Conducting Effective Performance Reviews

Andre Jones gave me a lot to think about when it comes to evaluating staff at my branch.:

• Clarifying the expectations of goals set and monitoring the progress toward the goals
• Keeping a coaching log/calendar instead of just continuing education lists
•  Rating errors

All of this will be helpful to me in future evaluations. I did notice that Mr. Jones and I don't score the same: I score sort of high and he scores low.

Conducting Effective Performance Reviews 2013

I now have a whole new approach to the way Performance Reviews should be done. I'm not sure I agree with everything Andre' suggested, but the majority of it made a lot of sense. We learned some really good tips on how to keep track of what employees are doing throughout the year. It is also very important for the employee to be responsible in keeping their own records. Overall this was a really good workshop. I learned a lot that I will use in the future.

Digitization Basics - New Jersey Collections Care Network

Attended by Elizabeth Howe on Tuesday, April 23, 2013

This workshop was presented by Thomas F.R. Clareson who is the Senior Consultant for Digital and Preservation Services at LYRASIS and Linda Langschied who is the Digital Projects Librarian at the Scholarly Communication Center, Rutgers University Libraries.  It was provided by the New Jersey State Library and the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (with generous funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services).

So, I drove to WheatonArts in Millville, New Jersey, early in the morning for another amazing conference venue!  WheatonArts is a fun place to visit, especially if you like glass (see below).

To give you an idea of what this conference was about, here is the outline:

Tools you can use for scanning and quality control.
Hardware, software, and metadata.
Making practical planning decisions:  in-house or outsourcing.
Collaborative digitization.
Practical planning decisions for staffing and budgeting.

This was an excellent, fast-paced conference.  I learned much and was given a "book" of useful information to consult.

WheatonArts is a national cultural treasure. Located on 65 wooded acres in southern New Jersey, WheatonArts is home to the Museum of American Glass, the Creative Glass Center of America International Fellowship Program, the largest folklife center in the Garden State, a hot glass studio, several traditional craft studios, five museum stores, a 13,000 sq. ft. Event Center and a beautiful pond-side picnic grove - a true Pineland Sanctuary!

Social Media on a Shoestring Budget

Attended by Elizabeth Howe on Monday, April 22, 2013

This presentation, at the Frederick County Museum of History, was free, and was delivered by Michelle Kershner, Marketing and Communication Manager for Visit Frederick.

Michelle talked about being deliberate about what you share (or not).  Ask questions such as "Is this piece of news worthy of sharing on a social network?"  And, if so, "How can we make it relevant?"  For example, if the boss thinks his or her dental practice should share the fact that the accountant won an award, you might put up a photo of the accountant with a big smile and say, "Ann, our accountant, flashing her pearly whites, won an award. . ." to help fit the message in with the promotion of the business.

Besides having lots of practical ideas for how to use social media to promote your business, non profit, repository, museum, etc., Michelle introduced us to some new ideas and resources.  I didn't know about Hootsuite (and other sites) that will shorten URL's.  She also mentioned using Animoto (embedded video) for putting free short video clips on your site.

Michelle demonstrated how she put a photo on Visit Frederick's Facebook page and discovered someone used it in another place that gave greater exposure, and it was eventually picked up and used by CNN for an even wider audience.  Also, the City of Frederick won a "Prettiest Painted Place" award, and she showed how she used social media to spread around the positive publicity that came from that.

   

Charlie 'Noiseguy' Williams

Posted on behalf of Nancy Sudine (ACLS, Westernport)

Charlie "Noiseguy" Williams was well worth watching. I make sounds with some of the books I read to my kids but not even close to what he does. Some of them I've been practicing and some of them I can't do (high pitched ones.) He shows what a big difference it makes when telling a story!

Summit 2013: Food Menu

All food items are served with biodegradable service ware and napkins. They might not be the prettiest forks and knives you've ever used but gosh darn it, they're Earth friendly!

Breakfast:

Sandwiches served on English muffins:

• Bacon, egg & cheese
• Bacon & egg
• Sausage, egg, & cheese
• Sausage & egg
• Egg & cheese
• Egg

Yogurts:

• Plain and strawberry
• With granola
• With fresh berries

Fresh fruit:

• Berries, grapes and strawberries

Beverages:

• Water will be available all day
• Coffee - caf and decaf 
• Hot tea - herbal and Lipton black
• Apple juice
• Orange juice
• Assorted sweeteners and creamers

Lunch:

Sandwiches:

• Roasted portabella with red pepper, pesto, fresh mozzarella on ciabatta bread
• The Club: turkey, ham and bacon with tomato, lettuce and cheddar cheese on white toast
• Roast beef and cheddar cheese with lettuce and tomato on a kaiser roll
• Condiments on the side

Pasta salad

Grilled vegetable platter: eggplant, zucchini, peppers and onions

Soup:

• Roasted butternut squash
• Tomato basil

Homemade potato chips

Cookies:

• Chocolate chip
• Peanut butter
• Sugar
• Oatmeal

Beverages:

• Water is available all day
• Unsweetened iced tea with assorted sweeteners

Afternoon snack:

Beverages:

• Coffee (caf and decaf) with assorted sweeteners and creamers served in to-go cups
• Vanilla caramel apple cider served in to-go cups
• Assorted sodas

Snacks:

• Brownies
• Rice Krispy Treats

Community Connections with Annie Norman

Here is the recording of a really great webinar about the ways that Delaware public libraries are connecting to their communities.  The whole webinar isn't edge-of-your-seat-exciting, but it has some very cool moments that are worth the hour of your time to check out.

High-points for me:
1. DE is using the OCLC "Geek" campaign to focus attention on libraries.  The question is, what do you geek?  For instance, I geek reading romance novels and I geek gardening.

DE is collecting all of the things/ideas/areas that community members are excited about and taking it a step further by classifying those 'geeks' into Dewey Classification.

In the below image, you'll see that they are classifying their circ info, Overdrive circulation, reference questions and what do you geek, into Dewey.  They now have a visual guide of where to put programming energy, collection development and training.

 

The other super cool part of their community connection strategy has been to have community meetings to talk about what dreams community members have for themselves, their families, their communities and the state.  At each of these community meetings, a visual artist documents the ideas that are generated.  This is awesome...

The image combines the "what do you geek" question with the ideas generated from the facilitated, "what are your hopes and dreams" discussions.  DE also did What do you Geek billboard at three spots in the state.

I love this campaign as a way of inspiring library staff and the community, using Dewey to promote collections, plan programming around engagement, speak to hopes and dreams and place libraries at the center of the community.

Last favorite bit -- DE will be adding "ice-breakers at every program" to their Best Practices for Programing toolkit.  Making connections and engaging the community is one of the best things that we can do as libraries (I think).  Simple things like, everyone say hello to the person beside you and talk about what you are reading or listening to right now.

Cool stuff!  How can we adapt or adopt these ideas?