April Librarian's Report summary

APRIL 2008


April 2008 Librarian's Report

Activity Summary


70th Anniversary Open House:

Sunday April 13th MGPL hosted an Open House to celebrate the Library's 70th anniversary with the start of National Library Week (April 13-19).

The day’s events included a recognition ceremony for library volunteers, announcement of the Adult/Teen winners of the 3rd annual writing contest and awarding of prizes to same, a concert by Moon Glow and then an Open House Reception in the new book area.

Estimated concert attendance is between 125 and 150 with additional patrons arriving for the open house. Mayor Krier and Village Trustees Bruner and Minx attended the open house and Library Trustees Estelle Cooperman, Agnes Quinn and Daniel Hoffman also participated.

The Open House also featured a custom made Ginger Bread Library modeled on the original Library Building built in the early 1940s. Chef Michael Niksic out did himself, as you'll see from the pictures. Both the Champion and the Bugle wrote up the event with photos.

Volunteers:

Adult:

Joann Brelin
Marie Brelin
Ruth Budish
Marvin Cohen
Estelle Cooperman
Marv Cooperman
Sarah Delgado
Ricardo Distajo
Betty Higus
Judith Hindin
Carolyn Lawrence
Pat Morath
*Diane Morton
*Asako Nishimura
Dorothy Rasmussen
Terry Schlag
Martin Zabin
Steven Bronder

Teens:

Maria Dekntyar
Sony Jacob
Iryna Palkhouskaya
Vinny Varghese
Alexandra Darnell

Winners of the MGPL's 3rd Annual Writing Contest:

Student Category:
1st Prize: Fatima Khan
2nd Prize: Maryam Khan

Adult Category:
1st Prize: Mort Elenbogen
2nd Prize: Kathy Tamillo

MB Financial Bank graciously donated $400.00 to cover the cost of the 1st and 2nd prizes.

Spring Blast

The Youth Services/Teen contribution to the 70th Anniversary kick-off was the Spring Blast celebration for students/families. Despite the less than wonderful weather over 500 people came to spend the day eating popcorn (in the library), playing video games, getting their faces painted, climbing the wall, jumping around and checking out all the services and materials we have to offer.

The event was a milestone for this library, not just because the institution turns 70 this year, but also because we where able to demonstrate that MGPL has materials, services and staff that are capable of helping the people of Morton Grove find the information, educational support or services they need to lead more engaged and informed lives.

Without the dedication of everyone who works or volunteers at the library and the help of many members of the community the Spring Blast simply could not have happened.

Relationship coordinator position

This position is a part-time, non-exempt position whose principal responsibility is to perform work directly related to Library operations by promoting relationships between the Library and other Morton Grove institutions, encouraging the use of the Library and its services, and coordinating outreach efforts by the Library to other institutions and the community.



New Reference Department hires

The Reference department has interview several candidates to fill the three open part time positions. Melissa Mayberry, Chris Breitenbach, Elizabeth McClain were offered positions and have accepted.

Baxter Room roof replacement

Three estimates have been received for replacement of the Baxter Room roof. Review by the Buildings and Grounds Committee is requested.

Bike Rack grant

The Evanston Bicycle Club has awarded the library a grant of $1,050.00 for the purchase of a decorative bicycle rack. Buildings and Grounds Committee’s input on placement is requested.

Adult AV vs. Book circulation

Trustee Quinn raised the question if there was any relationship between Adult Book and Adult AV circulation numbers. A review of the last 32 months circulation counts for both items reveals that prior to June 2006 (two months after the Board removed the fee for borrowing AV materials) books tended to have significantly higher circulation than AV items. From June 2006 on book and AV circulation are much closer with books still circulating at slightly higher numbers, except for the month of December when AV prevails. Charts showing Adult Book and Av circulation counts by month and as a percent of total circulation are at the end of this report. Month #1 is August 2005.

Joint workshop with Park Ridge Trustees

The Director at Park Ridge, Jan Van De Carr, is bringing Peter Pearson in to help Park Ridge Library Trustees develop an approach to community advocacy. This could be useful to all of us in serving the residents of Morton Grove.

Mr. Pearson, Executive Director of the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library spoke at ALA Midwinter about their grassroots efforts, which led to the creation of the Saint Paul’s Friends group and library foundation.

Park Ridge PL is requesting MGPL to contribute half of the cost of this joint workshop, about $600. There is enough in the Education line to cover this without hampering other activities.

PC Reservation 1st month

Assistant Director Kevin Justie reports:

On March 31, 2008, we replaced our Computer Log computer reservation and sign-in system with the commercial PC reservation system. Under the old system, users were limited to signing up for 2 hours of computer time per day: either one 2-hour session or two 1-hour sessions. How much of that reserved time they actually used didn’t matter; the limit was based only on the amount of reserved time, whether that time was reserved in advance or at the time of sign-in.

The new reservation system, on the other hand, monitors only the actual computer time used; users can have as many sessions (sign-ins) throughout the day as they want, as long as they don’t exceed the daily time limit, which was increased to three hours. This change in accounting method has had a dramatic effect on usage patterns: many users are now signing in multiple times throughout the day, though often for short sessions. Some go on repeatedly in between doing other work in the Library, while others make multiple trips to the library to use the computers.

