Bundles

We are no longer making bundles effective immediately. If you have any questions, please ask. Thanks.

J Audio Books

The J audio books were interfiled with the J Fiction, but now they've been pulled out and shelved separately. We did this to be consistent with how we shelve the adult and YA audio. They are now shelved after the folk and fairy tale books.

Thanks

CybraryN Blocks

Effective Monday, 11/15 customers will be blocked from using the public computers and express checkout if their library account falls into any of the following categories:

· Registration has expired

· Address check required

· Bad phone number per Unique

· Bad address per Unique

· Verify ID card left at branch

· Bad e-mail address

· Lost/stolen card

· No more claims returned (5)

· Mail returned

· Post office update

· Incomplete patron information

· Verify address and phone number

· Verify ID each time card is used

· Confiscate card

· Address update

· Out of state

· Sent to collection

If there is any doubt in your mind about how to handle any of these transactions, please refer it to a circulation staff member. If cusomters come to the information desk because they're being blocked, rather than send the customer to the circulation side of the desk, please bring the circ. staff over to the customer. This prevents the customer from going to multiple service points.

Please ask, if you have any questions. Thanks -Erin

Shelving New Books

For all librarians:

If it's slow at the desk, please remember to shelve new books and record that you shelved it on the book cart form in the returns room. You could also do a little merchandising if you see holes that need to be filled, like the tops of the counters in the picture book area.

Thanks

Merchandising Checklist

For all librarians:

I updated the merchandising checklist to include the morning and evening. I also, left blank spaces for the Power Wall and merchandising tables so that we could write in the individual display names, since these tend to change monthly and sometimes weekly depending on the success of the display. This form is kept on a clipboard on the island behind our service desk.
Please remember to initial on the form to show others that you've merchandised in that area.

Please continue to merchandise throughout the day as you're roving. The checklist serves as a reminder to us to merchandise these areas before we open and close.

Thank you

Video Games Being Held

We are still keeping video games behind the desk for customers to pick up. Please check the game(s) out to the customer before handing it to them. Some customers assume that it's already checked out to them when we hand it to them, so when they walk out they beep because it never got checked out.

Again, please check the game out to the customers before handing it to them. Thanks

SRC

Parents have started to ask about our SRC program.
Behind the information desk, you'll find two blue boxes: One marked Elementary and the other Read to Me. You'll find the SRC bags, filled with gameboards and coupons inside the blue boxes.

To register the children, give the correct registration form (forms are on top of the boxes) to the parent to fill out. Once they've filled it out, place it in the blue wire basket. Explain how the program works and hand them the appropriate bag.

There is no registration form for the TEENs. For TEENs everything is done online. Please familiarize yourself with the SRC page from our homepage if you have not already done so. http://www.bcpl.info/kidspage/summerreading.html

We will not be having any drawings this year. Children who complete the program will receive a completion prize.

Pick Up Location for Holds

For all librarians:

After June 1st, when placing holds for customers at the desk please make sure to change the pick up location to another branch. Thanks.

Rolling Maintenance

We will be starting rolling maintenance this Monday, May 3rd.
Some changes to take note of:

*We will no longer have individual collections
*Collection log binders have been replaced by two rolling maintenance binders - one for nonfiction, the other for everything else with the exception of DVDs. Carolyn is still responsible for DVDs.
*Hot spots are collections that need immediate attention. CAs will use the right hand side of librarians' whiteboard to communicate which areas are hot spots.
*There will be an overflow cart next to Nancy's desk for books that won't fit on the shelf or books that need to be reviewed.
*Replacement cart will be everyone's responsibility. It will be behind the information desk for librarians to review and shelve.

If you have any questions, please ask Nancy.

Thank you

April Branch Meeting Minutes

For part timers and FT who were not able to attend the April branch meeting, please read.

April Branch Meeting Minutes

There are also two documents that you should read. In the minutes it says, "see attached". Where it says, "see attached", hold down the ctrl key and click over the text to open the document.

