Happy Holidays (from Greg)!

Halloween 2013

Door Count

Door Count runs next week (Monday, 10/21-Saturday, 10/26). It's important we try to get an accurate count of in-house use materials, so remember to count items as you pick them up!

Computer Cards

A few reminders about issuing computer cards:

• Adults MUST show a picture ID in order to get a card.
• Children under 18 do not have to show an ID, but do need to give us their name, birth date, and the name of their school.
• Be sure to select RESIDENT (for anyone in Texas) or NON-RESIDENT when creating adult cards, since resident cards will allow a computer card holder to access material from home.
• If a customer has a card but does not have it with them, we can write down the number if they show photo ID.
• If a customer's lost card has expired, they will have to pay $1 for a new card.

Affordable Care Act Reminder

Customers may start asking us about this beginning October 1st.  The big link to direct people to is https://www.healthcare.gov/

See my blog post from August 22nd for more information about the ACA (Obamacare).

Replacing Library Cards

When replacing a card in Symphony, it is important that you use the User Lost Card wizard under the Special wizard group.  The User Lost Card wizard will create a second account for the lost card and assign a Lost Card profile to the account.  Although the lost card number will remain on the borrower account as an active and previous ID, the second account with the Lost Card profile will prevent its use for check out.

Do not change the card number under modify user, because the old number remain active along with the new one!!!

Floating

FYI!

We now have three Float Hubs – Kashmere Gardens, Scenic Woods, and Mancuso NLs – who are graciously helping Meyer, Alief, and Kendall redistribute their surplus of returns. Staff at the Float Hubs have been trained to identify good candidate locations to float items to, so please respect their judgment. You will soon be seeing a new yellow Float label on items coming to you from the Float Hubs (*all others still use lime green).

Price Change for Earphones & Flash Drives

The prices for both earphones and flash drives have changed:

Earphones - $3

Flash Drives - $8

Holds Statistics

· Pulled: Items on the paging lists
· Processed: Items received in delivery, items that come across the desk as holds for customers (both in house and to send in delivery), and items cleared from the holdshelf

Affordable Care Act

We might start getting questions about the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) in the near future.  The HPL Training Portal has some helpful information about the ACA: Affordable Care Act Resources

Also, check out the frequently asked questions posted to the NL Blog: ACA FAQs

Clear Hold Shelf & Paging Lists

The clear hold shelf and paging (pick-up) lists we print from the intranet have the names and card numbers of our customers, so they needed to be shredded when we are finished with them!

6-week Check-outs

A message from Fred about renewals:

At one time, the Library’s Policy was to offer a special 6-week check-out for teachers or as an extended vacation loan.  Our current policy does not offer that option.  If a customer requests a six week check out, you should politely advise the customer that the new system renews from the date of the request and suggest that s/he may wish to wait until a time closer to the actual due date to renew the items.  

Door Count

July's door count runs from Sunday the 14th through Saturday the 20th. Remember to get the door count on an hourly basis and to tally in-house use on a daily basis!

Using the Catalog between July 3-10

Message from Syma about the catalog:

From July 3 – July 10, the III catalog will still be available to search so you will know if we own a title and what the call number is.  However, the information on whether a particular item is checked out or on the shelf will not be accurate since all of the circulation activity will happen offline in Sirsi.  As a reminder, during this time, customers cannot place holds and we cannot pull and fill holds.

Sirsi Training Manuals

Training manuals for Symphony and Enterprise are on the HPL Training Portal:

SirsiDynix Symphony Circulation Training Manual

SirsiDynix Enterprise Searching Training Guide

Credit Card Machine

Please read this message from Theodora:

Make sure that the receipts total you have on hand for the credit cards and the checks agree with the closing receipt that comes out from the credit card machine daily. This receipt that you see at the credit card machine in the morning when you come to work is from the bank. If you don’t see the words “settlement successful” located at the end of the receipt please call 1800-451-5817. Have the merchant number ready and give it to them. (if you don’t know where this is located or cannot find it, please call me as I have this information and can give it to you) They will ask you a series of questions which should help to resolve the situation.

If your location has a glitch with the credit card machine, please call the IT Helpdesk and ask for the rewiring of the credit card machine to have it transferred from Wi-Fi to wired or through the phone line. After your machine has been rewired, please call the bank at 1800-451-5817 and inform them that the credit card machine has been switched from Wi-Fi to wired line so they can switch the files.

More on SirsiDynix Symphony

See this message from Syma:

Our GoLive date for SirsiDynix Symphony is Thursday, July 11.

In order to reduce the number of circulation-related issues that will arise during our migration period (June 21-July 1), we have modified how the III system calculates due dates. Our goal is to minimize the number of items returned over that time period but not affect our ability to check out or return items. As a result, you (and our customers) will see a lot of unexpectedly long check-out periods. Please accept whatever due date the system shows and, if a customer questions it, explain that we are moving from our existing catalog and circulation software to a new system and to make the transition as smooth as possible, we have temporarily changed the checkout period.

Collections throughout the system will be more finely defined in the new catalog. Every library will have locations such as Media, Beginning Readers, Graphic Novels, and more. Sirsi informs us that due to the complex mapping of items to new locations, we need to keep item location changes to the absolute minimum during the migration period. Therefore, we plan to stop floating materials beginning the week of June 17. When we go-live on Symphony, floating will immediately go back into effect.

During this period (June 21-July 10), no new titles or items will be added to the collection and we will be unable to delete items. Staff will also need to follow new procedures to check-in periodicals and new procedures to create “items on the fly” (short records to allow circulation of items whose barcode is not in the system).

From July 5-10, we will be using Symphony Offline Circ. During this period, no fines can be collected and no holds can be filled. We will be able to register new customers.

