Thank you to those who were able to attend Thursday’s meeting. If you missed the meeting or would like to revisit some of the HUGE amount of info we squeezed into one hour, please download the slides.
Author: Amy Lannon
End of Community Read — Thank you!
A quick thank you to all who participated and helped promote the Library’s Community Read — Unapologetically Positively You — which officially ended on October 8th. A very special thank you to Olivia and Susan for developing much of the content and leading various programs to support the Read’s theme of body neutrality.
The Library has received a lot of positive feedback but sharing a few circulation statistics to help celebrate its success!
1. Fat Girls Hiking by Summer Michaud-Skog: 89 lifetime circulations/72 circulations during Community Read. 80.9% of circs happened during CR
2. Starfish by Lisa Fipps: 90 lifetime circulations/52 circulations during Community Read. 57.8% of circs happened during CR
3. Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder: 58 lifetime circulations/42 circulations during the Community Read. 72.4% of circs happened during CR
The Library also sent 70 copies into the wild in various book boxes sprinkled around local businesses like the YMCA, Pleasant Street Center, Starbucks, and Fat Larry’s. All copies were taken and hopefully passed around among friends, families and acquaintances.
First Amendment Auditors
Town Hall received visits from “First Amendment Auditors” last Thursday. This is happening here and in surrounding towns. The best approach is to remain calm and professional. Please review this presentation from KP Law addressing these visits.
The goal of these individuals is to provoke employees into unlawfully detaining or otherwise violating their First Amendment rights. Employee response should be calm and consistent. The library is a limited public forum, “First Amendment Auditors” are allowed to videotape while in the building. They may not go into the clearly marked staff-only work areas.
Following up on our staff meeting from last week, please contact EAP if you have an upsetting interaction. RPD has also made Taunya available for any of our employees that would like to speak to her.
RPL On Wheels
It may have taken a year but the Library finally received its very first Book Bike!
The Book Bike Trike was custom built by Haley Tricycles in Philadelphia and our goal is to use it attract new patrons, bring the library to people who might mistakenly believe the library is not for them, and to serve the community in new and exciting ways.
The RPL Book Bike will be for staff use only at special events and outreach. If anyone is interested in being a member of the Librarians By Bike club, please reach out to Ally to take this shiny new toy for a spin!
Building Alarms
What happens if you accidentally set off the building alarm when you arrive in the morning?? First, don’t panic. The alarm automatically calls the police department and a custodian. Employees should just wait and explain the error to those who respond. If you have/know your building code, the main security alarm keypad is in the vestibule at the main entrance. A secondary key pad is located at the Borrower Services Desk.
All alarms should be resolved by the police department and custodians. Even mistakes. They keep logs, stats, etc.
If you don’t know your building code, please reach out to your Department or Division Head. The Employee Handbook contains more information on p. 15.
Staff Shout Outs — August 5, 2022
Are you ready for some shout-outs? If you’d like to submit a shout-out, fill out the form on the Forms page. Don’t be shy! Shout it out!
Shout out to Megan White for Going above and beyond. The carts in Children’s have been chaos and madness the past week or so, and Megan contained the chaos and did some amazing cart control on a pretty busy Saturday! From Lisa R.
Shout out to Kath and Michelle for Going above and beyond, Helping a co-worker. Shout out to Kath and Michelle for covering for us this last week! We appreciate you both so much for being able to jump in and taking on all the chaos that comes with the Children’s Room. You’re the best! From the Children’s Room.
Shout out to Smirtha & Nemaya for helping a co-worker, going above and beyond, and being creative. Smirtha and Nemaya helped build and spray paint the book boxes that will be placed around town full of RPL’s Community Read titles. The boxes are bright and bold and awesome! A second thank you to Lisa R for picking the perfect colors on a whim! From Ally.
Take care …
Just a gentle reminder to take care of yourself! If you are struggling or need help/advice, please reach out to the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). This is a free service through MIIA provided for you and your household members by the Town of Reading. This program offers confidential counseling, free legal and financial consultation, and referrals to resources such as child/elder care, and parent support, among others. These services are completely confidential and can be easily accessed 24/7.
Call whenever, for whatever! For information or services, call 24/7 at 800.451.1834 or download the mobile app from your app store by searching “MIIA EAP”
Staff Development Reporting Form Updated
We have made some changes to the Staff Development Reporting Form. Please remember to use this form when you have any professional development activities.
LENGTH OF ACTIVITY: This has been simplified to 1, 2, 3, and 5 hours. Pick whichever is closest. This format will help us tally the total amount of time spent on PD.
CATEGORY: We can add to this list, but here is a start. You will see Committee and Meeting listed as options. At the moment, these are intended for external meetings and committees. If you aren’t sure about the category or if something is worth reporting, enter as much as you can and use the “Other Comments” section for questions or to explain your thinking.
This form is intended to be a central repository to collect this information library-wide. You can use the form after each event/activity, or set a reminder to enter a month’s worth at a time. Any events/activities reported in this form do not need to be included in monthly reports.
Thank you to Kathryn M. and Cate Z for working on streamlining the form.
Emergency Info
Thank you to everyone who attended yesterday’s Emergency and Safety meeting yesterday. In addition to the ALICE training (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) and meeting Cooper the Comfort Dog, we worked through several tabletop exercises.
Using yesterday’s experience (and with several corrections of typos), I’ve updated the Emergency Response Guide on this intranet. Also, printed copies are available
- All services desks (4)
- Children’s Workroom
- Borrower Services WorkroomReference Workroom
- Tech Services Workroom
- Administration
- Staff Lounge
Direct Page
All Library phones should have something that says “Direct Page” on the main menu screen. If you do not see this on any phone, please email Amy with the phone extension and with a request to add “Direct Page.” This feature uses the speaker function of the phone. This means messages via Direct Page are audible to everyone in the area of the phone. To use
- Press “Direct Page”
- Press “#”
- Pause for two seconds and then speak
- Hang up when done
This information has been added to the Emergency Response Guide.
