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College Hill Library, Front Range Community College, Westminster CO Site Visit Notes 7-22-08 Bill Cochran • The building has 76,000 gross square feet, with the PL on the first floor and the FRCC on the second floor. • The IT unit is the only shared staffing; all other functions are separate, including cataloging, as the PL uses the Dewey Decimal System and FRCC uses the Library of Congress Classification System • There are 5,600 students enrolled, representing 2,500 FTE • The PL circulates 1.5 million items per year; FRCC circulates 150,000 • The population of the PL service jurisdiction is 105,000 • FRCC provides 9 FTE staff and additional work study students • The PL provides 46 FTE, although many are part-time • There are no unions among either staff • Functional groups from each institution started meeting with each other about 1 ½ years before opening • The decision was made to use the PL Dynix system, rather than the FRCC CARL system at startup • The City had been trying to build a branch in the neighborhood for some time, with a bond issue for it being defeated in the early 1990s • The building opened in 1998, having been built by the state/FRCC, with some contribution from the City of Westminster • FRCC owns the building and leases space to the City for the PL • Public parking is an ongoing problem • Setting hours of operation is very complicated and is heavily negotiated due to the differing nature of public library services hours and academic calendars, as well as the fact that both floors have to be staffed when the Library is open • There are optional quarterly public service meetings for training and communication; ½ hour potluck followed by an hour of training, then a half hour business meeting • It is difficult to have two separate chains of command and not having a single manager has created some significant problems in the past • Positives include more resources and services are available, the community and its families come into contact with the campus, and there is more interaction than would be the case without the combined facility • There is no shared mission or vision statement • It is difficult to have an identity, even including on the homepage; each part has to be on its parent institution’s homepage, but it has to have a separate one, also, for database access • The two parties had extensive negotiations to develop a joint Internet Use Policy • Fines paid on the second floor go to FRCC and those paid downstairs go to the PL • FRCC large fines and lost materials go to the State of Colorado’s collection agency; PL fines and lost materials go to PL’s Unique Management collection agency