Week Seven

      Wednesday I was able to arrange a couple of hours off to attend a meeting of the Children's Librarians for Harrison County. Liz had invited me to the meeting when we were sorting the items for the Summer Reading program and since my office is only about 10 minutes from the library I was able to make it work. It was interesting to watch the dynamics in the room as I know some of the other librarians in the system through USM and my volunteering with the Pet Therapy program. They discussed how they would be rolling out the program, acquiring giveaways through donations and what type of activities to use in the program on a very limited budget. They have to be quite creative in what they do with the limited funding they have. From listening to them the budget does not leave too much discretionary money right now. 

   

      One topic that came up was the use of Facebook for the individual branches. Several already have a page but Biloxi is not one of them. Liz is trying to convince Charlie that it would be beneficial to the library.  When I was asked how I felt I was able to answer as a patron since I have liked several of the locations on FB. I also was able to add how we used it in classes at USM for the LIS  classes. Liz was told to bring me in with her when she talks to Charlie about it again. So, I plan to line up my facts to be prepared to help Liz. 

     Saturday was my only full day at the library and not really much to say, it was the usual day. They did do upgrades to their software, Iluminar, during the week and I had to adjust to some of the new little quirks, like when you check-in an item, the cursor no longer goes back in the box slowing you down with the check-in process. Like all system "upgrades" it seems to have a few minor adjustments to be made. One good benefit is the print on the receipts is much larger, actually readable now. I even had patrons comment yesterday about the now readable print when I handed them their receipt with the items they have checked out.

     I forgot to mention that last week I did spend a couple of hours with the librarian that does Cataloging for the branch. Her name is Amy, a very quiet person who seems to quite happy with her computer and stacks of books surrounding her to be cataloged. Amy does not process all the books, most are done at Headquarters and sent out to the branch. She does the DVD's and some books. She took me through the process and showed me the template she uses to fill in the information for the selection and where she looks up the information. The template was constructed by someone at the headquarters for the county library system for use at the branches for items they process. 


That's it for now.