Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for July 2012

Date:  July 18, 2012, 8:00 a.m.

Attendees:  Janet Brooks-Chair,  Karen Marriott, Heidi Johnson, Pauline Rodriguez-Atkins

Review of Action Items All

• Purchases from 46th Star Press-Karen reported that there is no need to alert her or Lloyd to purchases made from 46th Star Press, which is owned by an MLS employee’s family. Lloyd can run an end of the year report to find out what was purchased.
• Any other purchases or services from MLS employees should be forwarded to Karen.

Department Highlights All

• Selectors are adding Playaways to the remaining libraries and extensions for FY13.
• Technical Processing department statistics show an increase of about 12% in the total number of materials handled in Technical Processing during FY12 as compared to FY11. The total number of materials received in FY12 was 268,864 items.
• Heidi is working on a draft of trouble shooting guidelines for libraries to use when verifying customers’ complaints about defects with audio players. She hopes to share this information shortly.

Administration Updates Karen

• Karen referenced an email from Linda Hyams/Security Manager regarding situations where customers have a large amount of items out long overdue and have attempted to sell library items for personal profit. Jimmy developed a program called MLS Detective, which helps them identify customers. A letter is sent to customers requesting they return items or be charged with theft. Staff is reminded that they too will appear on these lists if they have more than $500 worth of items long overdue. They are asked to return items before a letter is sent to them.
• Finance Committee of the Commission is scheduled to approve the final budget on August 6th.
• Capital projects are included in the July Commission packet for reference.
• Oklahoma City sent an agreement to keep the Almonte site open. The library’s legal counsel is reviewing the agreement.
• Administration is working on JN’s building plan to ready for the architect, yet to be determined.
• BE is scheduled to close on August 8 for meter replacements.
• Administration policy and procedure committee is reviewing and updating as necessary the Administrative Directives on the Intranet. The directives that are already on the Intranet are current.
• David McCullough is the Literary Voices speaker for this next year. The date of the dinner is April 18th.

ILS Discussion All

• Karen highlighted some items from the ILS Task Force minutes.
• She indicated that managers could check out the sites referenced in the minutes.
• Demos from several companies are planned and Karen invites managers to attend as appropriate.

Misc. All

• Training
• Janet received several requests from staff to offer collection training. Given that many of our processes will change with the new ILS, Janet asked if we should do philosophical training of certain processes, such as weeding, customer comments, etc. instead of the procedural training we’ve done in the past.
• Managers decided that since we don’t know the timeline for the new ILS, we should go ahead and plan for some training. Janet will work with Stacy identifying some dates that we might offer a 2-day workshop for new employees only and get back with Managers.
• Routings
• Some items are being routed to TP and CAT with incorrect routing identification. Routing to TP, CAT, ILL should be to the specific department and should not include Maintenance Center or Service Center.
• AMPs
• Heidi needs to make some new generic artwork for the audio media players and asked what should be on the label to identify this format. It was decided to use “Audio Player” to stay consistent with what is on the barcode label.
• Transfers
• Pauline asked for a review of the boxes of transfers stored at CAT. Janet indicated that she was not aware of many boxes of transfers being sent. Since the meeting, Janet discovered that in the previous 3 weeks, 4 boxes of transfers were sent. None were for NW. Janet will ask MSL staff to limit the number of transfers for now. Boxes of transfers can be held in the basement until it is determined when the Almonte site will open.
• Almonte
• Karen asked managers to consider ways to streamline the processing of transfers for Almonte.
• Managers considered how much time it took to cover the stamps the libraries place inside or on material. It was determined that several libraries limit the stamping of their material and these will be given priority for transfers over other libraries. Janet will discuss with MSL staff.
• Janet asked about the need to start periodical subscriptions for Almonte. Karen said Susan may want to alert the Ebsco rep. that we will be adding this site later,
  but no dates have been determined. MSL staff may be able to arrange locally to get current titles if we are not able to arrange to start a subscription for the site later.
• Heidi will consider ordering the special AV labels for Almonte now, as it takes about 4 weeks to have these printed.