Thanks

New Procedures for Submitting Interlibrary Loan Requests

From memo# 2010-145:
Due to budget reductions, the Maryland State Department of Education Division of Library Development and Services is no longer able to fund the MPowerCat project.

This brings about two changes for BCPL staff and customers:

1. BCPL holdings will no longer appear in OCLC’s WorldCat. Customers who search worldcat.org or who see a “find in a library” result in Google or Yahoo will not be directed to BCPL’s catalog even if we own the item.

2. We will no longer have access to FirstSearch. BCPL had paid for FirstSearch access before the MPowerCat project was put into place in 2006. Unfortunately, the price is substantially higher now than it had been at that time. We have chosen not to re-subscribe to the service. We will still be able to request items through OCLC but we will not be able to use FirstSearch to do it.

The procedure for submitting an interlibrary loan request is very similar to our current process. The search options are slightly less powerful than were available through FirstSearch but should be sufficient in most cases to find the requested title.

The ILL link on the information desk computers has been updated.

Downtime

Polaris will be down on Tuesday, April 6, 2010 until about 4 pm. Do NOT use Polaris on this day until contacted by Technology Support staff.

Please ask customers to be patient while we upgrade our ILS system. To look up titles and authors use other system catalogs. We will not be able to check our catalog for our holdings. If customers want to place holds, please ask them to call back once our system is back up.

Thanks

Public Wireless Internet and Printing

From Memo# 2010-132.

We are pleased to announce that wireless printing will be available to BCPL customers with effect from Thursday April 1, 2010. However, the wireless printing will only be available to users of notebook computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems. As usual, BCPL customers will continue to have wireless internet access via various Wi-Fi enabled computers, and handheld devices.

A video tutorial to guide branch staff on wireless internet access and printing is now available online (Please go to the memo to view the tutorial).

SRC Volunteer Registration

SRC Volunteer Registration is from March 29 - April 9

Volunteers can sign up in person or via phone. Registration packets will be kept on the file cabinet behind the information desk. Instructions on how to sign up, along with the orientation and training dates are attached.

1. Write volunteer's name, school entering in the fall, grade, phone#, email, and whether or not they volunteered before on the following numbered list. (Volunteer must be at least entering 7th, 8th, or 9th grade in September.)

2. If signing up in person - give student his/her packet of materials to fill out and bring back on Thursday, May 6 - parent & child orientation.
*Please note: If attending orientation elsewhere, please return the packet before May 6 so your child will be included on the schedule.

3. If calling by phone - write student's name on the numbered packet. Ask student to come in this week to pick up packet.
*Please note: If attending orientation elsewhere, please return the packet before May 6 so your child will be included on the schedule.

4. Students should plan to attend
Parent & Child Orientation session on Thursday, May 6 at 6:30 p.m.
Training session on Thursday, May 20 at 6:30 p.m.

Once all the branches have recorded their orientation and training dates, a copy will be kept at the information desk.

Any questions, please ask Ann.

Summer Reading Club 2010

Important Dates:
March 29 - April 9 Applications for Middle School Volunteers accepted (flyers have gone out so we might get some calls regarding this, please let parents know that volunteer registration starts 3/29)
May 10 - June 21 Pre-registration period
June 21 - August 14 Official start and end of SRC
Ann and Nancy are working on getting together the volunteer registration packets. These will be ready before 3/29.

