The Glendale Public Library is undergoing a staffing reorganization due to the loss of 12.5 FTEs that won’t be filled. Staff is being cross-trained to do circulation functions and circulation clerks are being trained to do some lightweight reference. Things are looking up; at the beginning of the new fiscal year we will be hiring 7 additional library pages. Our volunteers have been wonderful, but the additional pages will allow us to shelf-read and other things that need to be done that we couldn’t get to. We’ll also be hiring 4 to 5 security guards as they were let go at the end of last fiscal due to budget cuts.
We’re excited that the Polaris e-commerce is working now and when you make it easy people will pay their fines and fees. Also we’ve added donation links to the online catalog to take donations from library users. These donations will be used to provide programming, equipment and etc. not covered by the library’s budget.
We’re looking forward to summer reading as this will be the first year that we will be taking part in the Maricopa County Library District summer reading program. We’ve already quite a few pre-register for the adult summer reading program of which we had to give up several years ago when the budget got tight.
Four staff will be attending ALA this year thanks to State-Grants-in-Aid.