Thank You

Greetings Central Staff,

I wanted to post a quick message on this blog before I hand it over to the folks now in charge of Central. I greatly enjoyed my time as Chief at the Central Library. I was honored to be selected as the Chief a few years back and to work with such an exceptional and dedicated staff everyday. I truly miss holding open meetings with staff. I learned a lot from those meetings and greatly enjoyed them. I loved working with a staff who was open to pursuing new and innovative ideas. I will miss being Chief of Central. However, I know that the Central Library is in the hands of extremely capable people.

I truly want to thank all of you for making my time as Chief of Central so enjoyable.

Thanks,

Mike Van Campen

ALA/TLA Reminder

Greetings,

This is just a quick reminder to all staff that if you wish to attend ALA (June 24-29, 2010 in Washington D.C.) or TLA (April 14 -17, 2010 in San Antonio) the deadline for submitting the relevant sheet of questions is this Friday (2/19/10). These need to be submitted to your supervisor and to the Chief of Central Services. Thus far, I have only seen one request. While money is very limited, there are some funds to assist with financing these trips.

The original e-mail with the attached questions was sent out by Paty on 1/29/2010. I will resend this today so that everyone has easy access to these.

Thanks,

Mike VC

Overtime Opportunities at HMRC

Overtime Opportunity!

As many of you know, HMRC is in the midst of moving their collections into the new wing. They have received permission to pay overtime to 5 staff members to work on Saturday, February 6. The hours will be from 9 - 6. Types of duties include:

• Shelving bound journals and books on carts in preparation for move to new wing;
• Sorting maps by county, size, and year;
• Moving lightweight materials into the new wing;
• Applying labels on shelves in the new wing;
• Securing barcodes and labels that are in danger of falling off;

This overtime opportunity is open to non-supervisory staff in pay grades 13 and lower.

Please contact Kemo Curry before noon on Friday. Email her at kemo.curry@cityofhouston.net or call x31662 to submit your name if you are interested in working overtime this Saturday. She will get back in touch by 2 pm as to whether or not you have been selected.

Thanks,

Mike Van Campen
Chief of Central Services

A Huge Thank You to CEN Staff and Managers

Greetings,

I apologize for not posting recently to this blog and for being seemingly non-existent at Central. I just wanted to write a quick post thanking you all for the incredible work you continue to do day to day. I know that things are tough and that you face difficult situations daily. I personally am beyond impressed with the grace and courtesy with which these difficulties are handled. Thank you for that.

I also wanted to thank the Central managers. They have really been asked to step up in my absence and have done a wonderful job.

I really miss meeting with staff at all levels on a regular basis and hearing feedback, concerns, and ideas from front line staff. Some time in the next few weeks, I would like to set up meetings so that I can chat openly with all staff and you can share feedback with me. Be watching this space for more information on this. In the meantime, again, I extend a thank you and my appreciation for your hard work.

Thanks,

Mike Van Campen

Chief of Central Services & Happy New Year

Greetings,

Just a quick note to share some information. As I have shared in meetings and e-mails, my role at HPL is changing. Instead of solely being responsible for Central Services, I have taken on additional responsibilities that currently include two areas.

The first is working closely with the Deputy Director of Public Services and serving as a member of the Executive Leadership Team. The second area is to function as the leader of the HPL Transformation Team. As part of the latter, I am also responsible for all locations involved in implementing the new service model that has been shared with staff. Currently, this includes Vinson, Blue Ridge, and Bracewell. However, in the coming months, it is possible that more locations may be added to this list.

I regret that these duties have prevented me from being as present at CEN as I have been in the past. However, I am confident that Paty, Sandy, and Bea are doing an exceptional job running things in my absence. I would like to stress that even though I am taking on more responsibilities, I still value input from staff at all levels and, while it might be hard to catch me in my Central office, I make it a priority to respond to calls or e-mails from staff at all levels with concerns, questions, etc.

Finally, Happy New Year!! I regret that I got so busy that I did not post a message wishing everyone a Happy Holiday but was quite happy to have made it to the holiday party and white elephant gift exchange.

You are all doing an outstanding and invaluable job. I just want to thank you all for that. And again, Happy New Year!

