Materials Services Division Updates for April 2013

Materials Services Department Highlights

• Average turnaround time for new titles in Cataloging in March was 1 working day; average for the FY13 is 1.2 working days. This includes only time that materials were in Cataloging; it does not include time in Technical Processing.
• In February, the average turnaround time for borrowing materials in ILL was 12 calendar days. This includes only time from the date requests are sent out from ILL to the date that they are received in ILL; it does not include routing time between MLS libraries and ILL.
• The average daily run for March was 889 items per day, for a total of 18,450 items in March. The average for April so far is 776 items per day. The processors are current on processing all materials, rush and non-rush materials. Study guides and dated materials like continuations are also current.
• During March, TP received a daily average of 52 boxes of materials a day, for a total of 1096 boxes in March. The daily average in April so far is 46 boxes.
• The bindery is supposed to pick up the next group of bindery materials from TP during the week of April 29.
• During March, Materials Selection ordered 2381 titles and 17277 items. In the first three weeks of April, there were 1927 titles and 14997 items ordered.
• In March, Materials Selection received 1415 suggestions to purchase titles and regretted 587 suggestions. In the first three weeks of April, 1034 suggestions were received. Most of the suggestions received were for books. Since the beginning of 2013, Materials Selection received 8954 suggestions for print materials.
• During March, Materials Selection staff spent over 110 hours working with transfers and gifts in the basement. In March, Materials Selection received 171 boxes of withdrawals and gifts and sent 43 boxes to the Friends, 33 boxes of transfers to CAT, 5 boxes of gifts to CAT and 4 boxes of replacement transfers to CAT.

Cataloging/Interlibrary Loan Update

• 2,747 new titles were cataloged during March. This brings the total for FY13 to 22,255 titles cataloged, including 6,268 e-media titles, with 75% of the fiscal year elapsed. For comparison, 18,608 titles were cataloged during the first
  75% of FY12; the complete total for FY12 was 25,529 titles cataloged, with 1,746 e-media titles.
• 21,737 barcode labels were printed in March. This includes 19,269 labels for materials added to the MLS collections, and 2,468 labels used for reprocessing materials. 197,473 barcode labels have been printed in the first nine months of FY13, compared to 181,154 during the same period last fiscal year. This represents an increase of 8% over last fiscal year.
• During March, the average ratio of copies to titles was 3.84 copies per title, bringing the average for FY13 to 4.47 copies per title.
• ILL received 808 requests from MLS customers to borrow materials from other libraries in March, forwarded 97% to lending libraries, and borrowed 687 items for MLS customers, for a fill rate of 85% of all requests received.
• ILL staff evaluated 1,978 requests to lend MLS materials to other libraries in March, and were able to lend 821 materials, for a rate of 42% of requests filled.
• Lisa Heinrich, Cataloging Technician, has resigned her position; her last day was April 17. Pauline has not yet made a decision as to when the position might be opened.
• Pauline worked with Kay Bauman to establish standardized timelines for ILL services when a library is closed temporarily. Kay sent out a timeline to all correspondents that included this information. Thanks to Karen for helping facilitate this.
• ILL has begun seeing more “duplicate” requests from MLS customers. A duplicate request occurs when a customer submits a second request for a material before s/he has received the material or an unfilled notice from an earlier request. ILL will not submit a second request for a customer until all lenders receiving the first request have responded. If a customer has borrowed a material, ILL will not request it again until the borrowed copy has been returned. Since duplicates have become a significant problem, they are being included on the monthly unfilled report that is sent to each library.
• Implementation of RDA standards continues. Pauline is working to set up training sessions for Cataloging staff.
• Cataloging is now recalling materials for correction. Pauline anticipates that the backlog of requests should be completed no later than the end of May.
• Pauline attended OLA Conference on April 4 and 5. She presented a session on talking to public services staff about RDA, based partly on her presentation to the Connect Forum group. She attended several sessions that presented relevant information, particularly one comparing the SkyRiver bibliographic utility to OCLC, and one on OCLC’s new WorldShare ILL product. She also met with representatives from Amigos to discuss the Trans-Amigos courier service and ideas for improving it.
• Jenny, Alice, Clyde, Mary, and Ursula each attended OLA Conference for one day. All returned with good information, ideas, and questions.
• A joint Cataloging/ILL staff attended a staff meeting on April 10. Staff who had attended the OLA conference each shared some of the information that they had learned at the conference, followed by a group discussion.
• Cataloging has printed test barcode labels for video media players, using the media code VMP. No problems occurred.

Technical Processing Update

• Baker & Taylor’s and Ingram’s accounts continue to be current.
• John Rahhal has prepared the bid packages for book jacket covers. Samples from prospective vendors should arrive by the middle of May.
• Seven applicants for the new Data Entry position in TP took the test; three of them scored sufficiently to be called back for interviews with Heidi and Kristin in TP. The selected applicant is Taylor Embrey and she will start on April 29.
• Laurie Sundborg, Chief Operating Officer, and Kim Johnson, Chief Innovation Officer, from Tulsa City-County Library System, came to OKC for Legislative Day and made arrangements to stop by the Service Center to observe the automated sorter in action. Apparently Tulsa is considering adding small sorters to some of their branch libraries soon.
• Quite a few staff members from TP are scheduled to participate in the Heart Walk this coming weekend.
• TP has started to work some overtime again to finish transferring materials to AL. The Processors have finished reprocessing the Easy/Reader/Tween books and have now started on adult materials again. About half of the materials have been done. Unless there are more materials being sent, TP expects to finish the project within the next couple of weeks.

Materials Selection Update

Library Visits

• During March, Selectors did an annual visit to ED and HR.
• In April, Selectors visited to MC and NP.
• In May, Selectors are scheduled for visits to SO and LU.

One-one-One Staff Meetings

• In March, Janet held one-on-one meetings with Technicians to discuss workflow issues and help them set priorities.

Staff

• Lori Mullooly’s last day in MSL is May 17th. She and her family are moving to NY.
• The full time MSL Tech position is opened. Janet hopes to have applicants tested, scheduled for interviews by the end of April and the new person in place by the end of May.
• Lessa Keller-Kenton, the part-time tech will be increasing her hours for a several weeks to help keep up with the workload during the end of the fiscal year crunch.
• Materials Selection staff are planning their staff recognition lunch for May 17th. Location is yet to be determined.

Meetings/Workshops

• Melissa and Janet attended OLA in Ardmore on April 4.
• Ruby volunteered to help Heidi/DVS with the packets for the Heartwalk.
• Lisa is scheduled to attend the Staff Association meeting on April 25.
• Staff attended some of the health and wellness workshops.
• Janet is scheduled to attend the adult services retreat on May 1.