Telephone Reference - November 30th

The Julia Ideson Building will be closed on Friday, November 30th at 1 p.m. We have been asked to cover Telephone Reference that afternoon. I'll put the two TR desks on that day's schedule.

Thanks!
John

Mini-Grant

COMS has awarded Scenic Woods a mini-grant for $2000 for environmental books for children. Woo-hoo!

I have a copy of our entry if anyone would like to see it.

John

Johnson Controls on the Weekend

By 10:00 o'clcock it was warm and humid in the public area of the Library, so I decided to call Johnson Controls. I first called the number listed on our directory for the weekend, 31358, but was directed to call 1-866-862-0459, which is not the number listed. After being put on hold for about 5 minutes a Jamelle, in Milwaukee, Wisconsisn answered and asked for our "site ID number." I told her that I did not know it, but after spelling Scenic Woods for her a few times she started looking. That found a few other locations in Texas I'd never heard of, but no Scenic Woods. I suggested she try looking for Houston Public, and she asked if we were at 500 McKinney. Now that she had the right client listing it was only a couple more minutes before she found us and was able to tell me that our "site ID # is 00135499." She then took down the information that it was very warm and humid and getting warmer. She gave me a "service request number" of 4081027387, and assured me that we would hear from someone within the hour.

By the way, the temperature in Milwaukee Saturday morning was in the low 30's. Everyone here at the time thought that sounded wonderful!

Doug Weiskopf

HPL/HCPL Shared Card

This was on the Remote Reference blog and I thought it should be on ours as well:

HPL and the County are starting a Shared Card program/ Currently, the BOOK RETURN service and application for One Card are only available at Stella Link, Park Place, Bracewell and Hillendahl, but more branches will be added in the next weeks.
Customers can choose to have one library card number for both library systems, but with separate accounts at either system. If an existing County customer applies for a library card at HPL, they will not be issued a new library card number, they will retain their HCPL number and card, and vice-versa.
Collections and pick-up locations are NOT interchangeable. If a "One Card" customer needs to place a hold for an HPL item, they will have to pick it up at an HPL location (of course the Clear Lake Freeman Branch is an exception). Conversely, if the customer needs to place a hold on an HCPL item, they will have to place it on hold using HCPL's catalog and selecting an HCPL branch for pick-up.
Please note: While the Book Return service and "One Card" applications are available only at the branches listed above, customers with a "One Card" may request we place holds for them at any location, including TR.

Congratulations, Heather!

Please join me in officially welcoming Heather DeHoyos to Scenic Woods. She is now officially and permanently our children's Senior Library Service Specialist!

John

New look

I thought I'd try a new look for our blog. Let me know how you like it!

John

It's November

It's November and with the new month, come a crop of announcements:

• The phone greeting trial ended on October 31st. You're welcome to continue using it, or a shortened version (my suggestion is replacing "HPL--Scenic Woods Branch" with "Scenic Woods Regional Library").
• The Fall Festival held on October 31st was a howling success! Nearly 100 children attended! Special thanks go to Heather DeHoyos for all her hard work in organizing this event and to Sydney Colwell, Shaneka Dotson, Michelle King, Esther Reyes, Ana Rivera, Franklin Smith and everyone else who worked so hard for this very successful program!
• The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's "Whimsical Wearables" exhibit arrives here on Monday, November 5th. Please see Pamela for more information about this interesting exhibit!
• At least for the next week, we will need volunteers to work reference Wednesday and Thursday evenings. There are also still some opportunities to work Sundays in November and December. Please see me.

Thank you all for all your help, hard work and cooperation!
John