Due Dates

Please read this important message from Fred:

As you know, we are preparing to migrate from III Millennium to a new Integrated Library System, SirsiDynix Symphony, in the near future. As one means of ensuring that the change-over from the current system to the new one goes as smoothly as possible, we have arranged for the III system automatically assign due dates that will fall after the migration to the new system is complete. Thus, you will notice that the system is assigning due dates in mid July for items checked out for six weeks now. Please leave the system assigned due dates as they are; do not manually reassign due dates for these items. Use the Renew function in Millennium to assign six week due dates; do not manually assign them.

As we get closer to the actual migration date, you will notice more and more items being assigned extended due dates by the system. As that happens, please continue to refrain from manually reassigning due dates, and allow the system to calculate the due dates for us.

If you have any questions or concerns, you may contact the Circulation Administration Department at 832-393-2222 (choose option 3). We’ll be happy to assist you in any way that we can.

Summer Reader

Customers can sign up for the Summer Reading Program via this link. They will need to create a new registration this year.  Old registrations have been deleted!

The staff side is available at this link. The username is staff and the password is the usual one.

Missing Parts Follow-up

Whenever an item is left on a patron's account because the item is missing a part like a disc, please renew the item for the customer (if possible) and contact the customer by phone or email to inform them the item is still on their account and why. Leave a note on the patron's account.

Printer Paper

We have two types of printer paper: X-9 and OfficeMax. The X-9 paper we get from Coin Copiers and should only be used for the public printer and the public copy machine.  The OfficeMax paper we order through Supply and is for staff printers.

Mismatched Items, Missing Parts & Damaged Items

Remember to put a date on any item set aside that is mismatched/missing parts/scratched or still on a patron's account because of missing parts or damage to the item.  We don't hold on to these items forever and need to know how long the item has been on our repair shelf.

Items that aren't checked out to a patron should be marked on REPAIR SHELF status.

Door Count

Door count is next week (Monday, April 15-Saturday, April 20). Please remember to get the gate count every hour and to count in-house item use each day.

Children's Museum Passes & FLIP Kits

This is from Michaela Watson & Jody Whittinghill:

When customers return a completed survey from the FLIP kits, they are supposed to receive a coupon for 4 free entries to the Children’s Museum. For new passes, please email Jody Whittinghill at the Children’s Museum at jwhittinghill@cmhouston.org. Jody will send new passes anytime they are needed and requested; you should always have some on hand in case a customer returns a survey.

Don't forget to open each FLIP kit whenever you check in or out. The most important part is the book! Also, sometimes customers put other books or items in the bags and we need to check for that too.

If you have an over-abundance of kits, send an overall email out to see if someone needs some. Usually Kendall, Vinson and Stella Link are in great need.

Internet Connectivity Log

From Mary Wagoner:

If you or a customer experience internet slowness, please email; or make a phone call to the IT Helpdesk. Please copy your Manager and Elva Alvarez in NL Administration. By following the steps outlined below, you are helping us identify the “trouble spots” and enable us to provide support.

Please share the following information in your email or phone call: (Helpdesk should ask you these questions)

1. Your Branch
2. Your name
3. Date of occurrence
4. Time it started
5. Time it stopped (Most recent problem would last 10 or 15 minutes and then go away for a while)
6. Connection type ( Staff computer, Public Computer and if Wifi or not.)
7. Notes: Anything you can tell us about what you or the customer was doing at the time.
8. Please keep a log and note trends if it is occurring the same time of day and share with IT and Team Leader.

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I have created an Internet Connectivity log that I will link to the menu on the right side once Java has been updated on our computers!  In the meantime, use THIS LINK!  Let's keep track of our internet issues so that we can give IT a thorough description of any problems when they occur.

Meeting Room Procedure Reminders

Just a few reminders regarding booking the meeting room or conference room:

• Only enter a reservation into the calendar if you have the form in hand
• Verify which room the group wants to use and select the correct one from the drop down menu
• Do not double book!
• Do not schedule a room for a time we are closed!
• Do not schedule a Saturday meeting until we have a definite start date for Saturdays
• Put the group's contact info (name/phone number or email) in the meeting description
• Also put your initials in the description so that if there is a question, we know who to ask!

HPL Staff Training Portal

I added a link to the HPL Staff Training Portal to the blog (under Useful Links).  Check it out!  The Library functions section under Learning Resources is particularly useful.

Why the Internet Can Be Slow

This was posted on the NL Admin blog regarding when the Internet is slow:

We have an average of 380,000 customers visit our libraries in a month and that is average of 20,000/day. Nearly 100,000 customers use computers in the library every month. Every customer entering one of our libraries immediately takes up one Internet connection due to their Smart Phone, e-reader or another tablet device. At any given time, our Internet usage peaks around 383 MB on our 500 MB pipe.

Any website that is accessed via the library computers has to go through Smart Filter/CIPA firewall first and that is another reason of slow Internet connectivity. CIPA or Children Internet Protection Act is a federal law enacted by Congress to address concerns about access to offensive content over the Internet on school and library computers.

New Procedure for Texshare Cards

Starting 01/07/13, customers wishing to get a Texshare Card from Houston Public Library will need to complete the Texshare Card Agreement and send it to the Circulation Administration Department. Cards will be mailed to eligible customers after their completed Texshare Card Agreement forms are received in Circulation Administration. Instructions for completing the process are also included on the Texshare Card Agreement form. Texshare Cards will no longer be issued at Neighborhood Library or Central Library service desks.

You may find the Texshare Card Agreement form on the intranet under Forms/Library Materials (https://hplnet.hpl.lib.tx.us/forms.html#).