January 2016 CE Managers Meeting

Hello,

Here are the minutes from the January 2016 CE Managers Meeting.  Other minutes can be found on the CE page on the Intranet:   https://hplnet.houstonlibrary.org/depts-ce.html

CE Managers Meeting

01-22-16

Compiled by Yolanda Anguiano

In attendance: Drew Alvey, Jenny Phengdara, Marcia Cameron-Denton, Richard Hurst, Chris Arrowood, Jennifer Myers, Christy Chang, Tony Goodwyn, Tula Gorden, Maggie Sepulveda, Leonore Hu, Felicia Brisco, Melissa Ryans, Nathan Stokes, Brandon Pope, Alma Avina, Iona Joseph, Alexandra Drake, Shirley Singletary, Janna Hoglund, Fred Schumacher, Dena Melvin, Tara Hornbeak, LeRoy Robinson, Mercedes Mayne, Donnie Byrd, Hellena Stokes, Melissa Gwinn, Jayla Parks, Melinda Campbell, Melissa Hayes, Jennifer Sessa, John Merullo, Diane Doyen, Patricia Ogea, Tega Zoma, Kelly Patton, Julia Bradley, Dominick Spinelli, Paty Bustamante, Karen Luik, Maurina Powers, Erika Cardoso, Virginia Williams, Cylenthia Hoyrd, Billy Glasco, Edgar Fuentes, Sylvia Espinosa, Beck Gorman, Kathrine Myers, Gary Lackey, Christopher Patrick, Vanessa Gempis, Lauren Wilcox, Jose Santoyo, Craig Bertuglia, Derrick Spearman, Kallie Benes, Susan Kaufman; Guest: Rick Peralez & Judith Hiott; CE Admin: Michele Gorman, Elizabeth Sargent, Laurie Covington, Mary Wagoner, Patrick Atkins, Pedro Fonseca, Djuina Hammett, Celeste Diaz, & Yolanda Anguiano

CE Update: (Michele Gorman)  Michele introduced Administrative Supervisors Julia Bradley (COL) and Marcia Cameron-Denton (ALI) to their first CE Managers meeting.  She encouraged managers to use our meetings to network, support each other and not feel isolated.

With a new mayor comes new goals, Mayor Turner has called for all City departments to participate in a shared sacrifice in facing the budget shortfall coming in FY17.  He’s asked for a slow-down in hiring, but not a freeze.  Critical positions will be filled.  Michele asks that you nip any budget rumors in the bud.  Mayor Turner and she want transparency and will communicate any developments as they are confirmed.  You can view the City budget at www.houstontx.gov/budget. 

Dr. Lawson visited the White House recently and met to discuss HPL’s participation in the ConnectED program.  In April, 2015, President Obama announced the ConnectED Library Challenge, calling upon library directors to work with their mayors, school leaders, and school librarians to create or strengthen partnerships so that every child enrolled in school can receive a library card. Libraries have a commitment to support student learning through programming that develops children’s language, reading, and critical thinking; provide digital resources, such as eBooks and online collections of traditional media; and provide broadband connectivity and wireless access within library facilities. 

Our effort to get 7,000 My Link cards in the hands of students with the Read to the Final Four initiative prompted our participation.  Dr. Lawson has gotten Mayor Turner and HISD on board, so we will be issuing My Link cards to every HISD student.  More on this project will be forthcoming.

The Read to the Final Four challenge has reached the “Elite 8”.  The final four schools will be announced on Friday, February 5^th. 

We have a new Houston Public Library Foundation Director, Sally Swanson.  She comes from the Girls Scouts and has a strong fundraising background.  She will be coming to talk to us at a future CE Managers meeting.

Fred Schumacher is looking for members of the RFID work group. He asks you to identify staff that would be a good match and encourage them to apply.  The link to the application is in an email Fred sent on January 20^th.  Managers need to consider the time commitment and how it will affect your work schedule before approving staff participation.

Digital Strategies: (Rick Peralez & Judith Hiott)  We are getting a new PC reservation system even though it wasn’t in this year’s budget.  iTeam Resources is the new vendor.

Since the contract with Coin Copiers has expired, we are looking for a new public printing/copier provider.  The City is looking at switching from Xerox to Ricoh copy machines.  Rick wants to explore the possibility of that vendor providing our public printing services. 

Rick has submitted CIP requests for public scanning at 8 locations and two EnvisionWare 24 hour library machines.  You can look at an example of this service from the Pioneer Library: http://www.envisionware.com/alphabytes_v2n7_pioneer-library-open-24x7. He’s also requested for more locations to get RFID tagged.  He wants to eventually eliminate paper library card registration forms and computer use only cards.  There will be a new ILS Administrator in February, Billy Cryer.  This is the position Erin Cody previously held.

