Staff Meeting Notes 24 June 2021

• Locations opening email 21 June 2021 1:11pm release 
• HPL webpage updated please use the “all locations” for information 
• Temps still be taken 
• Looking forward to 1 JULY for next directives 
• Updates will come forward from Admin 
• No more quarantine, shelving can occur anytime 
• Leave area in back of the research tables indicated by stanchions for books to be scanned/shelved carts 
• City Directories in the House - If someone wants to make an appointment to use the city directories post 1964, we can open the house with one of us being there for that appointment.  Appointments can be set during service hours for an hour at a time
• Let Irene / Sue know if someone wants to make an appointment, we will add it to Communico and put the appt on the daily schedule  
• Fogle West Digitization Project – FamilySearch missionaries will be setting up time to come and pick up the first set week of 5 July 2021.  
• Documents will be kept in the CLA TEAMS folder > General > FamilySearch 
• Becky and Sue will work together with the Missionaries, Mike and Ruth Boyer from College Station including documents managing the project CLA Staff TEAM > General  > FamilySearch 
• SK to check FamilySearch for the digitization of the Fogle West book already exist Harris County section of collection 
• Where will the archival collection reside after digitization?
• Leave files upstairs until decisions are made after digitization – custody of collection / development policy - further discussion needed
• Images digitization - held at FamilySearch.  HPL can get copies if desired 
• UPDATED Professional Development spreadsheet – TEAMS CLA Staff Team > Professional Development > FY22  https://houstonlibrary.libguides.com/HPL-TMS  
• CE Contact List – Issue Escalation TEAMS CLA Staff Team > CE Documents > CE Contact List 6.21.21 >information on issue escalation path and Angela’s direct contact.  
• The easiest way to contact Angela is via TEAMS chat. 
• Copies are placed at the telephone desk in the staff workroom, and in the red emergency notebook at the reference desk.  
• When the library is closing to the public, remember to check that the upstairs is empty including the restrooms, and the lights are turned off. 
• Also when the library is closing to the public, remember to check that the downstairs restrooms are empty, along with the stacks. 
• Make sure you put your customer question / phone reference statistics on the spreadsheet.  There are many blank spaces still. 
• Outreach available at the Holocaust Museum 10 July and 14 Aug.  Sue will send email.
• Mitch moving through Tennessee on into Texas with conversion project.  Yee Haw!   
• Becky is in the P’s in the Family Histories with conversation project.  Only 10 more letters to go! 
• Alabama, International are already converted

In Attendance via TEAMS: Sue Kaufman, Melissa Hayes, Becky Grimes, Rodney Sam, Irene Walters, Mitch Clendening, Angela Kent

SK 29 June 2021

Meeting Notes 6/10/21

• Bottled water at desk on shift
• Staff can have bottled water at reference desk, as long as it has a lid and is drunk out of sight - either ducking behind desk or going behind the wall to manager's office.
• Volunteer projects
• Volunteers may be coming back soon
• If you have an idea for a volunteer project, write up a job description and duties and give to Steven by July 15th
• Outreach opportunities
• The Holocaust Museum of Houston is having three story times this summer and we will have a table with intergenerational activities. Dates are 6/12, 7/10 and 8/14.
• Juneteenth Festival in Fourth Ward on June 19th. Sue and Angela will staff a table.
• SK and MH presented case study of customer who wanted non-genealogy material
• Customers and staff can register for Clayton Library's virtual programming at houstonlibrary.org. Go to the Events tab and use filters, such as date, keyword, and event type. You can also help customers find non-genealogy programs, like computer classes.

Meeting notes 6/3/2021

 

                                                MEETING NOTES 6/3/2021   THURSDAY

 

AGENDA ( TEAMS  FOLDER) 

SUMMARY: 

*HPL to go location service documents are available at the Reference desk and at the 2611 phone for reference if customers ask.  Do not give copies to customers.

*Wireless and Mobile printing issues with Clayton Library and potentially other Library pages not working 

UPDATE: situation has been resolved, wireless and mobile printing has been restored.

*Family History books and Microfilm use customer service requests. Plan is to schedule backup upstairs and phone together so people can go upstairs to use microfilm and browse family history books. Ideas for having limited hours where people could use the second floor. Bring volunteers back to schedule upstairs for certain hours.  

UPDATE: Stanchions have been removed, sign has been placed on the desk telling people if they need help to ask at the reference desk. Customers can go upstairs.  At this time we will not schedule desk time up there.  Feel free to take work up there at anytime and sit there, especially if you are on back-up phone.  

* Bringing more chairs to help manage seating on the floor when the capacity increases while being aware of social distancing. Opening seating and tables on right side of floor to create more space.

UPDATE: Melissa has counted the chairs.  She will move the chairs from under the stairs and there will be 75 chairs for seating on the first floor.  That will allow for 5 people to be up stairs IF we reach 50% capacity which is 80 people in the library.  She will leave the signs at the tables for social distancing as of now until we hear differently from Administration.  If customers want to sit at those seats with the signs, they can.  Social distancing is a personal choice.

UPDATE: The temperature table has been removed and consolitated to a smaller table.  Supplies are on the lower shelves under the book sale books.  Temperatures are still being taken, again until we hear differently from Administration.  

* Job Duty documents are due by June 15^th reminder

*Only shelve when not scheduled to work on the desk and be sure to add shelving time on work schedule

* Reminder to go downtown and get work badges if needed - we can go together if you prefer.  

*Staff department updates

Looking for my babies: Freedmen searching for Family

 Ari Wilkins recently gave the program Looking for my babies: Freedmen searching for Family, about African Americans desperately searching for their missing family members in the wake of Emancipation by using resources such as the Freedmen's Bureau and newspapers. Excerpts from her handout are below.

The Freedmen's Bureau worked to reunite families by writing letters and inquiring within communities. They also helped to arrange transportation to reunite relatives. 

For decades following the Civil War, newspapers had specialized columns for former slaves searching for family. Rich in genealogical detail, these ads describe the missing relative and applicant, aliases, where and when the relative was last seen, a history of slave ownership, and migration patterns.

South Carolina Leader (Charleston, SC), 8 December 1866. Digital image http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 3 June 2021.

Look for columns like "Information Wanted," "Lost Friends," and "Last Seen." While they may be in mainstream newspapers, also search in African American newspapers like Black Republican (New Orleans), Colored Tennessean (Nashville), South Carolina Leader (Charleston), Free Man's Press (Galveston), Colored American (Augusta), and Colored Citizen (Cincinnati), as well as church newspapers like Christian Recorder (Philadelphia), Southwestern Christian Advocate (New Orleans), and Star of Zion (Charlotte).

Supplemental genealogical resources include the Slave Narratives, census records, vital records and the Periodical Source Index (PERSI).

JO