Drop Shipments

There's nothing more exciting than to receive brand new books from the book vendors.  Due to budgetary constraints, our administrative branch who handles the main orders are restructuring, shipped staff out to branches, in addition to re-routing the shipping routes to drop at branches rather than the processing center.  


When we were plush with cash, all materials were shipped to Bibliographic services which held the traditional functions of Evaluations with real evaluators, Acquisitions, and Cataloging.  There was a processing team who covered and labeled these items.  


So the new process, due to drastically reduced Bibliographic staff, is to drop shipment at the branches where branch staff will pick up the slack.  To alleviate labor, the system has contracted vendors to physically process materials and outsourced cataloging (I think our catalogers may add details to these records).  


This past year I've been preparing my library assistant to receive such drop shipments.  Our Friends of the Library group have been very good to us, allowing us to order materials we are not receiving.  Because we had evaluators, I did not have to read reviews.  Now that our main budget is next to nothing, I've had to seek good reads for the public.  I'd say I spend about $1500 a month for just the adult fiction as I'd rather aim for circulation with popular reads.

Sad Day

The past few days have been taxing on staff.  It started Friday, March 9 when the Tustin PD showed up 30 minutes before closing to secure the family bathroom in the lobby.  A crime of a sexual nature was reported, involving a 13 year old boy and a 23 year old male sex offender.


A few of the public have been in to express their outrage and because they do not understand that we are not the administrative branch, we can not immediately make changes to calm their outrage.  Another bad reaction from the public is their judgment at pointing their fingers to suspicious people like a group of homeless who appeared to be having lunch in the city plaza.  I wonder if they'll start pointing fingers at young latino males in the teen room.


This took us by surprise because the sex offender looked like a teenager, standing at 5'3".  This week sucks.

Administrative orders

Tustin Library has five (5) self check-out stations which account for 30% of our check-outs.  We've been told to aim for 80%.  Really.  Hmmm.  So this is our first strategy so far, 2 tickets/week.  After printing four (4) poster, we strategically plastered one underneath the circuation desk facing the line, the other underneath Information Desk facing the line, and the other two on the walls by the self Check-Out stations.  So far, folks have seen it and have been re-routing to the SCO stations.

2012 First Quarter Programs

The Apple Butler.  Love the way this guy created his own name.  We partnered with him for 3 weeks in January and he really wanted to pull information fromt he general population as part of research for his book.  The only downside was that our computer lab had PCs instead of Macs.  And frankly, more and more folks are buying apple products.  I wonder if there's a grant out there to furnish a library computer lab with MACs!

This is our 6th year of BookBite and the group is constant at 25 members.  They choose the books and use the round robin technique, which is appropriate for such a large and vocal group.  I thought this could be a self-managed group, however, the group is more comfortable with staff on hand to handle the ones who are unaware of the time when they are talking.  A note about self-managed programs - they're great for economic days like these.

 Chinese New Year Celebration is a big event for this library and 300 is a lot of people to handle with a bunch of volunteers to set up and monitor.  This is our second year and our Friends of the Tustin Library got on board to support by donating $1000 to the committee.  Partnering with the community is a lot of work and stress does take its toll if you are not flexible.

Our Craft Guild is going great!  One of the members pulled out and so I have 40 photo boxes stashed in storage which I'll use for something else.  The members are great and once a month frequency is perfect.  For next season, with a new committee, I'll need to find a strong leader so they could get this going and running on their own.

Love this presenter!  She is a pro and exudes excitement and clarity in her expertise.  The room was packed with all ages and we learned the skill, hands on.  Our partnership allows her to get some exposure, however, the real exposure she aims is at the schools where it's a little difficult.  On the other hand, great program from the public, especially for the elderly seeking ways to exercise their brain. 

 This program was arranged by the branch manager and is totally self-managed.  If the facilitator keeps going, I'm sure he'll get a good sized class. 

This one here is a tricky one.  I feel like I'm fishing and still waiting for the tug.  I've posted these up and sent a few emails out to the business community and have not yet received a response.  I decided to do this because a few businesses had asked for time and space at the library to do a few free programs.  Hmmm... 

 I think this one will be super fun.  Sounds super fun and April is coming just around the corner.  Guess I better get my travel pictures up. 

**UPDATE 4/6/12 - OK...took this sucker down.  No interest there:(

Thank goodness someone has volunteered from the community to teach computer classes.  They don't have to be an expert, just hold basic knowledge of how to operate a computer. 

I wonder if I should put together an easy lesson plan so anyone can teach the concept.  Hmmmm...