Department Updates All

• Managers discussed how best to convey department updates/activities at meetings and in minutes.  It was decided that the following information can be shared:
• Information that has an immediate impact on workflow and ongoing issues
• Items that impact individual departments, which may not impact others.
• Statistics which are not readily available elsewhere.
• Vendor issues
• Visits from outside the department or system.
• It was decided that managers will highlight important items in their updates that are to be placed in a highlighted area near the beginning of the minutes. Managers should bold any items they want highlighted, so the person putting the minutes together can easily identify them.
• Further discussion about the meetings ensued. The Manager chairing the meeting will call for agenda items by Thursday the week before the meeting is scheduled. If no agenda items are submitted by Tuesday, the meeting may be cancelled.
• It was decided that when a meeting is cancelled, managers will still supply updates to the person chairing the meeting for placement on the Intranet.

Cataloging/Interlibrary Loan Pauline

• 25,529 titles were cataloged in FY12. This is a 12% increase over FY11; and a total increase of 21% from FY10. 240,401 barcode labels were printed, a jump of 15% from FY11. Average turnaround time for new titles from receipt in Cataloging to return to Technical Processing was 11 working days. This is partly due to the learning curve for the new Catalogers hired in August 2011. Average turnaround time for the last three months of FY12 was 1 working day.
• ILL received 10,038 requests from MLS customers to borrow materials from other libraries. 93% of the requests were forwarded to lending libraries, and 81% of those forwarded were filled. Books are the most commonly requested materials, followed by video recordings. Requests for videos are filled less commonly than for any other format. Videos make up 31% of requests received, but 51% of requests not filled.
• The Education coordinator at the Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno contacted Pauline, asking to update their ILL agreement with MLS so that it conforms to the one with the Federal Transfer Center. The agreement has been finalized and signed.
• The Trans-Amigos courier service has merged with the MALA/KCMLIN (Mid-America Library Alliance/Kansas City Metropolitan Library and Information Network) service, effective July 1. This will add about 150 more libraries to our courier network. It will have a definite impact on the number of materials routed via courier vs. other services. It is possible that the cost of participating in TAE might rise as a
  result, but it will be well worth it. ILL staff are looking forward to the prospect of a wider courier net.
• Lori Mullooly visited CAT and ILL on May 31. She learned about how materials are handled and how MSL’s work integrates with those of the two departments. She asked good questions and indicated that she enjoyed the visit.
• UCO student Lynn Weatherford visited Cataloging on June 28 to complete her field evaluation for her coursework. She was very interested and impressed with MLS’s operations.
• The OLA Information Matrix campers visited the Service Center on July 16. They toured CAT, ILL, Tech Processing, and Books by Mail. Everyone enjoyed seeing them.
• The update of the lists of library contacts for ILL issues and replacement AV materials has been completed.
• Congratulations to Ursula, who will be attending the Commission meeting on July 19 to receive her 30 year service certificate.
• Congratulations also to Mary, who became Mrs. Dean Long on June 16.
• Thanks to Heidi Johnson for arranging fire extinguisher training with the Oklahoma City Fire Department. Several staff members attended all or part of the training on May 14, thus completing their safety training.
• The annual CAT/ILL staff appreciation event was held on May 30. Each staff member received an award recognizing her/his achievement in a particular area, along with an engraved book paperweight. Staff were asked to name things that they appreciated about their coworkers, and the comments were compiled into folders which were presented to each person.

