October 14, 2005The second Thursday of the month the Jefferson County Library Board meets. The Board supervises the three libraries in our system, the Boulder, Clancy and Whitehall Community Libraries. Every month I prepare a report for the Library Board and what follows is this months report.
Whitehall Community Library
Library Report
October 13, 2005
| | Sep. 05 | | Sep. 04 |
| Total Circulation | 2230 | | 2500 |
| Paperbacks | 91 | | 77 |
| Computer Use | 496 | | 553 |
| Attendance | 2489 | | 2329 |
| Hours | 125 | | 125 |
| Storytime | 15 | | 5 |
| Ill Requests | 57 | | 50 |
September is a welcome bit of relief from the busy summer months. Children going back to school and getting settled usually means less time for leisure reading as a comparison of all juvenile items checked out in August 500, against those checked out in September 318, show.
September is also Library Card Sign-up Month and I ran a special incentive program using some information from the American Library Assoc. I made business-sized card to hand out to all the elementary and middle school children. On one side it looked like this,
an on the other side it said that anyone signing up for a library card in September would be entered in a drawing for ten dollars. I also left some of these cards at the Credit Union and the grocery store. We had 27 new card applications.
On September 30th and October 1st I attended the Montana State Library Fall Workshop in Great Falls. I took classes in Friends Today, Strong Libraries Tomorrow, Blogs: Getting the Word out and Bringing the World In, Programming in Public Libraries, and Readers Advisory.
The Friends workshop was really interesting and gratifying. When I described my friends group and the money they’ve raised and the support they’ve provided for our mill levy campaign and building addition others taking the class were amazed! I feel very fortunate to have such a great Friends group. I have some handouts from FOLUSA and if anyone wants more info they can go to http://www.folusa.org/ .
In the class on Blogs I started a blog for the library. A blog or weblog is: A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings. I plan to use the library blog to list current books and activities. You can access our Blog at http://whitehalllib.blogspot.com/ and you can leave comments or ask questions if you become a member.
I have been talking with the Bozeman, Three Forks, Belgrade and White Sulpher Springs Library about becoming a “Partner Library” with them. What that would mean is that their patrons could put holds on Whitehall’s books and vise versa. The books would be sent around by courier or bus. I have a courier who would be interested in doing this at no cost but I might occasionally have to use the bus and that would cost around five dollar a crate. At this time I’m not sure if I would have to change circulation rules. Last spring Sarah McHugh talked to Cyd, Nathel and myself about what we would have to do to become a partner library and one of the things was to change the circ rules so there would only be two checkout times, 28 days and 10 days. We currently have three, 28 days, 14 days and 7 days. I would like the Board and librarians to discuss this potential. This would greatly expand the resources available to our patrons.
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