Meeting Notes from 8/2015

Members Present: 

Jeff Robin, Sandy Farmer, Shammy Gill, Theodora Muokebe, Felicia Briscoe, Patrick Atkins, Edgar Fuentes, Djuina Hammett, Will Mayer, Emmanuel Merenini, Saima Kadir, Sue Kaufman, Rick Perales, and Chris Arrowood.

Topics Discussed:

1. Closing of Alief
1. Alief will be closing at the end of day August 22 for minor renovations. Alief's Passport Services will be moved to Robinson while Alief is being renovated. One of the proposals that is being discussed is chaning Robinson's hours to match Alief's hours. Approval was given by the Houston Passport Agency to move passport services. 
2. Djuina asked about ADA compliance in the study room where the passports would be processed at Robinson. 
3. Chris brought up his concerns regarding the programs that would be impacted if the hours were changed at Robinson. Help will be needed at Alief to weed the collection.
2. Public Computer Login
1. Patrick proposed having an agreement prior to logging in to the library's WiFi, similar to the agreement users currently see when using the library's public computer stations. Saima indicated that WiFi authentication is in the works, and she also pointed out that the text needs to be revised into bullet points, making it more user friendly. Patrick and Saima will be working on this project.
3. Welcome to HPL!
1. Saima mentioned that Sirsi Workflows and Library Aware could be used to generate new users lists for newly registered library card holders. Welcome back emails, We miss you emails, and emails for cards about to expire are other potential communications that could be sent out to customers. Text messaging was also a feature that customers have asked about that will be looked at.
2. Fred (not present) should look at the content of the emails. The text will need reviewing and approval (Communications?). And the question was brought up of who would be running the new users reports.
3. Sandy took the opportunity to ask Rick about a Minecraft server. Sara or Rebecca will be asked to help Sandy with drafting a project proposal outlining the return in investment.
4. Standardized Program Descriptions
1. Saima and her team go into Evanced and clean-up class/event descriptions. Oftentimes, there are different descriptions for Word classes, All caps, and misspellings are corrected. Djuina will work on this project.
2. Programming Department should be involved in this project.
3. Mango Languages is sometimes entered as language learning or computer classes, but both categories can be selected when entering them into Evanced.
5. Available Technology
1. Saima and her team look at the metadata on searches conducted on the HPL website, including searches for computer classes or things like "Kirkwood Library." In July alone, there were 3,000 searches on the library's website.
2. Staff and customers can access the list of available technology from the library's website (http://houstonlibrary.org/find-it/available-technology)
3. Some of the weaknesses on the events calendar on the website was also discussed, including the limited number of programs it shows, old programs no longer show up once they have occurred, and it takes 6 hours for event edits to show up on the website. Saima is hoping to have a vendor create a product for us.
4. NL Managers are asked to identify 5-6 people to work on this task. Kallie, Sara and Rebecca will be asked to participate. Edgar and Will have also volunteered to help out.
6. Service and Maintain HPL Equipment
1. Vendors will sometimes ask staff to assist when they come out to troubleshoot. Emmanuel argued that we should not allow vendors to do the job they are being paid to do; to hold them accountable for the services they are paid to provide.
2. If you communicate with a vendor, please CC the IT (Digital Strategies) Department. If you are having issues with Coin Copiers, please email IT to document the issues. 

Open Discussion:

1. If library locations have dirty mouse pads, please get rid of them; and if there are any track ball mice at library locations, IT can replace them with optical mice.
2. John Middleton has asked what projects the Service Innovation Team has started & completed; what projects have been started but not finished; and what projects have been started but are no longer used. a. Onda will inherit the iPads project from Sandy.