2006-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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a team In addition, the department takes approach by working collaboratively with other town Report of the departments such as school and police, to provide Mashpee Public Library direct services to town residents. As noted in the Cape Cod Times,Mashpee is one of the three towns on the Cape with the highest num- To the Honorable Board of Selectmen and the Citizens of the Town of Mashpee: j ber of housing foreclosures.As a result,calls for infor- mation regarding financial and housing help have Last year, Mashpee was the sixth busiest library steadily come in to the department, and referrals are of the 36 CLAMS library locations. The five libraries made to existing resources. above are considerably larger facilities with much The Human Services Department continued to larger staffing levels. Circulation for FY 2006 totaled >` provide help with Fuel Assistance applications.in cal- 128,467 items, which was an increase of 6 % more transactions over the previous year. The library had endar year 2006. In addition, the Falmouth Service Center reported assisting over 200 households in 10,101 registered cardholders, 5,943 people attended Mashpee through their food pantry, prompting the library programs, and 105,196 patrons visited the Service Center to request town funding from Mashpee library last year. for the first time. At May Town Meeting,voters agreed to increase An intern from Boston University provided part the Children's Librarian, Janet Burke, to full-time. time counseling services for academic year 2006-2007 Janet began her new hours in July and we can already in exchange for clinical supervision in earning a see a difference. We wanted to develop a closer con- Master's Degree in Social Work. nection with the school libraries. While working half- The department awarded its third annual Thanks- time, Janet had concentrated on working with the for-Giving humanitarian awards to an individual and librarian and teachers at Coombs School. She has been business for its inspired contributions to the Mashpee able to double her outreach, adding Quashnet School community. and Mashpee High School to her visits. Participation in library Summer Reading programs increased 32% The department continued to oversee contracts and 249 children signed up for reading activities. with 17 human service agencies providing a variety of essential services to Mashpee residents. Janet met several times with Kari LaPointe, the new Mashpee High School librarian. She has pro- . Human Services department including Mashpee There were several initiatives sponsored by the moted services available to teens at the public library,Unplugged in March 2006. The Human Service including My Own Cafe and Novelist. My Own Cafe Council, made up of providers in the Mashpee com- is a free website for teens sponsored by the munity, organized and facilitated a training for police Southeastern Massachusetts Regional Library System. officers in November of 2006 for the first time and Teens can register and chat online about books,music received positive feedback from all those who partici- and other topics of interest to them. Novelist: a Guide pated. to Fiction,is a database for all readers used to find out more about authors, favorite titles or read alike titles. The Human Services Department coordinator It includes resources for teachers like book talks,read- continued to receive clinical consultation at no cost ing lists, book discussion guides and author biogra- from an experienced clinician who is chair of the phies. Access to Novelist is through the library web- Human Services Committee. And finally, the Human site (www.ci.mashpee.ma.us).From the library home- Services Department worked closely with the Human Services Committee on budget and policy decisions. page, select the link for additional services. Entering your Mashpee library card number will take you directly into Novelist. We did not have a close relationship with the High School so we are particularly excited at estab- lishing a connection there. High School staff can be very useful in getting the message to teens that we have items of interest for them at the public library. 111