There will be 3 levels of participation
Birth-5 years old (Read to me club)
Grades K-5 (Elementary)
Grades 6-12 (Teens)

SRC stuff to know:
* Theme: Make a Splash - READ! (Preschool and Elementary). Make Waves @ Your Library (Middle and High School).
* We will have gameboards for the birth-5 years old and grades k-5.
* We will have online registration again, but for the birth-5 years old and grades k-5groups they only need to register online once. They do not need a username and password to participate in this years SRC. Once they register online, they can either download the gameboard and print it out or come into the library to pick up their gameboard. For every 5 activities they complete they get a sticker. When they complete all their activities (20) they can get one completion prize.
* In contrast, Teens will be doing everything online, so they will need to keep track of their username and password. Teens need to print out their completed log and bring it into the branch to receive their completion prize (need to complete 20 hrs reading/activities/volunteering in the community).
* We will have crafts again this year. For preschool and elementary we will have four different crafts available throughout the summer. Craft programs for the Teens have been centrally planned and can be found in the Teens program guide which will be forthcoming.
* There will be no drawings of any kind this year.

Thanks

Color Printer

1. NEVER turn off the color printer at the end of the day!! It needs to remain on to keep the color “ink” flowing the next morning – it will go into an energy-saving dormant mode overnight and wake itself up before we need it, but this function will not work if it’s turned off and we’ll have a really long wait for it to reactivate. So just DON’T TURN IT OFF! (The On/Off switch is hard to find for a reason!) The printer should always be "On". If we have a power outage, it will turn itself back on when the power is restored.

2. Encourage customers to print from the file command, not from the printer icons. This is important because it will allow them to choose black and white or color – if they do it from the printer icon, it will print on whichever the LAST customer chose, which may not be their choice. (There are warning signs that pop up, including the prices page that tells them the color prints are $0.30 per page rather than $0.15 for black and white. If they DON’T do this, the selection cannot be changed.) If customers send it to the color printer by mistake, please cancel their job, resend their job as black or white (or vise versa depending on what they wanted), and help them to print it.

3. “Ink” replacement is detailed in the cover – they are “Crayon-like” solids, unlike either toners or ink cartridges. Each color is numbered, and if they don’t go in easily, do NOT force them! They fit only one way, and care must be taken. Also, make sure you ONLY put each in the right place or major color disasters will befall. I have additional black ink, if we run out of the other colors we are to call the help desk and ask for more. In the future, supplies will have these as a supply item, but for now please call the help desk if you need more.

4. Adding paper is pretty much the same as for all the other printers – a drawer on the front.

5. It will only print on 8 1/2 x 11 sized paper. If it's any other size, customers will get a prompt asking them to insert the correct size. Please DO NOT do this. Again it will only print on 8 1/2 x 11 sized paper. If a customer happens to do this, to remove the prompt push the cancel button (red button) on the color printer. If it looks like it's not doing anything, push the cancel button a couple of times.

6. In case there is a paper jam, there's a flap in the front and the top of the printer that you can open to remove the jam. There is no flap to open in the back.
If you've checked all the flaps and you don't see a paper jam, try turning the printer off and on. You have to remove the back flap to get to the power button.

7. There is also a maintenance tray located on the right hand side. This tray catches any drips that might fall from the ink blocks as they melt. If you get a message saying that the color printer needs maintenance then it might mean that the tray needs to be cleaned out.

8. We also have a representative who comes to replenish our printer ink/toner cartridges, the color printer is not included in this. He/she will also get statistics from our printers, again the color printer is not included in this.

If you have any questions regarding this, please ask Erin

Using Bulk Change to Edit Item Records

Here are the instructions on how to use bulk change to edit multiple item records. In order to use this function, you first have to create a record set. Please read all the instructions first before you proceed.

Record Set

Bulk Change

If you have any questions about this, ask Erin. Thanks

Placing a bibliographic vs. an item level hold request

When placing holds for customers, please make sure to use the object- bibliographic search for titles.

You might be unintentionally placing item level holds for customers if you're using the object-item search for titles. If you do this, even though the customer is number 1 in the holds queue that customer will not get the next available title because Polaris thinks the customer wants that specific copy (item hold).

If you're unsure whether you placed an item level hold instead of a title hold you can check the customer's hold requests under patron status. The icon looks like a small white square with lines with a capital I in the upper left hand corner. In order to rectify this, you'll have to cancel their hold, replace the hold back on correctly, then move them up in the holds queue.

