Narrative November
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November 2015 Narrative - All Departments Administration – Marcia Lewis Marcia Lewis and Lolly Light participated in Read Aloud Day in the local elementary schools. Marcia also spoke about library services at the Kiwanis breakfast meeting and attended the Front Range Library Directors’ meeting at the Louisville Library. Another meeting of the Northern Colorado families involved with the Anchor Center for Blind Children was held at the library. We plan to host their 6 times/year meetings here in 2016. Library supervisors are the first group to hear results from the Employee Engagement Survey and follow-up staff meetings with City Human Resources staff. The supervisors will be developing plans to make improvements in key areas of communications, safety and training. Year-end performance evaluations of library employees were completed. The library’s rebranding committee is completing its initial work and will be doing staff training and making changes to the website and marketing materials. The plan is to launch and celebrate the new brand at an all- ages program on January 4, 2016. Library staff have submitted funding requests for 2016 to the Friends of the Library. The budget will be approved by the Friends’ board in December and by the membership at the annual meeting in January. Interview did not result in hiring a Teen Manager (Librarian III) so Amber Holmes was named Interim Librarian. Technology Manager Shane Adamson has accepted a position in the City’s Information Technology department so we will be recruiting for that position as well. In conjunction with the Loveland Historical Society we presented a four-part series on World War I in addition to the regular nature, financial and craft programs and book and philosophy discussion groups. Adult Programming & Volunteer Coordination – Bobbi Benesh In addition to the four-part series on World War I we had our regular nature, financial and craft programs and book and philosophy discussion groups. LPL also hosted the annual NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) group meeting two times weekly for the month of November. Adult Services – Caroline Hilligoss In partnership with LULAC Loveland and Resthaven Funeral Home the library hosted its first Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead celebration on Sunday, November 1, 2015. It was a day marked by traditional Mexican food, sugar skull crafting, paper flower and Dia de los Muertos mask crafting, as well as performances by Ballet Folklorico Raices de Mexico from Greeley and Mariachis Originales from Denver. This holiday, originating in Mexico and celebrated by our Hispanic community, celebrates the remembrance of loved ones who have passed. Visitors to the library throughout the week before the event enjoyed several traditional altars created by various groups and families. The average gate count for the 4 other for Sundays in November was 450 – gate count on November 1st was 961! Adult Services Librarian ll Robert Ayala conceived and coordinated this first-of-its-kind event at the Loveland Public Library event. Felicitaciones, Robert! On Saturday, November 7th, the Loveland Library hosted its first Local Author Showcase. Award winning children’s and young adult author AVI gave the morning keynote address, and four expert panelists represented various modes of publishing in a panel discussion entitled “Get Yourself Published!” A capacity crowd of 70 people attended these morning sessions. In the afternoon, 56 authors interacted with the public, and displayed, signed and sold their works. The authors were from all age groups, subjects, and levels of experience. Feedback from participants on evaluation forms was overwhelmingly positive, as was verbal feedback from patrons attending the event. The average gate count for the other 3 Saturdays in November was 882 – the gate count the day of the Showcase was 1509! The organizing committee, which began meeting last January, consisted of Joanna McNeal (Customer Service), Haley Squires and Lolly Light (Children’s), Sue Baccari and Bobbi Benesh (Administration), and Caroline from Adult Services, who served as Registrar. It’s noteworthy that on Monday, November 2nd, the entire first page of the Front Range section in the Loveland Reporter-Herald was devoted to 3 library events – Day of the Dead, the upcoming Author Showcase, and a four-part lecture series beginning Nov. 3rd on World War l entitled, “Remembering the Forgotten War,” presented in conjunction with the Loveland Historical Society. The Loveland Library hosted area librarians and a representative from a local credit union group for the Money Smart Week Financial Presentation. Money Smart Week, created by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 2002, is a public awareness campaign designed to help consumers better manage their personal finances. Loveland Library has participated in Money Smart Week programming over the past several years. Business Librarian Amanda Armstrong felt it was a very productive meeting, and the group responded positively to her proposal to use live streaming videos & YouTube to bring future presentation to wider audiences. In a separate finance-related program, the Library hosted the Keystone Financial Group presentation “Bridging the Gap: Conversations Aging Parents Need to have with their Adult Children.” There were 27 attendees and Keystone supplied refreshments. They were very happy with our space and did a great job marketing and presenting. Amanda helped facilitate the final session, held at the Loveland Police Institute, of the Pen to Paper Grant Writing Workshop – a three-part series presented by the Community Resource Center of Colorado. The workshop provided professional, personalized consulting to nonprofits working on current grant applications. Loveland, Poudre River, and Estes Valley Libraries collaborated to bring the workshop to Northern Colorado. Another project of Amanda’s was CodeDay, in which twenty young people between the ages of 11 and 17 participated. CodeDay was held at the Loveland CreatorSpace. Amanda sent welcome letters to four new businesses in the Loveland area during the month of November. The Adult Book Discussion Group had record attendance of twenty-six people on Tuesday morning, November 3rd when it discussed Glimpses of Grace, a memoir by discussion group member and former Friends of the Loveland Public Library president George Franke. George helped lead that discussion along with volunteer Janice Benedict. The Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning groups discussed Kent Haruf’s Benediction. Total attendance for the three sessions was 53 people. Children’s Department – Beth Gudmestad The first Loveland Public Library Author Showcase was a huge hit with 56 local authors participating. Haley and Lolly were on the planning committee for this event and spent many hours fine tuning the details to make this event a success. Children’s author, AVI, opened the festivities providing authors with highlights from his own successful writing career. The committee received positive feedback from participants and are already planning next year’s event. iMake @ Break launched in November. This is a continuation of the summer’s successful Maker Space where families collaborate on activities focusing on personal discovery. November’s activities included writing thank you notes to soldiers, crafting a turkey out of cups and feathers, and using old neck ties to create tail feathers for a turkey. Parents mentioned how grateful they were to see the Maker Space back in action. Plans are already in the works for activities that will be used for the iMake @ Break during the December holidays. After meeting in October with staff to discuss reorganization of several areas in the department, Jane stepped in and started shifting the picture books and organizing the ranges so that staff and customers have an easier time finding materials. The department has received lots of positive feedback from staff and customers. Our next goal is to improve signage for the collection which we’ll do incorporating the new library logo. Several staff members participated in outreach activities during November. Kris presented 3 storytimes at Trinity Lutheran Preschool. Cynthia attended Literacy Night at Truscott Elementary where she passed out information to parents about the library, gave away free books, and helped parents complete applications for library cards. I attended a leadership breakfast at Carrie Martin Elementary put on by students, received a tour of the school, and met School Board members. In addition to participating in different outreach events, staff attended quite a few meetings in November. Amber and I traveled to Colorado Springs to attend training for the 2016 Summer Reading Program. Organizers shared programming ideas with the audience that relates to this summer’s theme: On your mark, get set, read. Sabrina met with the Colorado Children’s Day committee to start planning for the 2016 event which will take place in April. Cindi represented the library at the Be Ready Fair planning meeting. This event highlights local programming geared towards preschoolers. Quite a few staff were able to attend the city’s Interdepartmental Meeting with Cultural Services and the Chilson Center. This quarterly meeting gives departments an opportunity to hear what other departments are doing within the city and possibly partner with them on some projects. Amber offered a refresher on the on-line platform showing staff changes and updates that have been made for the Winter Reading Program. November activities