Bear Creek Branch Narrative December 1992

Harris County Public Library BEAR CREEK _ Branch Narrative _ DECEMBER 1993 _ Month, Year The primary focus of December was to sort and box the Bear Creek collection. This was accomplished by Dec. 23rd. Along with this task the staff also went through all the boxes of snags and repairs and mended, slipped, or discarded accordingly. The remaining books that were water damaged by the tornado and found on the floor of the sorting room were also counted and discarded. As was estimated, only 5% of the book collection was totally lost. The microfiched collection was checked carefully for damage. This tedious task took several weeks with many staff members working on the project. The telephone and college catalog collections were totally lost as they were on the top shelves of the cabinets. There were several individual fiche lost from a variety of periodicals. A list was generated by the Adult Specialist and sent in for cost estimates. The majority of the Bear Creek furniture and equipment was eventually found, sorted and packed into the front area of the book¬ mobile department. Staff members took this opportunity to go through boxes containing the contents of their desks . Library cards that had not been entered completely before the tornado were now fully processed. On December 4th, the Bear Creek-Bookmobile stop started at the Bear Creek parking lot. The bookmobile will be at this stop on Fridays from 10-4 PM. Publicity was distributed to the surrounding branches and through news releases. Over 800 books were checked out on the 4th. The bookmobile is staffed with 2 Bear Creek staff members and a book¬ mobile driver. The three Fridays during December the staff encountered an enormous number of books being returned. This has made a midday van run to the site to pick up returns necessary. This also gives the staff a chance to have books brought out they are running low on which is usually beginning readers, picture books and adult fiction. The following Fridays after the 4th saw circulations of 400 and 900 respectively. Reserves are averaging about 8 per week with new high demand titles being asked for most of the time. At this time only a few new cards are being made. The public is appreciative of the Friday stop and seem to be accepting the fact that for more in-depth research oriented material they will need to go to the surrounding branches. For nearly 2 weeks daily van runs had to be made to the Precinct 3 Westside Service Center which had offered to accept our returned books. Literally thousands of books were returned to this site. By the end of December the number of books being returned there had dwindled to just a few. The staff has handled the stress of ongoing changes and upheaval remarkably well. They have remained a close knit group that works together Signature of Branch or Bookmobile Librarian In your narrative summarize this month’s employee activities and honors, building maintenance problems, community changes affecting adult services in the library, adult programs given, collection development in the adult and young adult areas, and library usage. August 1990