Collection Services & Development Archive

Tech Processing Update
The average daily run in August was 819 items, in September 859 items, and so far in October, 872 items. The dept. processed a total of 17,204 items in August, 18,032 in September, and as of Oct. 14, almost 8,000 items already. Technical Processing currently processes non-rush items from the run 2 days ago; also, the part-time MSD techs will start helping out with the processing of new items for a while. TP will try to keep up with the greatly increased workload to the best of staff’s abilities by utilizing all of their available resources.

In August, TP received an average of 47 boxes of materials a day, the same for September, and so far in October, an average of 58 boxes per day. Materials receipt has continued to increase for the months of August and September. After receiving two shipments with more than 100 boxes two days in a row in October, one right after not accepting deliveries due to Focus on Monday, Heidi is predicting another increase for the month of October, too. Thanks go to the MSD techs for helping in Technical Processing to unbox many of these materials; their aching backs are testimony as to just how many boxes.

Thanks to cooperation between IT, the Business Office, and Technical Processing, Metropolitan Library System now supplies B&T’s accounting dept. with automatically generated e-mailed check breakdowns for all payments to B&T’s 401 materials accounts. Hopefully this will improve postings of MLS’s payments to the correct invoices. All B&T accounts continue to be current as Heidi contacts the accounting dept. every month to have credit memos applied to open invoices. Ingram accounts continue to be current as well.

Materials Services Managers’ Meeting 

July 23, 2009; DN 3rd floor Director’s Conference Room

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

Guests: Kim Rickey/MSL, Aaron Killough/CAT

Technical Processing Update - Heidi

The average daily run in June was 652 items and so far in July, 587 items. The dept. processed a total of 14,347 items in June. Technical Processing continues to be current on all of its processing. 

Cataloging Update - Pauline

Meetings and training attended:

Jana – Staff Recognition dinner meeting, March 24

Aaron – Staff Association meeting, March 26

Ursula – Generational Diversity workshop, April 9

Cataloging’s March output of barcode labels printed was 14,350, with a daily average of 652. The total is almost identical to February, but the daily average is about 13% less. Overall, barcode labels printed for FY09 continue to run 6% ahead of FY08. 1,716 new titles were cataloged, for a daily average of 78. The number of titles cataloged remains 5% ahead of FY08; the overall number of titles handled is about 4% higher.

Aaron has been selected for Leadership MLS III, and attended his first meeting on April 8.

Pauline attended the Library Managers’ meeting at BE on March 25. She showed examples of proposed catalog records for downloadable audio titles. The new records have not been implemented yet. It appears that all problems have been resolved, but Pauline has not had time for a final test.

Pauline attended the Culture Survey Results meeting at BI on March 30.

Lisa and Kristin assisted in MSL the weeks of March 23 and 30.

Pauline taught a segment of the Collection Management workshop on April 8.

Cataloging held a staff meeting on April 14 to discuss the results of the Culture Survey. Staff proposed several good ideas for responding to the information.

Pauline has begun meeting individually with Cataloging staff to discuss ideas and plans for moving to the Service Center.

Cataloging Update - Pauline
Meetings and training attended:

Aaron – SA meeting, January 22

Cataloging’s January output of barcode labels printed was 13,533, with a daily average of 712. 1575 new titles were cataloged, for a daily average of 83. Monthly totals and averages have dropped each month since October’s high, but generally exceed those of the first three months of the fiscal year.

Lisa and Kristin have been assisting Capitol Hill Library with shelving during the last month; they have also assisted Tech Processing with unboxing.

Jim Welch has installed the new mlsDigiMarc application on the catalogers’ computers, so that they will be able to download records for Overdrive materials. Pauline has been working with the application; she and Jimmy are still working to debug it.

Pauline visited Ralph Ellison Library on January 26 to evaluate the Black Heritage Collection. She determined that much reclassification is needed, and met with Michael Owens and Kim Ventrella to establish a plan.

RE is sending 1 shelf per week of the BHC to Cataloging. Pauline reviews the materials and reclassifies as needed; the Cataloging Technicians print new barcodes; and the MSD Technicians reprocess the items. Items are returned to RE without BHC location code or stickers, so that staff can decide whether to maintain them in the BHC.

Cataloging has begun doing their daily Service Links with the Capitol Hill staff. The two groups rotate leadership of the links. CAT staff go down to CH each morning for the link. It seems to have increased interest in the link process.

Thanks to Heidi, CAT staff have received a listing of the new group abbreviations used by MSL, and are able to order the correct number of barcodes for the correct agencies when the abbreviations appear on workslips.

CAT staff are working to find a way to make sure that added copies of titles ordered for the Family Talk collection are marked correctly.

Pauline has been assisting Phil Tolbert from CH with interviews for a half-time circulation clerk.