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Facilities supervisor outlines custodial operations, staffing and equipment during board training
Summary
Facility Services Supervisor Joseph Holcomb briefed trustees on caretakers' duties, staffing levels, preventative maintenance, partnerships with schools for work experience and a new cleaning machine that increases efficiency.
Joseph Holcomb, the library system’s facility services supervisor, briefed trustees during board training on March 18 about custodial and maintenance operations across the Davenport Public Library branches.
Holcomb described the caretaking team and clerks: full-time and part-time caretakers and clerks who handle daily cleaning, shelving, preventive maintenance checks, monthly fire-extinguisher and equipment inspections, groundskeeping, snow response and minor repairs. He said about 40% of library staff are part time and described efforts to recognize part-time employees through city HR changes to service-award rules.
Holcomb detailed vendor and contractor relationships, routine preventive-maintenance tasks and recordkeeping (building reports and work requests). He explained the department’s role in customer service — supporting staff and patrons with tasks such as lifting materials or covering breaks — and emphasized that in-house maintenance preserves institutional knowledge and service quality.
Demonstration equipment and partnerships Holcomb showed trustees a multiuse cleaning machine — a pressure-wash/chemical-apply/wet-vac unit (referred to in discussion as a "kayak" unit) — that speeds restroom and hard-surface cleaning and recovers liquids to a mop sink. He said the equipment increases efficiency and can reduce labor hours compared with adding staff time.
Holcomb also noted the library’s partnership with Davenport schools for a work-experience program: students (often from special-education tracks) assist with routine cleaning tasks at branches, which benefits both the students and the library.
Trustees thanked Holcomb and several board members emphasized that in-house custodial capacity preserves quality and institutional knowledge; they expressed support for maintaining these positions given the observed benefits.
