The construction on our new THINKspot space at the Red Mountain Library began in December. We are merging two large meeting rooms into a collaborative workspace/makerspace/digital media lab. Construction is on track to finish the first week of March. We are working on furniture and equipment purchases and plan to hire a person to coordinate the space.

The City changed phone systems in 2012 and the Library finally had to switch over to the new system in December. We are taking advantage of new features to answer phone calls to any location at any public service desk with an available phone. In other words, if the staff at our Express Library are both working with patrons and can’t answer a call, our Dobson location will answer. So far, most patrons haven’t even noticed that a call placed to one location is being answered somewhere else and the busier locations are noticing their phones are no longer ringing non-stop. We’ve even blocked internal numbers so transfers won’t display the staff number to keep patrons from getting those internal numbers and using them in the future. We are still testing, but it seeems that all calls are being answered in 4 rings or less. Eventually we will have just 1 phone number for the system. We’ve also streamlined our telephone tree.

We also have our e-commerce up and running after years (yes, years!) of back and forth with our IT dept. By the end of this week, patrons will be able to pay fees and fines online.