Galion Library's circulation remains "steady"

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

Galion Pub­lic Library Direc­tor Vicki Eck­en­rod pro­vided the Board of Trustees with a news arti­cle dur­ing the Board’s Feb. 18 meet­ing. The arti­cle was about a library being built in Texas that will have no books—everything will be dig­i­tal. Eck­en­rod said she found the story inter­est­ing and shows the direc­tion that libraries are heading.

In the director’s report, Eck­en­rod went over the Jan­u­ary cir­cu­la­tion sta­tis­tics. She said 14,475 items were checked out, includ­ing more than 500 e-books, a big increase; 606 items were added to the cat­a­log. The most requested items last year were “The Hunger Games” and “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

Total patron count for Jan­u­ary was 10,817, which Eck­en­rod said is “steady.” She also showed a graph show­ing that GPL had the best cir­cu­la­tion in the county, com­pared to the other libraries. She also reported that the cat­a­log is being accessed more from home via phones and tablets than in-house.

Food For Fines is doing well; it con­tin­ues through Feb­ru­ary. Chil­dren and teen pro­grams con­tinue to do well also, and Heather Tiffany, the new children’s librar­ian, has tran­si­tioned into her posi­tion well. “I think Heather loves it here. She seems really pleased with the library,” Eck­en­rod commented.

In other news, Eck­en­rod reported that the boiler coil has come in and will be fixed soon. The building’s secu­rity sys­tem is still hav­ing prob­lems and the com­pany is not sure what is wrong. The whole sys­tem may need to be rewired and she asked the Board what they would like her to do. The trustees agreed that there would be no cost to the library if Eck­en­rod checked into it to see what rewiring would entail and the costs would be.

The recent ven­ti­la­tion clean­ing at the library was dis­cussed dur­ing last month’s meet­ing. Con­cern was raised that mate­r­ial was still com­ing out of the vents. At the Feb­ru­ary meet­ing, Eck­en­rod told the Board that she talked to the clean­ing com­pany. She reported that it was only residue from the sealant com­ing out of the vents, which is appar­ently a prob­lem with all old sys­tems because the sealant was applied on the inside of the vents instead of the outside.

Pro­gram Coor­di­na­tor Valerie Waite is still work­ing but will leave GPL soon. Eck­en­rod said the last day for appli­ca­tions was Feb. 16. Nine appli­ca­tions were received and she will be inter­view­ing soon.

In new busi­ness, Eck­en­rod reported that she was recently approached by Way­craft Employ­ment Ser­vices about using the library as a work site for one of its employ­ees, who would per­form tasks like wip­ing down shelves. The trustees agreed that this would be a great benefit.

Also, the trustees passed a motion to approve two pur­chases: A lap­top for Tiffany to use at her desk and for school vis­its as needed, and a desk­top com­puter to replace one that crashed.

The Galion Pub­lic Library Board of Trustees’ next meet­ing is to be announced, as it may need to be resched­uled due to conflicts.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Feb 19 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.