressing quickly.
• If sending materials to CAT, please don’t mark them In Process and instead check them out to the cataloging card. Please also send documentation about what you’d like done (not taped to the material but send alongside the material).  

Population assignments for libraries – Jennifer Livingstone

Population figures account for a large portion of the engagement staffing formula. Each library is assigned a census tract (~5-6k people/tract) b/c there’s good demographic info available on a tract level. There are manual adjustments for tracts where customers most often used a branch other than the closest branch (lots of customers in WR’s tract use other libraries so those libraries took on some of WR’s tract). Market penetration will be based on households and not individuals.  

Engagement Staff Worksheet - Jennifer  

The staffing study is reviewing access and engagement workload across branches. The assumption is within reason, individuals with the same job title should have similar workloads. We’re trying to track engagement workload by in-library activity (helping customers, reference questions, tech help, on desk time, CD activities, etc.) and population-driven demand (local outreach, programming). Population-driven demand is measured by branch population #s. There will be an upcoming survey about where engagement staff spend their time (in library activity+programming and local outreach+administrativeandother)=100%.

  Adjourn

Next meeting: Tues, 3/12 at AL at 9:00