Technical Processing Update Heidi

• Department statistics show an increase of about 12% in the total number of materials handled in Technical Processing during FY12 as compared to FY11. The total number of materials received in FY12 was 268,864 items. The overall average for daily runs was 915 items during FY12 as compared to 791 items in FY11. The average daily run for July so far is 905 items per day. The processors are still processing all “rush” materials (materials that are on customer waiting list) the same day the barcodes are received from Cataloging; they are processing non-rush materials from July 10 which is from the run six working days ago. Study guides and dated materials like continuations are also processed the same day barcodes are received in TP.
• During FY12, TP received a daily average of 48 boxes of materials a day. The daily average in July so far is 67 boxes.
• Kim Macarty, Technical Processor, has turned in her resignation. Her last day with the System will be July 31, 2012. Heidi has contacted HUM to open the position to current employees of MLS.
• Heidi attended the Safety Committee meeting on June 19 at NW. It was great seeing the new library for the first time.
• TP staff are working on completing their Hazard Communication safety training for the current quarter.
• TP held its annual Staff Appreciation Pizza party on June 21, 2012. Staff continue to look forward to this event.
• The bindery materials have been sent to the bindery (HF Group), received back, reprocessed and returned to the owning libraries. There was one book belonging to BI which went missing at the bindery; staff there is still looking for it. If it cannot be located, the bindery will provide reimbursement for the book. Other than that, there was one book which had the wrong title when it came back; TP returned it to the bindery to be corrected.
• Heidi has sent a follow-up e-mail to Todd Olberding’s office inquiring about the status of emergency exit signage information for the Service Center. Last update received stated that the company Todd contacted has forwarded a draft to Maintenance to mark the correct exit locations on the map. A definite completion date was not given.
• The OKC Fire Dept. came by the Service Center on May 14 to conduct a fire extinguisher safety class. Staff very much appreciated the hands-on portion when everyone had a chance to use the extinguisher and put out a fire. Thanks you to Patrick Williams and the staff in Maintenance who made sure fire extinguishers were available for use during the demonstration.
• TP continues to receive a steady trickle of malfunctioning Playaway units from the libraries. However, there are still some being sent to TP which are not defective. Heidi is working on a draft of trouble shooting guidelines for libraries to use when verifying customers’ complaints about defects with audio players. She hopes to share this information shortly.
• Lori from MSL visited TP on May 9 to learn about the dept.’s organization and workflow. She made several valuable connections between her work in MSL and the work performed in TP.
• On June 20, Carol Jasak, who works at the Historical Society, came by the dept. to see Big Bin in action. She is also a MLiS student at OU, writing a paper on automated storage systems in libraries; she was referred to the Service Center by former MLS employee Debra Spindle. Carol later let Heidi know that she received an “A” on her paper and her instructor was particularly impressed with the local (MLS) information presented.
• The additional transfer table purchased about a year ago has already developed problems with three of its four wheels. The rubber wheels are sliding sideways off the metal hub, making it impossible to steer the table. Jack from Southwest Solutions has been in contact with the manufacturer to correct the problem. Since the wheels were custom made, it will take about 4-6 weeks before a new set can be manufactured.
• The Service Center had another visit from the Matrix Camp group on Monday, July 16, 2012. Many campers in the three groups taking the tour of Tech Processing had excellent questions. As usual, Big Bin and the automated sorter generated the most interest and comments.

Materials Selection Update Janet

• FY12 finished with several large lists during the last half of June. Janet apologized for the size of the lists. The distribution of unencumbered continuations funds was
  delayed due to Janet’s unforeseen extended absence in May and June. Janet was not able to finalize her funds as early as she normally does, which also added to the volume at the last of the fiscal year.
• List sizes for the first 2 lists of FY13 are more average in size: List 1 was 5534 items and List 2 was 4789 items
• Selectors are adding Playaways to the remaining libraries and extensions for FY13. All selectors are helping with titles for the opening day collection at this time.
• MSL is also making plans for adding materials to the Almonte site. They have a nice selection of best sellers, general nonfiction, children’s, and some AV stored in the MSL basement that may work at this site. Much of the materials are withdrawals from other libraries that will need to be transferred. Most of the AV is new copies, some from the Sony settlement and some from additional copies we purchased when we knew a title was going on moratorium. Karen added funds to FY13 to let us start purchasing new titles.
• Janet asked MSL staff to consider MSL processes and begin thinking about which ones should be priorities in a new ILS system. MSL staff plan to brainstorm some ideas at the July staff meeting.
• Selectors continue to conduct library visits. NW was added to the schedule, with an annual visit in July and a 6-month in January. In light of NW’s recent opening, the July 2012 visit was a collection review this year.

Next meeting is scheduled for August 16th at the Service Center. Heidi will chair.