In an effort to improve customer service, two new sections on the Digital Strategies intranet page have been added.  Find them by clicking on the “known issues” tab on the left side of their department page or clicking on the link from the reference page: https://hplnet.houstonlibrary.org/depts-ds-sirsi.html.  The first tab labeled “SirsiDynix” alerts staff to known problems with Sirsi and how to deal with them. The second tab labeled “Tips & Tricks” gives you just that.  This is still a work in progress and Judith would appreciate any feedback. 

Judith added that there is a SirsiDynix Support Center link she gave out at a previous meeting that has had little activity from staff: https://support.sirsidynix.com/.  She hopes to put the link on the training portal.  The support center has different Sirsi tutorials that are self-paced.  Digital Strategies will be working on providing logins.

The HelpDesk phone calls are being recorded for quality management.  Digital Strategies has now begun to listen to them.  The focus is on the longer conversations rather than the quick call resolutions.  Extra customer service training will be provided for staff when needed.  Judith hopes to see service improvement by March. 

In addition, a new HelpDesk survey created by our Digital Strategies team will be implemented.  In the beginning, you will receive this in addition to the HITS survey that is sent when a trouble ticket is closed.  Eventually, Rick wants our survey to replace the HITS survey.  This new survey will help Digital Strategies gather information directly.  The questions are similar to the HITS version but it provides more description of the problem for easier identification.  Another improvement is if you aren’t satisfied with your problem’s resolution and want to re-open the trouble ticket, you can communicate that in the comment section of the survey without needing to call the HelpDesk again.  Digital Strategies will collect the information from the survey and report back to managers any meaningful results.  If you have a bad customer experience, you can still notify Judith.

                                                                                                                                                 

Announcements: (Liz Sargent and Laurie Covington)

Additional supplies were purchased and distributed to each manager including colored paper, brochure holders, push pins, dividers, and sheet protectors.  We also have 19 wire file organizers for your desk and a few of the wider/larger size brochure holders.  If you would like either of these items or if you have supply needs outside of what is stocked in the supply room, you can email Celeste.  If you’re requesting a new item, you need to find it online through STAPLES.  Then provide a picture of it, its item number, and a justification for the purchase and copy your Senior Manager on the email.  Requests will be collected and when we have sufficient funds and number of requests, we’ll make an order. 

Don’t forget if you need additional outreach giveaways or HPL shirts for your new staff, contact Celeste.  For shirts, please provide the name and shirt size of your staff member.  Celeste has been sending out those that have already been requested.  She received a Small Woman’s red shirt in delivery with no name.  If you know whose it was, please let her know.  If someone is no longer with HPL and she sends you a shirt, notify her and return the shirt.

The mileage rate has changed from $.56 to $.54 effective this month.  Please make sure you make that adjustment when requesting mileage reimbursement.  If you have questions about filling out the form, you can see the CE blog or call Celeste. Mileage requests can be submitted by any CE staff member with a current Defensive Driving certificate and are due to Celeste by the 5^th of each month.

Financial Services has purchased new deposit bags but before distributing them, they want to know who has bags that need replacing due to damage or missing status.  Laurie will be sending out a survey asking about this and your current keys.  Please respond by February 1^st.  If your location has keys for bags that are no longer coming back to the locations, we need to know that.  If you have questions, please see Laurie.

Installation of Telecheck at all locations should be complete now.  Follow up is being done on an as-needed basis depending on your calls to the HelpDesk and Dimitri.  Please continue to report your issues to both the helpdesk and Dimitri via email.

Please remind your staff to slow down when using Telecheck and Smart Money.  Dimitri is seeing errors especially with staff members putting transactions in Smart Money but not actually running the check or credit card through Telecheck.  That means the library didn’t get the money, but the fines or fees are cleared on the customer’s account.

If you didn’t get the settlement receipt that normally prints from Telecheck overnight, staff should manually close out the machine.  To do this, press CREDIT then MORE and then CLOSE.  The receipt should then print.  For check transactions do CHECK, then MORE, and CLOSE.

If you have old or new staff that is having trouble with Smart Money, you can contact Dimitri for one-on-one training.  She has a computer set up with Smart Money that staff can use to practice.  Encourage staff to ask questions when they don’t understand.

Some HEAR reviews are still in draft form and haven’t been approved by the staff member or reviewing authority.  If you make any changes to an already approved and activated plan, the system reverts back to a draft form, including adding a comma or space.  So you will need to get signature approvals again to activate the plan.  New staff need a HEAR plan within 30 days of hiring according to the HOPE agreement.  A second work progress report is due by January 31^st.  There is a Talent Management System error where only a small percentage of staff has access to their assessment.  Liz will be sending out a follow up email concerning this.

