Staffing

· No changes in staffing for the month of July.

Facility

· We continued to receive reports from the cleaning crew of intermittent vandalism in the men’s restroom.

· We experienced computer connectivity problems between the Township Office and the Library during the end of the month. The Township Treasurer was able to resolve these issues with the replacement of equipment.

Professional Development & Meetings

· Meetings and workshops attended by professional staff included:

o Monthly Library Supervisors Meeting

o Monthly Staff Meeting for Librarians, Circulation Coordinators & Library Assistants

o Monthly Staff Meeting for Pages – Mary Reed & Pamela Myers

o Lakeland Library Cooperative Continuing Education Committee – Mary Reed

o Lakeland Library Cooperative Circulation Forum – Pamela Myers

o Lakeland Library Cooperative Board Meeting – Pamela Myers

· Meetings and workshops attended by para-professional staff included:

o Lakeland Library Cooperative Circulation Forum – Leslie Garrison & Karen Jipping

Programming, Promotions, Publicity, Special Projects,

Departmental Activities, etc.

· July 13: Book Discussion Group For Adults

o Book: Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen

o Book Discussion Leaders: Mary Reed and Candace Hulst

o Attendance: 12

· July 14: Book Discussion Group for Teens

o Book: Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn

o Book Discussion Leader: Jill Reyers

o Attendance: 1 (although 8 of the books reserved for this program were checked out)

· Special Summer Programs for Youth

o July 07: Harry Potter Party (Ages 8 – 12)

· Attendance: 52 children & 8 adults (Attendance limited/pre-registration required)

o July 13: Performance By Bill Vits, Grand Rapids Symphony Percussionist (Ages 6 and older)

· Attendance: 66 children and 29 adults

o July 13: Preschool Story Time (Ages 18 months to 5 years) – Sue Kirvan

· Attendance: 69 children and 39 adults

o July 19: Orbit Pendant & Stained Glass Picture Making Workshop (Ages 12 - 17)

· Attendance: 21 young adults (Attendance limited/pre-registration required)

o July 20: Pippin Puppets “Dragons from A to Z” (Ages 6 and older)

· Attendance: 80 children and 14 adults

o July 20: Preschool Story Time (Ages 18 months to 5 years) – Sue Kirvan

· Attendance: 51 children and 19 adults

o July 21: Orbit Pendant & Stained Glass Picture Making Workshop

· Program exchange with Gary Byker Memorial Library of Hudsonville

· Attendance: 25 young adults (Attendance limited/pre-registration required)

o July 27: Patchwork Pear: Comedy, Music & Storytelling (Ages 6 and older)

· Attendance: 68 children and 26 adults

o July 27: Preschool Story Time (Ages 18 months to 5 years) – Sue Kirvan

· Attendance: 52 children and 17 adults

· Development of the Local History Vertical File – Pamela Myers

· Ongoing weeding of Adult Nonfiction 300 area – Susan Carlson

· Weeding of the Adult Mystery collection – Mary Reed

· Manual charges database conversion project – Pamela Myers

Friends of the Library

· The Friends do not hold a monthly meeting in July.

· The Friends treasurer reported the revenues from the Library’s Summer Used Book Sale (July 28 – July 30) were $647.05.

Service & statistical information

Service and statistical information for the month of July 2005 is presented below.

	July	July	% Change	2005 YTD	2004 YTD	% Change YTD
	2005	2004	2004 - 2005			2004 - 2005
Circulation (Items)
Total Circulation	35,490	35,634	-0.40%	197,813	190,731	3.71%
Check-Outs	33,257	33,553	-0.88%	181,593	177,136	2.52%
Check-Ins	33,305	34,439	-3.29%	169,523	167,653	1.12%

Interlibrary Loan (Items)
Loaned	2,233	2,081	7.30%	16,220	13,595	19.31%
Borrowed	3,555	3,244	9.59%	21,876	17,059	28.24%

Holds
Placed By Staff	864	1,087	-20.52%	6,171	6,418	-3.85%
Calls to Patrons (Min.)	1,753	N/A	N/A	10,904	N/A	N/A

Traffic Count	15,573	16,344	-4.72%	90,222	87,450	3.17%

On a quarterly basis, statistics related to the number and types of reference transactions fielded by staff are compiled at the various service desks in the Library. Data collection for the previous quarter was completed during the week of July 25 – July 30. In order to provide a basis for comparison, results from the previous year’s quarters are provided below as well.

	Completed	Directional	Reference	Total
Data Collection	Reference	Reference	Questions	Reference
Period	Questions	Questions	Not Completed	Transactions
2005
July 25 – July 30	1,416	537	14	1,967
April 11 - 16	1,481	915	12	2,408
January 10 - 15	1,182	708	30	1,920

2004
October 25 - 30	832	490	28	1,350
July 19 - 24	1,934	784	20	2,738
April 12 - 17	767	408	20	1,195
January 12 - 17	770	507	39	1,316

Data was actually collected the last two weeks in July, but the first week’s results were discarded when it was discovered that some staff were not recording transactions properly. Although there was some improvement evident during the second week’s attempt at data collection, we continued to experience problems, as some staff found it difficult to record transactions while keeping pace with the heavy summer traffic demands. The data collected was shared with all employees at the various staff meetings that followed in the ensuing weeks and, the discussion included the importance of recording each transaction during such data collection periods, particularly in light of increasing patron demands for service and our need to accurately reflect the workload borne by staff. Suggestions for methods to improve future recording were also discussed and will be implemented during our next data collection period in October. Even though the July figures are most likely under representative of actual activity experienced that week based upon patron traffic, I decided not to repeat the process a third time, as the timing for data collection would no longer be comparative from year to year with respect to the timing and associated traffic patterns during the quarter/month.