Adam Fisher (Fairfield) and Julie Wirtz (Hamilton) are the May and June 2018 Employees of the Month.
Adam received three nominations:
Adam navigated the periodical issues (no pun intended) that occurred during and after the migration. He remained positive, stayed in communication, and got us back on track quickly. His hard work and big-picture thinking aren’t only exemplified in this instance. He shares ideas, creates programs, and serves as a dedicated team player!
Adam has been consistently positive and constructive throughout the migration process. He provided good feedback and raised questions I hadn’t considered.
The amount of work Adam has undertaken to fix the FFB magazines with the new system and get new issues in the hands of patrons has been staggering. With help from other FFB staff, he made sure they were finished as soon as possible.
Julie’s nominators wrote:
Julie went above and beyond the week of Migration. In one day we had 6 boxes of McNaughton’s delivered and she stamped and barcoded every single one, on top of running the hold list. I don’t know how she didn’t go crazy
Julie does great in her Grade 1 position and has recently learned the new task of processing McNaughton’s. Whenever Julie is done with her work, she is always looking for other ways to help and keep the library running smoothly. Thank you for taking on new responsibilities and working hard
Congratulations to both! They receive their choice of a $50 gift card or 4 extra hours of vacation.
Also nominated:
Sara Stapf
Sara has been my right hand through this entire migration. She attended many trainings, helped train other staff, and was an excellent point of contact for troubleshooting for staff. Sara is dependable, hardworking, and motivated. There is nothing she can’t do, or isn’t willing to try. Sara Stapf, you are a beautiful angel rock star fairy child, and I appreciate your hard work each and every day!
Sara has been great with figuring out how the new system works and helping others. She is patient, kind and helpful and is a great employee to have not only in times of change and hard work, but at all times.
Lucy Hayes
Lucy has been a tremendous help to me while I was creating magazine controls during the migration. I’d be at LAC, and I knew I could call her up or message her and she would run over to the FFB shelves and grab the magazine I was having trouble with so she could check on issue/volume info, or whatever else. She’s always super helpful, willing to step up and do whatever is needed, and her customer service skills are off the charts. Thanks so much for all your help, Lucy!!
Heidi Patterson
For her everyday professionalism and patience. More specifically for the amazing support she’s provided as part of the migration team. Heidi worked tirelessly toward understanding many different aspects of our move to Sirsi/Dynix on top of managing all of her other responsibilities to keep not only FFB but the whole system smooth sailing for our event calendar and much more!
Heidi has been such an amazing help with the migration to SirsiDynix. Every time we have a question, concern or request, she is right there to help us out – plus she is an excellent sounding board. She is wonderful at explaining how things work and why and never gets frustrated with our constant pestering. We would definitely be lost without her!
Heidi did more to support us through the migration than I think most of us realize! She’s been a superstar throughout this process, but she’s also so helpful with day to day needs. We really appreciate what she does for us and our patrons!
We would be absolutely lost without Heidi. She deserves all the accolades for her daily work, but she definitely deserves high praise for all the work she did during the migration. She helped me get a handle on the new system, as well as helped me get stuff set up and ready so I could train others. If she didn’t know the answer to my question (which was rare!), she would figure it out for me. Heidi – you’re the absolute best and I hope you know we all appreciate everything you do!!!
Sarah Hedrick
Sarah deserves this nomination not just for breaking up a fight in the Teen Zone, but because she was a huge help to me during the migration. She was a runner for me while I was testing things at LAC (grabbing magazine off the shelf to check their info), and I relied heavily on her to double check all my handouts for clarity when I was training staff. Thanks for all you do, Sarah! You’re an awesome librarian.
Sarah is an amazing teen librarian who consistently has creative and innovative ideas/programs, who constantly tries to create a teen community across the branches. She is always game for a collaboration and has done a lot of work with me over at the Tech Center this past year. It is an honor to get to work with such a cool and creative teen librarian.