We are testing notary services at 10-12 locations.  Staffs at those locations need to complete an additional form that you can get from Naomi Crawford in Mr. Weeks’ office.  More on this new service will be forthcoming.

Please begin to implement the three solutions you selected to focus on from the list created from a previous discussion at a CE Managers meeting.  CE Admin will be asking for updates from you beginning in February or March.  Those chosen will give a brief update at the CE Managers meeting.  Liz will notify you when it’s your turn one week before the meeting.

Senior Managers committed to attend at least 3 of your staff meetings within the year.  Liz will visit 3 staff meetings at the Special Collections libraries, 2 LMS staff meetings and 9 Central Services Staff meetings.  She will also make an effort to try to go to individual location staff meetings as well.

We now have a centralized place at CEN on the fourth floor in room 455 where you can find space and supplies to make displays for your location.  This isn’t limited to Youth Services staff.  All die cuts are being housed there.  They even have mailing tubes for butcher paper to be transported, but those need to be returned when finished.  You can have volunteers come and create displays.  Kallie does ask that you clean up after each use.  Her staff is creating a picture directory of the supplies available.  She hopes to get a color printer and computer for the workspace soon.  If you have extra supplies you’re not using, contact Sara Pope.  She can catalog them in the directory and add them to our supplies.  If you have questions regarding the workspace, you can contact Sara or Rebecca Denham.

Outcome based training:  Michele had the group take a pre-test on whether statements in the quiz were an outcome or output.  Outcomes give value to the library and the government likes to fund things that have value, so understanding them is necessary for our work to continue.  FY17 will be a tough budget year, so making our mission more desirable and vital is essential.  We need to articulate our value to the community.  A handout from Michele’s presentation titled Outcomes Made Easy: 7 Simple Steps to Success was passed out.  The following information was taken from there.

An outcome is a benefit to people not just a result.  It is a change in attitude, behavior, skill, knowledge, or status that occurs for a user after a purposeful action on the part of the library and library staff.  It answers the question, “So what?”  How have lives changes as a result of our experiences.  Output is about a number and outcome is about a change. 

In a library environment, we have inputs like staff, programs, and supplies.  We use them to do an activity like storytimes or provide computers.  Outputs are the quantitative data from it like statistics.  Outputs only show activity but don’t prove the change in target audience.  Outcomes close the circle and show how things make a difference.  You need to track outcomes to see if the activity was successful. 

Measuring outcomes strengthens the value in existing services, shows need for expansion of services, develops and justifies budgets, helps with long-range plans and targets those programs in need of elimination.  There are seven steps to measuring outcomes that were detailed in the handout.  It will be posted with the minutes.  The steps are: recognize need/articulate your goal, define outcome, develop/implement program, develop measurement tool, evaluate outcome (create indicator), present results/tell your story, evaluate the process.

Steps 1 through 5 need to be done before any program planning.  For existing programs, you will need to go backward.  We are not going to measure outcomes with everything.  Step 1 states you need to be able to differentiate between an actual need and a perceived need.  This is critical when funding is limited.  Articulate your goal.  Be bold but realistic.  In Step 2, you need to define what change you want to happen as a result of your program.  It helps to frame your goal statement with “putting the end user first.”  Talk about your target audience and let the outcome be your verb.  Step 3 asks that you design your program with a series of services/activities that lead to your goal, define a beginning and end, and include a change in attitude, behavior, skills, knowledge or status and how you plan to measure the outcome.  You should answer how to measure the outcome first.  Step 4 asks that you create the measurement tool like a pre/post test, focus groups, or surveys.  We should ask for comments or feedback at this point.  Step 5 evaluates the outcome.  The indicator is the change you want to see in your participant.  To ensure that the indicator is measurable, you can use the formula: The # and % of (participants) who (demonstrate what specified change?).  It’s important to base success on quantitative data not subjective interpretation. Step 6 tells your story.  State your goals and intended outcomes and relay your output. Is the program worth replicating?  Share with stakeholders how the program made a difference.  Use stories and data to complete the picture.  Step 7 asks if the program worked, if the measurement tool was effective, and if you had staff buy-in.  It also asks what you would do differently.  The last page of Michele’s handout lists recommended resources for more in-depth study of outcomes.

CE Admin will look into establishing a collaborative place where staff can discuss problems, seek advice, or share goals regarding outcomes and system programs.  Working on outcome based programs will begin after Michele trains the Youth Services staff.  Please make sure all your Youth Services staffs attend that meeting.  Also, if you do double duty as part of your location’s Youth Services staff, plan on attending the YS meeting in February as well.  Senior Managers need to make sure that those managers and assistant managers that didn’t make this meeting attend the YS February meeting.

                                                                                                                             

Next CE Managers Meeting is on February 26 at 8:30AM in Central’s Program Place.