Director’s Report

5/11/04 Trustees Meeting

April has been a busy month at the library. I continue to familiarize myself with the staff and the community and believe this process of learning will continue for some time. One thing that I have learned is how dedicated and hard working the staff here at the library is and for this I commend them.

In May, we will be looking at advertising for a Children’s Librarian as well as conducting our first staff meeting on the 19^th. Staff members are also bracing themselves for what should be a very busy end of May and June as coverage will have to be found for some of Sally’s hours as well as end of the year vacations.

(April 2004 activity)

• Weeding of reference collection has been accomplished. Out dated materials have been removed and a general cleaning of the area has been done.

• 4/2/04 – Meeting with Town Administrator and DPS Director. Plan for union negotiations.

• Library quilt has been moved to the spiral stairwell. Patrons had asked if a better location could be found to display the quilt. The staff and I scouted a few places and felt the stairwell would be best. Mr. Mahoney moved the quilt and the new location seems to be getting positive response.

• 4/6/04 – Minuteman conducts a test of their “emergency broadcast system”. It is basically an IM alerting staff in the network that the system needs to be brought down. Hopefully won’t occur.

• 4/6/04 – Trustees meeting.

• 4/7/04 – Attend a new Director’s seminar at Minuteman. An introduction to the network and how it works.

• 4/9/04 – Meet with representatives from EventKeeper. This is a web-based program attached to our web site, which will allow us to easily update and input library events. Mr. Hoffman is taking the lead and familiarizing himself with the product.

• May book order completed. Large selection of NF and Fiction.

• Books on CD ordered.

• 4/12/04 – Discussion with BLC on updating Goals and Objectives of library. Ours have not been updated for a few years and need to be in order to be eligible for grant applications. Long range plan should be done next year.

• 4/13/04 - Patron reports ceiling in Cole Room is leaking. Mr.Mahoney and I investigate it and discover water dripping from near outside wall. A hackey sack is discovered in the gutter that was preventing the water from draining into the downspout. Problem seems resolved now that the downspout is cleared.

• 4/14/04 – Meet with Paul Davis, sales representative for Salem Press.

• 4/15/04 – Attend Acquisition module seminar at Minuteman with Mrs. Buday.

• 4/19/04 – Patriot’s Day, library closed.

• 4/20 – 4/26/04 – Conduct weeklong reference survey to see how many reference questions staff answer in a week. Will do this once a month in May and June to get an average idea of workload. Beginning in July may go to a more permanent count.

• 4/21/04 Attend Friends meeting.

• Begin weeding of non-fiction collection.

• 4/22/04 Clean out back workroom

• 4/27/04 Attend “How to do reports” workshop at Minuteman with Mrs. Cutler.

• 4/28/04 Union negotiation meeting at Town Hall.

• 4/29/04 Off Personal Time.

Respectfully submitted,

Patrick W Marshall