Access Services Minutes - January 16, 2018

Outcomes: To discuss topics/tasks related to Access staff to ensure that staff and members have a consistent experience across the system.

Welcome 

Risa welcomed the group and congratulated Kiley Ingram on her promotion to the AM III position at Edmond. With her promotion, Access Managers in the north region have a person to contact if they have questions or concerns about Access Services as well as sitting in on in-person Access interviews. Risa will be available to Access Managers in the west region when Janeal takes her leave of absence and will support the west region Access interviews.

FYI

Withdrawals

Heidi Port has confirmed that libraries can use a sharpie to strike through the bar code in lieu of using the withdrawn/discard stamp. If done correctly, this could prevent withdrawn items from being returned to the library and being scanned back in. It also keeps the materials in excellent condition for resale by the friends. This method may also be more efficient when withdrawing AV items.

ACTION ITEM: After discussion it was decided that the following procedures would be used during withdrawals by the listed library and the results (staff input, and time spent on withdrawals) will be discussed at the next AM meeting:

Barcode strikeout on AV materials only - AL, DN, MC, and NW

           Barcode strikeout on all items- BE, BI, CO, DC, and WA

           Control group (no change)- ED, RE, SO, and VI.

Bed Bug Books

Curtis Ray (MTC) has several materials that have been treated by the book oven that still contains evidence of pest damage. Managers can email him if they want to use these materials to train staff on what to look for when inspecting books for pest damage. Risa will be working on updating the Pests in the Library document so that it is inclusive of best practices and specific procedures for handling pest-damaged material.

Claims Never Had

There have been instances when a location places a Claims Never Had on an item after staff members at another location have marked an item as damaged. When determining the appropriate course of action for a customer with an outstanding item on their account, staff notes can provide the proper context.

ACTION ITEM: Staff are encouraged to look for patron notes before marking items as a Claims Never Had.

ONECards

A number of ONECard accounts do not have an address attached. Account information for ONECard accounts is provided by the Oklahoma City Public School district, and there are several students accounts that do not have a permanent address. These accounts are valid as is and do not need to be updated. Since there is no contact information on the account, when items go to lost on the account there is no means of informing the account holder. This has been considered by administration and is one of the costs of the ONECard program. This cost will be considered when the future of the ONECard program is discussed by the relevant parties.

Great Courses Series

The Great Courses DVDs are sometimes processed in audio book cases. This is the most efficient and cost-effective means of packaging items with more than 6 DVDs.

ACTION ITEM: Even though they are in audiobook cases, they are shelved in DVD with the other DVDs.

Unfilled Holds

Occasionally, items pulled to fulfill a hold will not actually satisfy the hold. This is possibly a glitch in CARL.X and documentation is needed before the problem is reported to TLC.

ACTION ITEM: When scanning in holds, if the item does not produce a hold slip and the item still has a hold pending in CARL.X, report the incident to your supervisor or Risa Sargent @DN. Do not cancel the hold.

Discussion items

Holds on magazines

We have the ability to allow customers to place holds on magazines. Access Managers agreed that this is a worthwhile service to provide the community. The group discussed the best processes for offering this service. Some of the suggestions included using routing envelopes to transfer the holds, attaching hold stickers to the colored binders already in use, and using book tape on the spines to give it a surface that hold stickers can be affixed. It is not known how the sorter would affect these methods.

ACTION ITEM: A work group led by Kiley Ingram (ED) consisting of Tricia Andrews (CL), Bridget Williams (DN), and Jennifer Adkisson (RE) will discuss best practices for magazine processing and make recommendations to standardize processing as well as a procedure to process magazines for holds.

Scheduling

Access Managers discussed how they balance the needs of the library with the limitations present at each location. Risa provided each location with circulation statistics from CARL.X and occupancy statistics from the library analyst. After examining the statistics in small groups, the managers discerned trends that might be helpful in determining staffing needs. Some managers noticed trends in the data that could require staffing adjustments. For some, the data confirmed their scheduling priorities. Within the small groups, managers discussed issues that they had in making schedules, setting rotations, and handling time off requests. The group noted that they independently arrived at very similar practices concerning scheduling. There seems to be a consensus that set scheduling with rotating nights and weekends both meets library needs and provides an equitable distribution of labor amongst the staff.

In discussion, Risa reminded the group that the statistics provided were for a small snapshot in time and should not be used to make sweeping statements about the scheduling needs for any given location. Trends over time in the statistics would help provide foundation for discussion with their local managers about scheduling for the business needs of the library.

ACTION ITEM: Access Managers can add desk schedules to a folder in the shared OneDrive. Through this shared data, managers can identify best practices for their location. If you add a schedule to the folder, please include explanation for reading the schedule.

Training Opportunities

Meghan led a brief discussion among the Access Managers on how they assess training needs and provide training opportunities for their staff. This will be a topic carried forward to future meetings.

2018 Priorities

Going forward, the Access Managers have the following questions that warrant further discussion:

• What will Engagement look like in the next year and how will that impact how Access functions?
• How will collection development be practiced?
• How are the staffing formulas for Access staff needed at each location determined and implemented?
• What are the specific job responsibilities for each position in Access?
• What are some best practices to encourage self-motivation among staff under the new service model?

These topics will assist in planning meetings over the next few months as well as give direction for discussions with the Regional Directors, Library Managers, and EPD.