In Summary

We have both enjoyed our exchange at Columbus Metropolitan Libraries. This exchange was organised between YPRL and CML.

As you can see we have been very busy and have blogged about many things. This opportunity has allowed us to see how another library service operates and we have taken note of some great ideas.We will share this information with YPRL staff and hopefully implement some great things.

This job exchange was very rewarding and would be something other libraries could get involved in. It's a life long learning experience and one we are happy to have been a part of.

If you have any questions please email us:

Felicity- flissyprl@gmail.com

Natasha-natasha1079@gmail.com


Thank you :)



Center for Discovery




The Center for Discovery is located at the Main Library in Downtown Columbus. There is a Teen area(12-17yrs of age only) Over 75% of the teens that use the space are boys and the area is staffed after school.

The children's area
is a lot bigger and includes picture books and non fiction. They run 30 minute storytimes for babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers, this can include books, Flannels(Felt) Story board, string stories or puppet theatre. They use these to tell stories to the children.



All youth services staff go through a 4 week training program at main where they are taught how to program and perform storytimes. Each staff member in training is video recorded and together with the Youth Services Leader they assess the session and look at ways of improving their program.








Wellness Fair, our presentation and OCLC

Wellness Fair

CML's Wellness Fair runs for a full day every year and is open to all staff. There a plenty of vendors with free giveaways, complimentary massages, health information and biometric testing (very popular with the staff).









Presenting to CML

We were given the opportunity to share little about our library service, Yarra Plenty Regional Library (YPRL)to CML staff. We shared our presentation with about 30 staff members. Our presentation went for a hour and there were plenty of questions from the staff.










OCLC

We attended a talk by Helene Blowers at OCLC. Helene spoke about the future of libraries. Her presentation was "Finding the Pheonix:Feathers, Flight and the Future of libraries". After the presentation we were shown around the OCLC building.




Worthington Libraries




The Worthington Libraries are their own library service with 3 branches. They have reciprocal borrowings with Columbus Metropolitan Library. In total they have 150 staff including administration. Recently they upgraded their library website and it was designed specifically for the library user. Customer feedback was collected through surveys and focus groups and it took about 14 months to plan and produce the new site. Their overall circulation statistics are 3 million items per year.

All branches use 'Power Walls' which are shelves around the library walls used for promoting new books and a great way to display popular and low circ items. Staff have found this to be very successful and have seen a rise in circulation statistics.



The Old Worthington Branch is the main library and their Head Offices. They have 45 public computers and their collection consists of 240,000 books, 26,000 cds and 14,000 DVDs. They have a children's room called the Bookingham Forest (7 storytime sessions a week) it is beautiful. This branch also has separate Tween and Teen rooms. It has a Worthington Room which contains the local history collection.

Their Northwest branch is a joint development between Columbus Library and Worthington Libraries. Their yearly circulation stats alone are 1.8 million.

The Teen area was designed by one of the youth staff members in the library and has lots of furniture and study spaces, computers and a huge garage door which is opened during the day for anyone to access the teen room and after school hours the door is closed for teens only.

Two of the branches have a drive up pick up service for their holds and an after hours locker(code needed) used to store holds that can be picked up anytime after hours.




Worthington Park Branch was opened a year and a half ago and is situated in a shop front. Because this branch is quite small they do not stock AV items but do reserve them in for customers. It has a huge children and junior area, 65% of this libraries collection is children and teen books.




Organisational Development and Managers Meeting

The Organisation Development (OD) team at CML is in charge of organising and training staff. There are 4 trainers and some branches have staff who can also run training classes. The training team is in charge of Learner Web which is the program used for course registrations. All CML positions have a position description and each staff member is given a learning track. Learning tracks are guides to what CML courses they need to complete to be able to do their job. Most of their training schedules are planned on a 3 month basis and core activities are planned 6- 12 months in advance. There are courses for managers who must attend the training which adds up to 55 hours a year. All staff register themselves for courses and managers can approve it afterwards.

New staff who are employed at CML go through a training process called On Boarding, they are automatically enrolled into the introduction courses. They fill out paperwork, staff benefits, intranet information and get their picture taken for the staff directory. Once they completed the introduction and start working in the branch they are then shown branch processes and how to use the ILS(Integrated Library System). OD's main focus is on Core training, management training and technology training. They run many training course and if there is not enough attendance for any of the training sessions they will not run them again. OD also have training cds or other training guides which can be borrowed for staff use. Their management training includes all managers as well as the ELT(Executive Management Team). They use a company called Business Of People and have provided this training to over 100 staff.

Managers Meeting

The monthly managers meeting was held at the Main Library with over 70 managers present. It was a 3 hour meeting that started of with an introduction from Pat Lozinski (Director of CML) . The agenda included Strategic messages(Strategic Plan), IT updates, Customer Service Survey update, Benefits(health) and other business which they refer to as Announcements.

Security

The security system at CML is centralised and cameras/footage from any branch can be accessed at the Main library. There are about 35 security officers who work for CML and each branch has 1-2 officers some full time some part-time. There is a courtesy phone located at each branch for public use (no charge). All staff have swipe cards which gives them access to all the branches.
Any incidents that occur at the branches are reported online (form). This is sent directly to security and followed up. No signature is required but the form is detailed and information can be added to the report. Only security has full access to the form once it has been submitted.











Bookmobile
There are 2 bookmobiles that cater for children's services. It runs everyday and 40-50 storytimes are held throughout the week and an extra 50 storytimes that are run for special needs children. The bookmobile visits about 15 sites a week and each storytime runs for 30 minutes. There are 8 staff who run the programs and each mobile has a driver a storyteller and an officer to help. They attend various locations such as schools, parks and swimming pools.




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