Sunnyside Book Drive

Robyn Aguiar, Sunnyside



Sunnyside Branch Library, in partnership with Clovis Youth Employment Services, held a very successful book drive on June 22. Clovis raised approximately 2,500 books to donate to the kids in the Fancher Creek and Temperance Kutner School Districts.


About 1,000 books were given out and over 154 individuals, including 90 families, were served. Each child received three books and had great fun with face painting, games and delicious food. We also had a library card registration table for those in need of a card. Way to go Clovis and Sunnyside!

Fish Tale

Terry Sterling, Community Libraries East

With the help of Bear Mountain staff, Mr. R.B. Gray was able to access photographic proof of his big catch on a recent Alaskan fishing trip. Mr. Gray is a regular patron and shared his appreciation with this very nice letter.

"This letter is to express my appreciation for the Bear Mountain Library in Squaw Valley. This is a very diverse community representing a full range in needs, including a library that is managed in a very professional manner, yet reflects friendliness and a welcome atmosphere that encourages patrons to take advantage of the wide range of services offered.

It is clean, well maintained and orderly at all times. Assistance with computers, location and ordering of books is very efficient and conducted in a 'customer comes first' manner. Please accept my sincere thanks."

Way to go, Bear Mountain!

More Information Available About Floating Collections

Kathleen Smith, Headquarters

As previously announced, members of the Floating Collections Project Team will be visiting your branch this summer to educate staff about the what, when, where and how of the floating collection system. We also want to collect your questions and concerns about the new system to help implement it smoothly and efficiently for audio visual materials in January 2011.

In the meantime, you can learn more about floating collections as follows:

Review the powerpoint presentation on floating collections available on the front page of the intranet at http://intra.fresnolibrary.org/. Look under the New! section at the bottom of the page.

Tune in to an archived one-hour webinar called "Floating Collections: A Model for Change". The presenters are fellows from the 2009 Eureka! Leadership Institute. To find out more about the webinar, see: http://eurekaleadership.org/webinar/07-29-2010.

Attend the floating collections workshop being held at the Annual Library Meeting in October.

Wi-Fi Policy

Jill Potter, Support Services

With Wi-Fi, or Wireless Internet Access for laptops, now being offered at many of our branches, and more to come, it is becoming increasingly important to be aware of the Library’s policies and procedures concerning the Public’s use of the service and the support offered to Patrons by library staff. Above all, the most important thing to remember is that Library Staff is not responsible for the patron’s laptops! With so many different brands, models, operating systems, internet browsers, etc, there is no way to be able to address each and every possible scenario that may come up when trying to access the Wi-Fi. Even the most tech savvy staff person could potentially click on the wrong thing while trying to help configure a wireless setup for a patron and be accused of causing damage to the patron’s laptop. Woodward Park has addressed this issue in the patron information sheet and it states, “You are responsible for understanding how to configure your own equipment. There is no staff available to assist with setting up wireless internet on your computer device or to do any troubleshooting. Please consult your user's manual, or contact your hardware or software provider for any additional assistance. “

Currently, Fowler and Mendota have SJVLS supported Wi-Fi and Woodward, Fig Garden, Auberry, Politi, and Reedley have Wi-Fi compliments of their Friends of the Library groups. With the different Wi-Fi setups, come different instructions for the patrons. The Wi-Fi branches maintained by SJVLS have a consistent set of policies and instructions. These are available for the public as a handout at the branches.

The branches with the Wi-Fi connections paid for by the Friends will be different according to which carrier is used for the service. Each of those branches should have a set of instructions that specifically address how to log on to the wireless network at that location. If assistance is needed in the creation of this set of instructions, please contact Tech Support.

Please read the Wireless Internet Access Policy for Fresno County Public Library here:

NOYS: Duplicate Copies

Some of you may have noticed that you are receiving duplicate copies of materials selected by youth services.  This is not a mistake and something we did intentionally as some of the popular materials can go out of print quickly.  You will most likely see this with popular books, video games and strategy guides.  If you have questions, please contact youth services.