This change from one or two long reservations per day to a greater number of shorter sessions resulted in a 35% increase in the number of sessions compared to April of last year -- 1,157 versus 849 -- but this does not necessarily indicate a 35% increase in total computer usage as measured by total time actually used. Because we had no way to measure actual used computer time under the old system (that is, by not counting reserved time that was not used), we have no data on which to make a direct comparison of usage between the two systems.

Nonetheless, staff members anecdotally report a definite increase in usage, both in terms of number of users and total time used, as well as many new faces among those using the computers — exactly the benefits we would have hoped for. In addition, staff is spending much less time on computer management, having neither to sign users in nor tell them when their time is up. At this point, those gains are being somewhat offset by the time spent showing users how to use the new system, but that will eventually be reduced to a very small amount as all the regular users become familiar with the new system.

Here are some additional data from the first month of PC Cop statistics:

Walk-up sign-ins: users who did not have a reservation: 840
Future reservations created by users: 278
Future reservations created by staff, for users: 39

The first two of those numbers -- 840 walk-ups plus 278 user-created reservations -- represent 1,118 times that the reference staff was able to continue doing other work, such as answering reference questions, instead of having to deal with the computers.


Users who logged out before the end of their session: 860 (74%)
Users who used their entire reserved session: 127 (11%)
Users who left the computer without ending their session: 64 (6%)
(these do not total 100% due to other, smaller categories)

Busiest date: April 30 (Wed.) -- 55 users averaging 59 minutes each, meaning that 75% of the total available computer time for the day was used.

Busiest computers: #1 and #6, which is not surprising since by using these computers a user only has someone else on one side of them rather than on both sides.

Coming events

This summer we will present two Library Challenges:

Summer Library Challenge
It’s About Time!
Teen/Adult Summer Library Challenge: June 1 – August 1
In keeping with MGPL’s 70th anniversary, the theme for this summer’s challenge is “It’s About Time.” Registration begins June 1 for adults and teens (grades 7 and up). Ravinia Music Festival lawn passes to selected concerts will be distributed to Library Challenge participants when they sign up.

Summer Reading Program for birth – grade 6
Pre-registration for our Summer Reading Program will run Mon., May 19 – Sun. June 8.
Come to the Youth Services desk to sign-up and get your Score Card and instructions. The program will run for 8-weeks, 6/9 – 8/2. All participants will receive a t-shirt after 6/9. Each week you visit the Library you will play games and do activities to earn prizes and get a raffle ticket and coupon. Babies and toddlers will do emergent literacy activities. Participate at least six weeks to complete program earning extra prizes.

Through out the year the library will present programing and materials related to each of the decades MGPL has been serving the Morton Grove community.

Bookmarks for each decade leading to the anniversary year will be available each month.

Beginning in May, the Lincoln Ave. Entry display case will focus on specific decades.

Films and programs will relate to that month's decade.


Statistical Summary

Total circulation for April was 24,285 down from 27,572 last month. However, April 2008 total circulation differed from 2007 by +1.4%. Year to Date total circulation is 102,823, 1.2% more than the same period in 2007 (101,589).

Adult circulation was 13,030 down compared to last month by 1,250 items and up 4% compared to April of last year. Year to Date 53,378 items have circulated compared to 51,694 in 2007.

Circulation for Youth Services was 11,242, down 1.4% compared to last April and down 2,041 items compared to last month. Year to date Youth Services has circulated 49,412 items.

The Reciprocal Borrowing Program (RBP) accounted for 3,580 items loaned to other communities or 14.7% of total circulation for the month. This is a decrease of 484 items compared to April 2007.

Patron registrations show an increase of 131 from March at 8,803 active cards, with 119 new patrons and 128 renewals. This represents 39.2% of the Morton Grove population with active cards. New registrations increased by 15 and renewals decreased by 31.
Adult reference activity had +13% change compared to last year with 2,815 questions. Youth Services reference activity for the month was 1,102 up 21% from last year.
Morton Grove residents made 112 Interlibrary Loan requests (up by 21 from last month) of which 96 were filled. Other libraries requested 229 items (up by 88 items from last month) from MGPL of which 98 were filled.

Adult online database use was 1032 sessions. This is an increase of 73 over April 2007. Year to date use is 3,071 YS database use is 44 or a 19% increase over March. Year to date use is 111.

Adult Internet PC usage was 1,157. With the introduction of the new PC reservation system comparison with previous adult PC usage data is not valid. Youth Services Internet use was 427 up 71% from 2007. YS Mac/PC usage was up 38% from last year at 349 signups.

Website hits from non-staff users were 211,899 for the month, up from March by 20,748. This is an average of 7,063 hits per day, a 10% increase over this month last year.
MyMedialMall downloads were 45 for the month. Registration now totals 257 with 8 patrons joining.

Adult programming conducted 60 event sessions with 1,844 attendees. Youth Services held 79 event sessions with 1,857 attending.