If any of this sounds confusing at all, please ask Erin.
Thank you

Requesting Magazines From Other Branches For Customers

This came up today and I wasn't quite sure so I looked it up, thought we might all need a refresher, so I posted this to the librarians blog.

This is taken from the revised New Holds Process

What should I do if a customer wants a specific magazine that is on the shelf at another branch?

There are many alternative ways for customers to obtain magazine articles other then sending them in Delivery. We encourage librarians to use follow-up questions to determine what the customers really want and if it is available through a database or on the website of the magazine. Magazines sent through Delivery often become worn quickly or damaged permanently. At this time we cannot place Holds on individual magazine issues. If there are no other options, use the following procedure to send a specific magazine to another branch:
• Retrieve the desired magazine
• Check it out to the Hold shelf of the receiving library
• Put the customer’s name and branch of the receiving library on a pink transmittal slip and attach it to the magazine.
• Place the magazine in an envelope and address it to the Hold Desk of the branch where it is to be picked up
• Place it in Delivery
• When received, without checking it in, shelve it under the customer’s name on the Hold shelf, with the appropriate pull date (same as a Hold).

Thanks

Make and Take Craft

In DateLines it says: “Come make a fun craft during the month of February. Inquire at the Information Desk”. For the month of February, children can make and take a craft. We will have 2 different crafts every 2 weeks. The first two weeks, we will try to have a craft related to Valentine’s Day. Craft supplies will be put on the J table, similar to what we did for SRC. Instructions for crafts will be posted.

This will start on Monday. The first craft will be a fish and heart collage. There are copies of a fish and heart outline that children have to fill in by gluing pieces of paper inside the picture. On the J table, there should be copies of both the fish and the heart outline, along with a box full of small pieces of paper.

Thanks

Black History Month Quiz

Black History Month Quiz will start on Monday February 1st.

In DateLines it says: “Celebrate Black History Month with us. For more details, please visit the Information Desk”. Children can come to the information desk to pick up the quiz that Sharyn created. It will be in a tray on top of the cabinet behind the information desk. Once the children have completed the quiz, they can choose a prize from the treasure box. This will also be behind the information desk.
If you need to make more copies, the master and the answers are in the inside flap of the programming notebook.

Any questions, ask Sharyn.

Checking Something Out for Direct Loan

Some of the branch names for other systems did not transfer properly. If you're looking for a branch name and it doesn't retrieve any results, try changing the search type to "voice phone" and type in the phone number. You can find the phone number for the different branches on the direct loan flyer.

Any questions, ask Erin.

Broken Headphones

If a customer asks for a new pair of headphones because the old ones don't work, please throw the broken pair in the trash. Technology Support does not want these back.

Also, there are two pairs of smaller headphones for our wifi customers in the information desk, if they ask for them. I haven't been asking for ID, I just ask them to return them to the desk, once they're done. Everyone, so far has been very good about returning them.

Thanks

Multi Request Function in Polaris

We wouldn't use this too often. I've placed it on the librarians blog for easy access and for instructional purposes. This is primarily to be used by librarians.

If you want to place multiple holds of the same title for the same person. For instance, placing holds for a book club.

1. Click on File - New - Hold Request
2. Hold Request workform will open - find patron or type in their barcode, their name should display in the box.
3. Perform an item object search by title
4. Highlight the correct title/format and the number of copies that you would like, for example, highlight 5 if you want 5.
5. Right Click over the highlighted titles and click on select.
6. The records will automatically display in the multi request box in the Hold Request workform.
7. Once you're in the multi request form, you do have the option to add or delete other titles or current titles in your hold request by clicking on the + or - sign underneath where it says titles.
8. Once you're done, click on the disk at the top to Save.
9. You'll get a message saying that the hold request already exists, do you want to create a duplicate, click yes to continue. You'll get this message for however many copies you're trying to place on hold.
10. Close out of the window once you're done.

