2015-11-10 Infrastructure & Services Committee Agenda

INFRASTRUCTURE & SERVICES COMMITTEE MEETING REPORT                             10 NOVEMBER 2015


Overall library membership has decreased slightly with 33,526 people being library members as
at 30 Sept 2015 compared to 36,556 at 30 Sept 2014.

 Library Loans
                          1st Quarter        1st Quarter
 Facility                       14/15              15/16      Change
 Noosaville Library           111,800            105,032       -6.05%
 Cooroy Library                43,371             39,049       -9.97%
 Mobile Library                13,277             10,851      -18.27%
 Grand Total                  168,448            154,932       -8.02%

The Library collection currently holds 96,386 items which is a growth of 3.2% over the past six
months as the collections’ staff address the gaps brought about through de-amalgamation.

Lending of physical library items continues to decline with an overall reduction of 13,536 items
being lent in the Jul - Sep 2015 quarter compared to the same quarter in 2014. The reduction is
primarily due to the instability of the mobile library service, a shift to online e-resource usage and
the impact of the downsized collection which occurred following the separation of the Noosa
collection from Sunshine Coast. The impact of the downsized collection can be seen in the
increase in requests for items not held by Noosa Library Service which has resulted in a 37%
increase in inter-library loan requests to other Council library services.

The reduction in physical loans is somewhat balanced by the increased usage of online content
including e-books and online information databases. For example loans of e-book content
continue to grow with 4,251 items lent in the Jul-Sep 2015 quarter through our main platforms.
Collections’ staff are continuing to address the demand for e-content and have now introduced
an e-video platform “Beamafilm” which streams documentaries and independent films.

Attendance at workshops and events remains high with 3,779 people attending a library program
in the Jul–Sep 2015 quarter. The program aims to meet community and corporate priorities and
supports the intellectual, educational and creative development across the region.

The launch of the Nao “Robots for Everyone” program has been especially popular with
additional demonstrations and coding workshops scheduled to meet demand. Library staff were
also successful in winning a kit of small “Ozobot” robots which enable primary school children to
undertake coding development through the use of colours.

Space constraint issues within Noosaville Library continue to generate user conflict as evidenced
by ongoing complaints direct to staff and through the media. The conflict is triggered through
having inadequate space for different user groups eg children and people studying; and noise
issues which are exacerbated by the building design. At this stage there are no quiet spaces
within the library and staff are investigating options to improve this.

3.    People
The current fulltime staffing equivalence for Libraries is 23.94 permanent establishment staff plus
an FTE of 1.4 in casual staffing. In addition they are supported by the two staff in Libraries &
Galleries management.
Phase two of the Libraries’ Service Review will consider the staffing aspect of libraries. In the
meantime temporary arrangements are in place to fill key positions.
As part of Libraries succession planning, an existing staff member has been selected to
commence training to obtain a Heavy Combination license to drive the mobile library. This will
ensure that we have adequate trained staff to maintain service delivery.
Volunteers are an important part of libraries’ service delivery and there are currently 227 active
volunteers working within Noosaville and Cooroy Libraries, undertaking a broad range of duties.

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