From the Director…

Library Director’s Report- December 2007

The Fair Oaks Library held its annual “La Gran Posada Celebration” on Monday evening, December 17. The library was bursting at the seams and was enjoyed by 350 community members, many who are new visitors to the Fair Oaks Library. Attendees participated in a variety of arts and crafts projects; Santa was available and took individual family pictures with 160 families; and bilingual stories were read. The candlelight procession was led between the Fair Oaks Library and the Fair Oaks Community Center and the evening culminated with the breaking of two piñatas. A very special thank you to the Community Library staff and the Youth Services staff for their collaboration and assistance with this wonderful community event. The program was well advertised and went smoothly, new faces/customers came in to Fair Oaks Branch, all activities were on time, and hundred’s of people enjoyed this cultural program.

For a number of years Project READ’s Families for Literacy has been incredibly fortunate to be the recipients of a Giving Campaign from Barnes & Noble. Annually BN has supplied Project READ with a special book donation during the holidays. This year we decided to distribute the books in a unique way. Many of our families struggle during the holidays to provide gifts for their children - especially meaningful books. This year we decided to sort the books into age appropriate categories and house them in a “secret” location. Parents were invited to surreptitiously visit the “secret” spot to choose a book, as a gift to give, for each one of their children. The parents were delighted, excited and very grateful. Despite many other conflicting holiday functions at schools etc .we had a fabulous turnout of over 70 people.

Construction progress continues on the Redwood Shores Library. On December 18, a delegation of City staff, Library staff, the Mayor and members from the California Coastal Commission received a site tour of the facility. Staff continues to work on various aspects associated with the project. Construction progress can be viewed by webcam accessed through www.rcpl.info.

Jacky organized a meeting with Nancy Kelly of the Redwood City Library Foundation, Michele Carson of Redwood Shores Community Association and the Sandpiper PTA, grant writer Cecily Harris and Liz Meeks to discuss the Redwood Shores Bird Photography Contest. The contest will begin with the January issue of the Pilot. The winning bird photos will be used as graphics in the new library’s Interpretive Center. Jacky met with Assistant City Attorney Joe Aranda concerning the rules and warranties for the bird photography contest.

The December 7th all staff in-service and holiday luncheon featured the presentation “What Customers Want”, several breakout sessions of staff participation, raffling of gifts, and a great turkey dinner. A document capturing staff input (attached) was generated. This gives us a lasting snapshot of the day, and although it isn’t a strategic plan, many of the ideas are certainly worth considering and/or putting into practice.
We are in the planning stages to digitalize the Local History collection for internet access. We will be contacting the State Library for assistance.

Teen and Youth Services

• This month 27 teen volunteers worked for 111 hours.
• The Gingerbread House Competition was a great success with 35 teens participating. Teens worked as a team or by themselves to create masterpieces.  Pictures of the houses were posted on the teen webpage and the teen MySpace page. Sarah received a lot of positive feed back about this program and was told that teens would like to have more programs like this in the future.
• Sarah was contacted by Peninsula Works and told of their teen program “Jobs for Youth.”  She will set up a meeting with their Redwood City representative to find ways to partner with their organization. 
• The library now has 140 friends on the teen MySpace page. Sarah continues to post events and pictures of past events on the website to let teens know about what the library is doing.
• The library and the Redwood City Mothers Club co-hosted a KIDPOWER Parent Education Workshop on “Practicing Self-Protection Skills” for children. 40 participants learned methods to improve both the safety and the quality of their children’s interactions with strangers and with people they know.
• Chuck presented a program of stories, songs and puppets for the Redwood City Mothers Club annual Christmas party with over 200 in attendance.
• Two programs were held with the San Francisco Center for the Book. One program featured health related themes and brought 80 people to the library. The second program attracted about 55 people and encouraged children to make holiday themed projects.
• 722 free books were distributed to the children that are read to by the Traveling Storytime Volunteers.
• Jan and Caroll provided holiday crafts for hundreds of children and their parents at Fair Oaks, Schaberg and Main, as well as help Santa bring cheer to all. Jan conducted one Christmas craft session for Sarah and she, along with Caroll, helped over 30 children decorate cookies.
• The Schaberg Library held a “Holiday Celebration” for 75 pre-schoolers and their families on Tuesday evening, December 18. There was a visit from Santa in which families were able to take pictures. Arts and crafts activities were set-up and a variety of holiday stories were enjoyed.