Caitlin Campbell
Caitlin is such a strong and dedicated librarian, and we are so lucky to have her here! I had the privilege to work a community event with her in May and it was wonderful to see her interact with the kids at Marshall Elementary. It is very clear that she is well loved by the Oxford community. I also want to commend her for her efforts in organizing this year’s Summer Reading program. She did the majority of the heavy lifting involved with Summer Reading this year, and did a great job communicating things to us in a clear and concise manor. Summer Reading, while fun, is always a semi-stressful situation but Caitlin really made it run smoothly this year. Thank you, Caitlin, for all you do for us here at the Lane!
Amanda Toth
Amanda took on a lot of back end work on periodical processing in WorkFlows and provided consistently useful feedback. She someone I can rely on for a frank opinion on how things affect patrons and reference staff.
Migration Team
They won’t be eligible as a group, but I couldn’t be more pleased at the effort and teamwork of Lisa Hires, Margaret Winstead, Heidi Patterson and Katrina Bate leading our move back to SirsiDynix. Each one of them made, and continues to make, critical contributions. They are the main reason things went so well. Arvind Kochar, Linsey Millilo, Jennifer Stapleton, Amy Numrich, Emmy Piatt and Fran Meyer were circulation leaders. They tested, trained and questioned, and suggested all the way through. Bravo and thanks to them, too.
Alice Ahrens-Radlinski
Alice is our fearless leader in circ! She worked tirelessly with this new system and was happy to guide us through the process.
Alice has an encyclopedic knowledge of circulation. She has taught me so much during my training period. Also, she has an excellent demeanor and a talent for communicating well with patrons and coworkers.
Alice has been so helpful to me while I’ve been learning the ropes here, and she works so hard! She’s been great at helping everyone through the Migration process, both staff and patrons. She’s clearly been working to make sure she knows absolutely everything about the new system, and is ready to answer any questions someone may have about it. She always has a positive attitude, and I know we’re in good hands when she’s here.
Alice is an absolute rock star! She is endlessly kind to and patient with both the patrons and her coworkers. She is an excellent teacher, and easily approachable with a question even if she’s busy doing something else; she always makes time to help whoever needs it. Her warm, friendly demeanor contributes to an inviting atmosphere, and I’ve witnessed people’s faces light up when they see her (additionally, on more than one occasion I’ve had a patron yell her name from the Drive-thru window because they simply had to say hello). I’m always excited to work a shift with Alice. She is often one of the highlights of my day. If anyone deserves Employee of the Month, it’s our amazing Alice.
Molly Ehrnschwender
Molly is absolutely the sweetest person! She always has a smile, and frequently appears at the circ desk when she notices that we need help…and we don’t even have to ask! My daughter came in for an activity and said Molly was super sweet and understanding about my granddaughter being shy. Also, she is a fantastic artist and makes the sandwich board look fabulous!!! I’m so glad she came to Fairfield!
Margaret Winstead
Margaret has been a rock for us at LAC during this migration. She deserves a little recognition.
Margaret has been a real “go to” as we adapt to Sirsi. She has already found a couple good searching techniques for me. She is also running a report so that I can keep up on our old system of boosting popular titles that have appeared on Wowbrary. She’s my first resource when confronted with something that “just doesn’t seem quite right”. And not only is she very helpful but is very nice about being interrupted in trying to figure out her own stuff. Thanks a bunch Margaret!!
Margaret has worked very hard during the migration, making sure things go as smooth as possible and catching errors.
Melissa Thompson
Missy is a wonderful team player. She often asks if there is anything she can do to help with Children’s Program Prep, which we all just love! Everyone is super friendly here at FFB, however; Missy stands out as someone who goes above and beyond being a hard worker. She has helped me countless times when I am not sure where things are or what certain procedures are, since I am still kind of new to this location. Missy makes both patrons and staff feel welcome and is a joy to work with.
Lisa Hires
Lisa is my “go to” person when I have questions about Symphony. She has also worked hard to find errors during and after the migration.
Mollie Sweeney
Became our newest Circ Team member at a very challenging time, and has learned, been patient and done great learning a new job and new computer system at the same time.
Michaela Perkins
Has been working hard on magazines. It’s a huge job and she’s been plugging away at getting things back into good shape. We’re thankful for her dedication and the attention to detail that she puts into her work here!