Annual report of the Town of Hampton, New Hampshire

LANE MEMORIAL LIBRARY
A Year of Change
Service Changes
Have you visited the library lately? 1998 has been a year of changes
striving to serve the Town of Hampton to the best of our ability. Our biggest
accomplishment after 118 years of existence is the establishment of a Reference
Department in September. Bobb Menk was hired originally as our Internet
/Reference Librarian in 1996. This year, the Internet portion of his job is under
control and the Reference part now takes precedence. We already had two part
time staff with Masters Degrees doing some reference work and they became
the nucleus of the Department. Now, every day that we are open, there will be a
professional at the Reference Desk from 1 :00 p.m. to closing as Beverly, Bill
and I take turns with Bobb, Alice and Joanne S. In order to do this it was
necessary to juggle staff and duties and thus the change from two circulation
desks to one also occurred in September. In addition to Reference, Bobb is now
offering two computer classes to the public on alternating weeks, held on
Wednesday evenings from 8-9 p.m. Call Bobb to sign up for Web Browser
Basics or Basic Internet Searching.
The last service change occurred in December with a change in
circulation systems. Last year we learned that our previous vendor would no
longer support the system we had beyond February of 1999. Bill and Bobb spent
the rest of 1997 into 1998 investigating other vendors' products, and in
December of this year a new system was installed. Customers will notice an
increase in the speed of check ins and check outs,
and will receive an automatic
printout of each transaction. Those of you with Internet Access may also see the
library's catalog on the web. You can now search our holdings from the comfort
of your home! Genealogists from other parts of the country can now discover
what we have in the library and plan to actually visit us to use our materials.
Staff Changes
In February Library Assistant Megan Kilburn left us much to our
chagrin, for a full-time job with benefits. Sandra Kent was hired and brings
years of personnel experience and her warm friendliness to the Circulation
Desk. The start up of the Reference Department had us hiring Charlene Carliell
in September to assist in staffing the Circulation Desk. Children's Room
Assistant Mary Marshall moved out of commuting range in October and Kelly
Bucknam, a UNH student, was hired as her replacement.
Joan Kahl, longtime head of circulation, floored everyone with her announced
retirement date of December 31 st ! She will be missed by both staff and
customers, especially those to whom she delivers books in the Dearborn House.
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