KIP teen tutors completed over 740 hours of community service during the first semester of KIP.

Parents and families got to join in on the celebration at the KIP Award Night & Story Hour, held at Fair Oaks Elementary Cafeteria. Over 100 KIP tutors, learners and families enjoyed a dessert potluck and then an interactive, musical performance by our AmeriCorps member, Jason Yano. Each KIP learner and tutor was then called on stage and given a handmade award highlighting a unique quality or contribution that he or she made to the program. The grand finale of the evening was a book give-away including a beautiful hardbound children’s classic treasury, There’s Something There - Three Bedtime Classics. Participants were thrilled to find out that they also got to choose two additional books including one from a special holiday/winter collection donated by Barnes and Noble. Learners and tutors alike were eager to take their special books home and add them to their home library collection!

Project READ was selected as a recipient agency for the San Jose Mercury News Gift of Reading Program. We would like to thank Stewart Lollar and Gene Suarez for their help in driving down to pick up the books! With their help, we received over 30 boxes of books. This important collaboration continues to provide quality books for Project READ’s learners, families and tutors!

PLS report:

• A new pilot project, Home Delivery 2.0, has been awarded a State grant to implement. The consultant for this multi-jurisdictional (all of Bay and Monterey Bay Areas) project is in the process of selecting a vendor for delivery of items. In addition to all PLS libraries, other pilot libraries include Sunnyvale, Hayward, Monterey City and Pacific Grove. These libraries have been meeting with the consultant and are planning the logistics and implementation of the project. $5.00 per item will be charged.
• Chris Alberts, of MCA Network Consultants, gave a presentation on network issues. The largest network issue is the need for more bandwidth during peak traffic times. As the use of the internet accelerates, especially in the afternoon when students come into the library, all other applications begin to slow down and at times fail. PLS needs something that will support the network for the next five to eight years, will not require more staff and will be cost-effective. Chris suggested one physical circuit with each library router upgraded to quality of service standard. The higher priority queues would be routed first with the lower priority traffic such as public internet routed next and then all other traffic. The next step would be to transition from copper to fiber and to upgrade the infrastructure at all library jurisdictions. The project will take six to nine months to implement. AT&T has agreed to waive the construction fee for terminating the T1 lines at each branch if we use them for the upgrade. The Council consensus was to proceed with the Network changes and the Finance Committee will be asked to meet to review costs.
• Consolidating Systems update.  Individual systems met to discuss what they would need to move towards consolidation. Linda Crowe described the timeframe and the State Library’s interest in proceeding with consolidation. Southern California is also very interested in consolidation of their systems. Geography is still an issue but it was felt that technology can overcome the problem. The library systems also have concerns on differing assets and how the systems would move from a JPA to a 501(c)3. Maureen Sullivan will facilitate another meeting in January. 

Day in the District will be Friday, January 25 and Friday, February 1. PLS offices will schedule the “meet and greets” for the legislators. A variety of community members, library people and a few of the trustees have attended these functions over the past few years. Attendance for the Day in the District is extremely important this year with the need for discussion on the impact of reduction in TBR and PLF plus any additional reductions that may occur.

A nice comment:

Hi All: I realize that everyone is focused on the break that is
beginning, but I wanted to put in a plug for the online homework help
site that is available via the RWC’s library website. We got there by
clicking “teens” and then the homework help link on the left side.

You then plug in your library card number, and on the next screen tell
it what your subject and grade for which you need help (e.g. algebra
8th grade). Then you’re hooked up with an online tutor who helps you
via a chat connection and online white board. Our experience has been
very good. My child stays on to help clarify the concept that she’s
having trouble with and does a lot of self correcting and has moments
of epiphanies. The tutor is very helpful, patient, encouraging and
enthusiastic. My child then gets off the site and is able to polish
off the homework.

Here’s to happy homework times in January!

Regards,
Georgia Jack
Parent, 8th grade Algebra, Kennedy Middle School