Thanks,

Mike VC

Visit for Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County

Greetings,

On December 8th, we will have visitors from the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in North Carolina. They will be visiting many location with ELT and other staff. In the afternoon between 2 and 3:30 PM, they will be touring the Central Library and Technical Services. Paty and I will be leading the tour. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Mike VC

Incelement Weather - December 4th

Greetings,

As many of you know, it is looking more and more like there may be winter precipitation tomorrow. A Winter Storm Watch and Freeze Warnings have been issued for area counties, including Harris, until noon on Friday. Please tune into local news stations for information concerning weather conditions and any potential closings. Also, you can call the HPL Emergency Line (832.393.1550) for status updates. If weather conditions prevent you from reporting to work, please contact your immediate supervisor as soon as possible. Also, your managers may be contacting today to ensure they have correct contact information.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Mike Van Campen

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Greetings all,

I regret that I was unable to make it to yesterday's Thanksgiving meal/party. I did want to post a quick message expressing my ongoing appreciation of all the hard work that staff at Central do everyday in an often challenging environment. You are all quite amazing and your dedication is to be commended. I sincerely hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and a restful few days off of work.

Thanks,
Mike VC

Food Issue at CEN

Greetings,

I want to share with staff that your concerns about food at CEN have been heard. I have been working with administration on the need to change current practices at CEN. They have agreed to support that decision. This is not a change to policy but to practices here at CEN. According to policy, food "may" be permitted in a library if there is a "designated area". Because Inversion and Teens sell food, we have to continue to allow food in some "designated areas". I am working with Paty and Beatrice to come up with new practices in this area. It may very well be that food is limited to Teens and Inversion, which would realistically mean no outside food. We are hoping to implement the changes fairly soon and will share exact details with all staff and security prior to any changes.

The one bit I would add to this is that we will continue to follow the policy on beverages, which does not permit the flexibility that the food portion of the policy does. As a reminder, it states "the consumption of non-alcoholic beverages in covered containers is permitted at all library locations except HMRC."

Look for more information and implementation details on this change in the coming weeks.

Thanks,
Mike VC

Sorting Room Access

Greetings,

We are trying to work on ensuring that all staff who need it have access to the sorting room. If you need access to the sorting room and currently do not have it with your card, please send your name and id number to Yolanda. She is working on a list to submit again to try to get access.

Thanks,

Mike VC

All Staff Meetings

Greetings,

We will be holding meetings for all Central Service next week. These will be informational meetings where we will discuss changes to the reporting structure at Central. An e-mail should be coming out before the meeting sharing the basic details. The meetings will primarily be open meetings to discuss the new arrangements and other questions. There will be two meetings held; all staff should work with their manager to attend one of the meetings if they wish. Here is the information for the meetings:

• Tuesday, October 27 - 2:30 pm to 4 pm - Concourse Meeting Room
• Thursday, October 29 - 2:30 to 4 pm - Concourse Meeting Room

I look forward to seeing folks at these meetings, sharing information, and answering questions.

Thanks,

Mike Van Campen

Apologies and Moving Forward

Greetings,

Just wanted to offer a quick apology for not updating this blog frequently. I have been extremely busy with duties related to the Transformation Team and other responsibilities. It is looking like these duties will continue to occupy most of my time. As such, I am working with the managers to develop a plan for Central moving forward. I will share this as it develops.

Thanks,

Mike VC

Free Library of Philadelphia Remains Open!

I don't know if everyone has been following the saga in Philadelphia. To fill everyone in, Philadelphia, like many other cites, is facing serious budget issues. Their situation was so severe that they had begun plans for shutting down every single one of their libraries at the beginning of October. This closure would have impacted all locations, all employees, and all programs and services. Fortunately, over 2,000 customers of the library wrote to legislatures urging that they do whatever they had to in order to keep the libraries open. Last week, by a vote of 32 to 17, the Pennsylvania State senate passed a bill that will keep the Free Library of Philadelphia system open--sparing the jobs of 3,000 employees and preventing a complete closure.

This is fantastic news for the entire library community. I wanted to share this bit of good news amidst the daily--at times, it feels almost hourly--stories of libraries facing budget cuts, hour changes, lay-offs, furloughs, etc.

Great Work! CEN Shows Huge Gains in All Statistical Areas

Greetings,

Our stats from August, usually one of our slowest months, continue to show unprecendented gains with close to 20% (or higher) gains in nearly every category when compared to the same month last year.

Library Visitors: 77,423 - This works out to roughly 250 people every hour that we were open in August.