Scorecard Summary

Roberta Barton, Headquarters

Task teams working on continuous updating of the library's Balanced Scorecard have prepared a handy summary of progress to date to provide staff with a snapshot overview of this important planning document. Please take a few minutes to read the summary now posted on our Intranet in the "Planning" section.

Chavez Commemoration

Ken Loders, Central

From mid March to early April, the Library’s Cesar Chavez Commemoration helped to inform and educate library patrons about Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement. With the help of dedicated staff, the commemoration offered a youth art contest, documentary showings, a lunch and learn event, branch displays, handouts, and a “widget” feature on the library website to advertise books and websites.

Jennifer Kish of Youth Services coordinated the Cesar Chavez Youth Art Contest., The contest encouraged students to learn about Cesar Chavez, tap into their imaginations and creativity, and create their own works of art. 58 students participated, and 88 people attended the art opening at Arte Americas. The room with the artwork was packed with students, families and their friends. It was also filled with camera flashes as students posed in front of their artwork for family photographs.

Cesar Chavez and Workers’ Rights: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow was the name of the Lunch & Learn event in the Fresno County Plaza Ballroom. The panel presentation featured two veterans of the Farm Worker Movement plus a member of SEIU Local 521 Latino Caucus. SEIU Local 521 provided free lunches. 68 people attended the event.

Speakers (left to right) Ernest Velazquez, Herminia Guitron, Venancio Gaona and moderator Ken Loders are pictured here. The speakers were well received by their attentive audience and responded to numerous audience questions following their presentations.

Displays are an important part of the commemoration, and Linda Aragon provided branches with materials for these displays. She also created a display at Central that included a PC that continuously played a documentary. Handouts were sent to all branches to enhance displays.

Thanks again to Linda Aragon and Jennifer Kish for all of their work. Thank you to Jeanne Johnson for her support. And a special thank you to Amy Johnson of Graphics and Michael Criado of Duplicating.

Deferred Compensation Plan

Cindy Freeland, Headquarters

Employees interested in enrolling in the County's Deferred Compensation Plan administered by Great West may enroll online or by calling customer service at (877) 693-2457. The County's Great West representative, Sherri Panttaja, can be contacted at 303-8304 or sherri.panttaja@gwrs.com to schedule an appointment.

Go Green with Duplex Printing

Jill Potter, Support Services

Duplex Printing (the automatic printing on both sides of a sheet of paper) can be done at many branches.  This saves paper and for some documents it makes the layout more appealing.  See the attached document for instructions as well as a list of the branches and printers that have this capability.

Basketeers

Terrance McArthur, Politi

What better day than Earth Day to explore pine needle basketry, re-using natural materials? Politi Branch Library held a basketry workshop the evening of Thursday, April 22 that attracted 9 beginning basketeers: pre-teens and seniors, women and men. Children’s Librarian Terrance Mc Arthur showed a variety of examples and taught the basic stitches and techniques. The basketmakers had such a good time coiling and stitching their projects that they plan to come back on Thursdays to learn and practice new methods, share their progress, and have fun together!

Career News

Bernice Kao, Headquarters

Bernice Kao, our own Career Coach received an autographed copy from Jane Jerrard, author of the ALA Edition, Special Reports: Crisis in Employment; A Librarian’s Guide to helping Job Seekers, 2009. In exchange, Bernice granted another telephone interview with Ms. Jerrard for her second book on the same subject but aims at “consumers” instead of librarians. Bernice’s work in our Library was rated one of the top three for best practice in outreach job services. In fact, her resume guideline, flyers for Resume Makeover Clinic, Interview Clinic, and other collaborative programs with Workforce-Connection and California EDD are all included. One can use Google and get all the contents of the book.
Bernice will be looking forward to get the second interview for the second book.

NOYS: Virtual Homework Center

Good news! The children's and teen homework pages have merged into one virtual homework center. It's a one-stop shop for student help in grades K-12. Because we wanted to keep the content browsable, it focuses heavily on our databases and gives users just the best of the best of web links. Check it out by clicking on any homework link from our website, or going straight to www.fresnohomework.org.