Director’s Report for May 2004

As National Library Week approached, we continued to play around with rearranging furniture and attempting to create more floor/walking space. We decided to create a display on library history, and we put some memorabilia as well as some old equipment in our display case. We also wanted it to be a prominent display, so we moved the case closer to the adult reading area and moved some tables around. We also rearranged our paperback racks (we still want to replace those racks, but not quite sure yet what to do) and we’ve opened up a lot more room. We’ll continue to make changes from time to time as we create more leisure/study areas, and use shelving that doesn’t take up so much floor space.

We were notified that our grant request from the Fairmont Area Youth Foundation (separate from the Fairmont Area Foundation) was approved, and since I will be out of town during the ceremony Tuesday evening, Jennifer Tow, our Children’s Librarian will be representing the Library. This grant will provide us with enough funds to create a little corner of the library that will be specifically for teens (just outside my office, and shelving will be re-arranged in the near future). We are looking at getting a futon and some beanbag or ‘butterfly’ chairs, as well as some additional furniture for display. This will also help kick-off the youth programming for the summer.

The Automation Sub-Committee has arranged vendor demonstrations for the new automation system this coming June. The demonstrations will be held at the Blue Earth County Library in Mankato and each session will last two days. Circulation and the Online Catalog will be covered on the first day, while Acquisitions, Serials, Interlibrary Loan and Database design will be covered on the second day. Appropriate personnel (Director’s, Librarians and front-line staff) from area libraries are being encouraged to attend all three sessions so that we get a variety of opinions on each vendor. It’s extremely important at this stage to get good input as this will determine which system we decide to migrate to, and as such Martin County will be sending 3-4 people to attend the various sessions. The first session will be with Dynix, and that will be June 3^rd and 4^th. Innovative Interfaces will demonstrate their Millenium system on June 9^th and 10^th, and Sirsi will be demonstrating their system on June 16^th and 17^th.

Presentation College recently made a visit to Fairmont, and they stopped by the library to view our facilities and see what was available for their students. The librarian at Presentation College gave a brief demonstration on how students can access their online databases, and also how they can communicate with staff and professors via the Internet. I also met the Academic Dean and the Dean of the Nursing program from Presentation College, and they were both very pleasant people. It appeared to me that they were very interested in maintaining a positive, progressive attitude in regards to the academic courses taught here in Fairmont, and that they would like the library to grow with that partnership.

In other events, National Library Week went very well, as did the Book Sale. I also spent an afternoon at the Historical Society with the History Club, where we went over some items from the library’s archives, and discussed how the library has evolved over the past couple of decades.