Director’s Report for June 2004

As usual this time of year, the majority of time is being spent on preparing for the Summer Reading Program. All the bookmarks, playing pieces, programs, prizes and most of the literature has been taken care of, with just a little bit of the advertising/promotion work still to be done. We’ve also moved the furniture and shelving around a bit in the children’s area, and done a bit of decorating to make the library more festive this summer. To help promote the program, Tazz has made a few appearances with school groups and the children seem to be excited once again about this summer’s program. We’re also scheduled to make appearances in all the parades throughout the county this summer.

Vendor demonstrations continue this month as we look forward to migrating into a new automation system. Once the vendor demo’s have taken place, the automation sub-committee will be making road trips to library systems in Minnesota that are currently running versions of the software we will be considering. Once those trips have taken place, we should be able to decide on which product we feel will best serve the interests of the libraries in the Traverse des Sioux region. We plan to have a recommendation to the library director’s by our July meeting, with Board approval later that month, and then enter into negotiations in August. All libraries are currently preparing for the migration (weeding of old materials, going through patron files, getting rid of unnecessary records, etc) and we should be on schedule for early 2005 migration.

The library was recently the recipient of some books that were donated on behalf of the Healthy Youth Committee and the Martin County Law Library. Sample title’s include: “What Young Children Need to Succeed,” “What Teens Need to Succeed,” “When Parents Ask for Help,” “Building Assets in Congregations,” and “Get Things Going.” These books are currently being cataloged and will be highlighted on our display once they are finished being processed.