CTR and Community Information

For my test use, I asked both CCPL's Contact US and Ask Us Now the same question. To make things simple, I made it an easy question, "What is Maryland's state drink, and where can I find information like this in the future?"

Both services got me the right answer, Milk, when it was made so, and gave me a website about Maryland's other symbols. Contact Us gave me the Maryland government website about state symbols, and Ask Us Now gave me the Maryland Kids Page list. I believe that the official Maryland site is the better site to give, but they both had the correct information.

Both services were very quick at giving me a response, although I don't know how long I would have had to wait if it were not such an easy question, and I do think it's nice that Ask Us Now has an option to send me the answer over email if I had to leave the computer.

One thing that I did find a little annoying is that the link the librarian gave me in the chat page did not work right. I'm pretty sure this is just because of the chat page, because the link in the follow-up email worked just fine, but when I clicked on the link in the chat page, it told me that no such page existed. I had to modify the URL and get rid of some extra symbols that had somehow gotten onto the end of the correct URL to get to the right page. While I was able to do this fine, someone who did not know much about the internet would not have been able to. As I said, it was just fine in the email, and someone using the chat could just copy and paste, but I hardly think that's ideal. This might have been just a one-time problem, but I did the follow-up survey and mentioned it just in case.

Human Resources

I feel the time sheet portion of the Employee Self Service will be the most useful to me.

The four people working in Human Resources are: Muffie Smith, the Assistant Director for HR, Terri Simmons, HR specialist, Kim Smithson, HR specialist, and Jaclyn Wilson, HR secretary.

Personally, my favorite prop out of all the ones in their group picture would be the crab eyes that Terri Simmons is wearing.

IT Services

The troubleshooters at Taneytown branch are Helen Sparks and Sherry Meyers.

The IT Tech assigned to Taneytown branch is Chris Maynard.

One of the CCPL wikis would be the Summer Reading Wiki.

Operations and Facilities

I think the most fascinating thing I learned about Operations is that Technical Services processed 77,000 items last year. That's just a ton of material!

Bob Kuntz is the IT Manager, Tom Sheets is the Facilities Manager, Elaine Adkins is the Technical Services Manager.

Teamwork

The most recent Umbrella Group report can be found on the Umbrella Group March 2009 page:
http://intranet.carr.org:3455/15/79

Two of the system-wide teams that are currently operating are:
Adult Programming Tech - Make the library a place where the public turns to learn about innovative technology
Cultural Awareness - Create a 3-year calendar and a workplan for system-wide cultural awareness.

One team currently chartered at my branch is the Teen Team.

The system-wide teams I would be the most interested in would be the Adult Programming Tech Team and the Teen Tech team, since that would be playing to my strengths as a geek, and I do think we need to make sure that libraries stay relevant in an ever more tech-oriented world.

Outreach Services

Library programming is important because the right programming can greatly aid in accomplishing the library's goals. It can help acquaint people with the library and market and promote library services to those who would not normally come to the library. Some programs can increase circulation, which is one of the ways we measure success. With the right content, it can also advance the library's stated mission, which is lifelong learning for all.

Interlibrary Loan

The meeting room scheduling process is actually very straightforward. I booked the small meeting room at Taneytown Branch from 1-2 PM on December, 19, 2009 without any problem by following the instructions given for booking for public use. The instructions were both clear and precise, making them easy to follow. Following this, I called the Interlibrary Loan office, and was easily able to have the reservation deleted by telling them what branch it was at, which meeting room it was, and the date and time. I was also told that if I'm working at night, or no one's in the office for some reason, as long as I leave a message with that same information, they'll delete the reservation as soon as they return to the office.