Any questions ask Erin. Thanks

Infant and Toddlers Program

FYI: If our customers ask:

The Monday morning storytime will not be meeting for the next two weeks.
The dates are: 1/18 and 1/25.

Canceling a Hold That's Been Shipped

This is a work around for customers who would like to cancel their hold, but the status in Polaris says that it's been "Shipped", meaning it's in transit.

1. Go to Circulation, select Patron Status.
2. Do a search for the patron, you can search by name or barcode.
3. Once you've located the patron, go to their Requests (look for the hand holding the book icon on the left). This should give you a list of their holds, along with the status of each hold. The status says it's "Shipped".
4. Highlight the title that you would like to change, then right click, select links, select item record. This will open the Item Record for that hold.
5. In the middle of the form, you'll see the circ. status and it should say "Hold in Transit". If it doesn't it's the wrong record.
6. Up at the top of the form, you'll see Barcode, highlight the barcode, right click and select copy.
7. Now go to Circulation, select Checkout.
8. In Checkout, check the item out to our Hold Shelf, click in the item barcode field and right click and select paste, to paste in the barcode that you copied from the Item Record screen.
9. Once you do, you'll get a message saying: This item cannot be checked out. It is being held for...Do you want to override the hold and continue with check out? Click on YES.
10. Then you'll get a message saying: Do you want to reactivate the hold request for...: Click on NO.
11. Once the item arrives here it will get checked in.

Any questions about this, ask Erin.

Changing Branch Pick Up Location for Holds

In Polaris it is simple to change the branch pick up location for a hold. Follow these instructions:

1. The status has to be "HELD", meaning that it's on our hold shelf waiting to be picked up.
2. Go to Circulation, select Patron Status.
3. Do a search for the patron, you can search by name or barcode.
4. Once you've located the patron, go to their Requests (look for the hand holding the book icon on the left). This should give you a list of their holds, along with the status of each hold. Status MUST be HELD.
5. Highlight the title that you would like to change, then double click to open it. This will open the Hold Request workform.
6. Up at the top you should see a field for "pick up"
7. Change the pick up location to the branch where the patron would like to pick up their hold.
8. Once you're done, the status will automatically change from HELD to Shipped.
9. Don't forget to Save.
10. Put a pink hold slip on it and circle the branch where it's going
11. Finally, put the item on the reserve cart or walk it back to the workroom and put it in the appropriate bin.

In the PAC, when patrons place holds for themselves the default pick up location is the patron's library. The patron's library is where they first registered to get their library card. If they registered at AR and use AR, this would not be a problem. However, for most where they registered may not necessarily be the branch that they use. If patrons do not realize this, then I foresee us having to change their branch pick up location quite often.

Merchandising Notebook

The merchandising team is now responsible for all displays. There is now a merchandising notebook (located on the file cabinet behind the information desk) for all our displays. Please take some time to go through the notebook to familiarize yourself. The team would love to get your feedback. For each display there is an information sheet where you can record you comments as to whether or not you thought a certain display worked. Please write your comments here.

If you have any questions regarding this, please ask Erin.

Tax Appointments

Per Sharyn's emails:

We are now taking tax appointments at the information desk. The binder is on the file cabinet behind the information desk. A few things to remember:

1. Please use pencil when taking appointments
2. Please do not give out Pat's number
3. If they ask what they need to bring, tell them, "their last year's tax return". If they don't have this, it's not mandatory that they bring it, but it would be helpful for Pat to have.
4. Sharyn made appointment reminder cards, which are available in the binder, if you would like to use them. These are for people who stop by to make an appointment. Some customers would like you to write down their appointment, so that they don't forget.
5. All tax forms are out, if you need additional forms, the regular forms are in the back hallway. The more unusual forms are in the librarians dept. on the gray shelf (where we kept the SRC supplies).
6. The reproducible forms have not been put out yet.

Any questions regarding taxes, please ask Sharyn.

Thanks