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Winterbourne Library Users’ Committee Meeting
Tuesday 15 January 2008 |
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Present: Anne Dunmur, Mary Powell, Cllr Diane Marriott, Pat Hares, Margaret Bates, Chris Seabridge, Gabrielle Suddell, Michael Duffy. |
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Contributions from the Public: None |
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Apologies: Olive Allen, Jenny Wellman, David Fletcher |
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Minutes of 23 October 2007
Anne wanted to know if a date had been set for the next meeting about the Cultural Olympiad but no date available |
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Matters Arising: None |
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Librarian’s Report
A new Senior Library Assistant has now been appointed, Roxanne Lewington, who will start her 28 hour post on the 28 January (for an interim she has been working 12 hours at Winterbourne since mid-November).
One of the highlights last quarter was the Libraries make a Noise Day which was very well received, especially the Winterbourne Mummers who certainly managed to live up to making a noise!
New to libraries are ‘Premium’ DVDs, which are latest DVDs available from the day they are released. They are £3/week and as they are in high demand they cannot be renewed or reserved until they revert to ‘Standard’ loan after 56 days.
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7. |
Performance Report
Comparing the quarterly statistics, July to September 07 with the same quarter in 2006 showed a small decrease of 1.3% in total book issues. The biggest drop was for children’s books and is possibly due to the fact that St Michael’s class visits are no longer primarily a book exchange but a library experience and book loans are optional.
Audio Visual Statistics saw big increases as well as drops. Spoken Word was up by an incredible 111%, DVDs also saw an increase whereas videos [which are being phased out] and games [which are no longer available at Winterbourne] saw obvious dramatic decreases.
There were some healthy increases in numbers attending holiday activities, with the new drop-in format being popular with parents and children. The pre-school story time is also steadily increasing its numbers which is great to see.
The use of PCs saw a big fall of 37%. We now longer get the East European guest workers that we had in the past but we are not sure why that is. Some may have gone back to their own country due to an improved economic climate at home whilst others may have found other, more conveniently located, venues that offer internet access. And some will undoubtedly have saved enough to buy their own laptops. |
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Report on Standards
In December all South Gloucestershire libraries carried out a survey to see how long it takes on average for a customer to be served.
Our Public Library Standard was ‘to serve customers within 3 minutes’. The survey showed that most customers were served within a few seconds and the longest wait on the survey day was 35 seconds. We are now looking to improve the standard ‘to serve customers within 1 minute’. Michael invited comments and some felt that it could work against us to reduce the time to be served to such a short time period. Concerns were expressed that people might complain more frequently if the standard was not met possibly during times of staff shortages.
Overall it was good to see that the present standard was far exceeded by the actual practice.
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9. |
Services to children
Michael referred to the report by the Children’s Librarian, Wendy Nicholls, and highlighted the success of the Bookstart initiative to get more children enjoying books and more parents reading with their children. The Summer Reading Game in Summer 2007 was also a great success with more than 4000 children participating and many positive comments were received from parents.
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10. |
Fees and Charges
There are a few changes to the fees and charges planed for 2008/2009. Amongst them is a small increase for overdue books from 15p to 20p (or 8p to 10 for concessions).DVDs and Computer Games also see a small increase. Charges for children’s activities (not involving entertainers) on the other hand have been dropped and most of them are now run on a drop–in basis rather than a structured and set time slot.
Anne commented that our fees and charges seemed pretty fair and on the whole were quite low.
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AOB
Michael explained that 2008 (starting in March) was designated nationally as the National Year of Reading and that all libraries were actively participating in this celebration of books and reading with events and displays throughout the year. Chris asked if it would be possible to have a calendar of events displaying all the themes, activities and events for each library. Michael thought this was an excellent idea and will look into it.
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Date of next meeting: 15 April at 7.30pm |
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Dates of future meetings:
15 April 2008
15 July 2008
14 October 2008 (AGM)
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