January 2008 Report

Library Director’s Report- January 2008

The Library said goodbye to two managers: Sean Reinhart and Scott Bauer. Sean found a position closer to his hometown, Hayward; and Scott is the new Deputy Director of Marin County Library. Recruitment has begun to fill the Downtown Library Manager position. We are also interviewing for a collections librarian. At this time we have a significant need in the area of collection development, including the marketing, merchandising, and analysis of our collections (books, periodicals, media, electronic resources, etc.) to better meet community needs.

I attended the Chambers’ Good Morning Redwood City at the Pacific Athletic Club. The Mayor gave an inspirational State of the City address; and the Vice Mayor presented city-wide accomplishments this past year. See and listen to both speeches at: http://www.redwoodcity.org/government/council/stateofcity.html

Budget preparations have begun at the departmental level. Revenues are not keeping up with expenditures and there is much uncertainty over the State deficit. The city held two community budget priority sessions, which will culminate in the February 25^th priority setting session during the Council meeting. The library will be streamlining our budget programs for more efficient management.

The Library Board and City Council met during the January 14^th City Council meeting to discuss possible charter changes. We also gave a presentation on annual accomplishments. View and listen at (jump to library presentation): http://www.redwoodcity.org/government/council/meetings.html

The Library Foundation is just $39,000 shy of the $850,000 needed for the Redwood Shores opening day collection! This is just a fabulous accomplishment. The Foundation will next be directing their fundraising efforts towards the Fair Oaks Library.

An additional self-checkout unit has been placed in the Children’s Room. This is a test to see if the lobby’s units are too far from the network connection, which may be causing malfunctions. The children’s unit has been a huge hit for our customers (many saying that it is a better place to check out materials for their kids). We will explore purchasing it after the testing period is over.

We continue to offer a wide variety of programs for adults thanks to Roz Kutler and Jenny Davis. This is part of our strategic plan to have more events for all ages at the Downtown Library. This month we had nine adult programs that drew 175 folks. Highlights included:

• Gail Tsukiyama - the bestselling local author of Samurai‘s Garden and Women of the Silk.
• Meditation at the Library. Berget, a teacher from Redwood City’s Insight Meditation Center led the session.
• Election Forum with the League of Women Voters. The president of the South San Mateo County League of Women Voters led a heated discussion, and when 5:00 rolled around and we needed to close up, many people did not want to leave.
• Knitting at the Library – continues to attract a crowd on Saturdays.  About 15 knitters attended, ranging from beginners, to super experienced participants who helped teach the class. 

 “What is the What” by Dave Eggers will be the featured book for One Book, One Community:  San Mateo County Reads 2008. Our selection is a fictionalized account of the life of a Sudanese boy soldier who was rescued and subsequently immigrated to the US.  (This boy, now a young man – Valentino Achak Deng – sometimes appears with the author on speaking engagements).  The book was short-listed for the National Book Award in 2006.  What is the What has been on the San Francisco Chronicle Trade Paperback list for 10 weeks now.  Eggers previous works have won awards and made the New York Times Best Seller List.  

 Maria Diaz met with Library Board Member Reina Barragan to work on promoting Citizenship classes that are being provided by the San Francisco International Institute, held at the Fair Oak Library. Reina will inform them on how to take advantage of the free services and our Citizenship collection, and distribute library card applications to all. 

Bilingual Librarian, Armando Ramirez continues to make positive strides and effect change within the lives of young students and families with his weekly outreach efforts within the North Fair Oaks area.  Every Monday morning and afternoon, Armando visits several preschool and head start classes within the North Fair Oaks service area and reads stories to young students.  This month, Armando visited and engaged 604 students from 25 classes.  Monday evenings, he provides a bilingual, Spanish/English story time session at the Fair Oaks Library, with 39 participants this month.  Armando also attended the “Family Literacy Night” held at Fair Oaks School on Thursday evening, January 31, 2008, providing an overview of the Fair Oaks Library, as well as reading stories and issuing library cards.  There were 80 people in attendance for this event. 

Sarah La Torra visited Woodside High School with Roz Kutler and Maria Diaz-Slocum for a library card registration drive on the 29^th and registered 104 kids. We will be having another library card registration drive at Menlo-Atherton High School in February.

For the months of October-December 2007, 55 teen volunteers worked a total of 343 hours.  This month we had a total of 23 teen volunteers that worked 70 hours.  All together there have been 72 different teens that have volunteered at the library since October.

This month, 336 students utilized the Schaberg Homework Center

Jan Pedden was happy to announce that in January, Traveling Storytime volunteers hit the 100,000 mark (children read to) and plans are well underway for the celebration scheduled for February 13. Invitations were sent to the volunteers, providers, Library Board, Friends, Library Foundation and the City Council. Hopefully there will be a great turnout!

Project Read highlights:

• Over 63 learners, tutors and family members came together, despite the cold, wet weather, to kick off the new year with a KIP Story Hour Celebration at Fair Oaks Community Library. 
• At the end of January, 50 parents, learners and teen tutors attended the KIP Parents Meeting where Project READ staff presented exciting KIP program enhancements to be implemented in the coming months.  Families were thrilled to hear that regular trips to the “big library with two stories” are on the horizon!
• Project READ trained 16 new community volunteer tutors during the month of January and staff is busy matching those tutors with learners on our waiting list.  Our Families for Literacy story hour was an event to remember as each of the children and their parents made crafts, choose books and enjoyed the treats.   Their favorite performer, Chuck Ashton entertained us with an “Ashton Original” puppet show and some pretty snappy songs too!  All 60+ families enjoyed the festivities.  This was a great turn-out on a stormy day!
• 84 learners used the lab in January with a total of 230 hours.
• 23 adults use the lab a total of 56 hours, 61 youth used 175 hours
• 18 Learner family members used 43 hours of computer time
• 7 tutors used 19 hours on computers. Drop-in homework help totaled 13 hours.

 They Say It Best – Inspiring anecdotes from our youth

Every June and December, KIP tutors and learners are honored at a KIP Award Night where they each receive a personalized certificate that highlights their individual qualities and contributions to the program.  One of our teen tutors, honored with the Unique Perspective Award, dropped by the Project READ office in early January to inquire about the KIP start date and rides.  As she was about to leave she turned to the KIP Coordinator and said, “Thank you so much for the award you sent.  I showed it to my mom and said, ‘see at least someone appreciates what I have to offer.’”  She laughed and added, “Seriously, though, I put it up by my bed so it’s the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.

 

First graders at Fair Oaks School receive take-home, color-coded readers that go along with their morning reading classes. At their first tutoring session back together in 2008, one of the first graders matched with a preteen, fifth-grader tutor, was excited to show his partner his new booklet. Below is their exchange:

 

Learner (1^st grader) said proudly to his tutor, “Look.  We’re on the green ones [booklets]!”

Preteen Tutor (5^th grader), sighing, smiling, and reminiscing about his time in first grade, “Ah.  The good old days.” 

A kid just came up to me at the desk after using the Homework Center for the first time.“Nice tutors!” he said. “Now I know math!”