Circulation:

• August 2008: 92,581
  
• August 2009: 115,123
  
• Increase of 24%

Computer Users

• August 2008: 21,989
  
• August 2009: 26,131
• Increase of 19%

Program Attendance

• August 2008: 2,430
  
• August 2009: 3,597
• Increase of 48%

Reference Questions

• August 2008: 15,588
  
• August 2009: 20,314
  
• Increase of 30%

Directional Questions

• August 2008: 16,534
• July 2008: 23,641
• Increase of 43%

These amazing gains continue to reflect the hard work of an extremely dedicated staff. I cannot thank staff enough for the continuing hard work that you all do every day.

Sincerely,

Mike VC

TLA District 8 Fall Meeting

Greetings,

As many of you know, the TLA District 8 Fall Meeting is fast approaching. It will be held Saturday, October 17th at the University of Houston at Sugarland. Here is more information from Linda Stevens, the Chair of District 8:

Registration for the TLA District 8 Fall Meeting at the University of Houston Sugar Land is now available online through the link below.

http://www.txla.org/html/dist/distmtg.html

This year’s meeting, “Don’t Miss the Bus: 21^st Century Library Skills” will begin with registration from 7:30 – 8:30, followed by the general session, with YA and women’s fiction and mystery author Susan McBride. Morning presentations will be from 9:45 – 10:45 and 11:00 – 12:00, then lunch and the final group of presentations from 1:00 – 2:00. We have speakers from a wide variety of libraries presenting on a wide variety of topics.

If you are planning to attend or present at the event, please inform your manager and the Chief of Central Services by Wednesday, September 23.

Thank you,

Mike VC

Compliment for Telephone Reference! Great Job!

Greetings,

In recognition of outstanding work from our TR staff, I wanted to share this nice message that Alice Depot, manager of the Hillendahl Neighborhood Library, sent to me:

Hi, Just wanted to let you know what a good job your crew in telephone reference is doing. Yesterday, I went to Apria Healthcare. The lady who helped me came into the room saying, You’re a Librarian. I just love that telephone reference you all have. I know the number by heart I call it so much…713-236-1313. Any questions anyone has I just call 713-236-1313 and get my answer right away. It’s great! So of course I said thank you, I’m glad you like the service. So, kudos to your staff. Alice

Keep up the great work! It is truly appreciated!

Thanks,

Mike VC

Staff Appreciation and September Birthday Party

Greetings,

We will be hosting a monthly Staff Appreciation/Birthday in September. Here are the details:

Tuesday, September 29 from 2:00PM-4:00 PM in Program Place

Hiawatha and Yolanda are looking for volunteers to bring chips, dips or refreshments to our festivity. I will be providing cake, plates, etc. Please email Yolanda Anguiano if you would like to contribute.

There will be fun, food, gaming, and music. I'm looking forward to playing some Rock Band. Who wants to join me?

Thanks,

Mike VC

Meetings w/ Chief

Greetings,

It is extremely important to me that I continue to hold meetings with all staff. I learn a great deal from those meetings. Unfortunately, with my new role at Marston, I am going to have to work out a different day and time to hold these meetings. Under the old scheme, those meetings would have been held today and yesterday. I am unfortunately not available during those times. I will be working on rescheduling for a regular day and time while I am serving in my dual capacity.

In the meantime, I want to encourage staff to come by or send me any ideas or suggestions they have for better serving customers or functioning more efficiently. I also want to let everyone know that we will be launching some staff appreciation initiatives (low-cost, of course) in the coming weeks in order to show folks how much they are appreciated. Along those lines, any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated as well.

As always, thanks for all your commitment and hard work,

Mike VC

PLA Reminder

Greetings,

As related in e-mails from Paty Bustamante and Regina Stemmer while I was out last week, I just wanted to quickly remind anyone interested in attending PLA in Portland needs to have their Supplemental Questionaire submited to me before close of business today (open of business tomorrow also works). Tomorrow afternoon, the Chiefs will be working with the Deputy Director of Public Services to make decisions on these forms. If you have any questions, please call or e-mail me; I will be checking e-mail and have my Blackberry (713.303.1974) this evening.

Thanks,

Mike VC

Weekly Schedule

Greetings,

Although things may change as projects and issues arise, here is a rough draft of my schedule for the next several months:

• Monday-Tuesday - Marston
• Wednesday-Thursday - Central
• Friday - Marston

I do have a phone in my office at Marston. It is the same number as my office at Central (832.393.1371). I am able to pick it up no matter which office I am in.

Thanks,

Mike Van Campen