Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for August 18, 2005

 August 18, 2005 

Capitol Hill Library

8:00 a.m. 

Present:  Janet Brooks, Heidi Johnson, Karen Marriott, Pauline Boyer Rodriguez 

Cataloging Update - Pauline 

• Labels 
• The number of barcode labels printed in July was a new all-time high for a single month.  On three different days, the run was over 1,000 labels; on three more, over 900.  August is somewhat slower; the run has still been over 1,000 labels on two days, but there have been no days on which it was over 900. 
• Pauline has placed an order for 30,000 blank labels from Reliance Barcode Solutions.  Their sample product was the best one tried, and the company has been very responsive to Cataloging’s needs.  The labels should arrive the first week of September; if they are acceptable, Pauline will place a larger order.  Reliance has promised a fourweek turnaround on future orders. 
• In the meantime, Cataloging is still working with labels from their former supplier.  The balance of May’s label order has finally been received.  The labels are still not good quality; there are perforations between labels, but they are not straight.  However, Cataloging now has enough labels in stock to be certain of not running out before the Reliance order is received. 
• Meetings/workshops attended: 
• Ursula – OLA GODORT, July 22 
• Jana – OLA Stress 2.0 workshop, July 28 
• Veronica, Paula – The Abilene Paradox lunch n’ learn, July 28 
• Aaron – True North, August 1 
• Pauline – Records Management Committee and part of Ad Team, August 3 
• Pauline, Jana, Aaron – OLA TSRT, August 5 
• Pauline – X Change, August 15 
• All staff members have attended meetings describing the new pension plan options. 
• All staff had the opportunity to attend orientation for wireless Internet access. 
• Between July 25 and August 5, Veronica spent about two hours a day helping process materials for Tech Processing.  Margaret and Laqueta devoted all their time to processing new materials during this time. Cataloging suspended recall of materials while Tech Processing was short staffed, since there was no one available to process them.  Now that Tech is getting caught up, Laqueta and Margaret have begun processing the backlog of recalled materials.  Whenthey are finished, Veronica and Paula will begin placing recalls again.  It will take a few weeks to work through the backlog of recalls that have already been requested. 
• Barcodes are being ordered for NW as materials arrive.  There have been no problems. Pauline has created basic guidelines for cataloging feature films DVDs, and Jana has started to learn to catalog them.  Aaron will start his training after she becomes proficient. 
• Todd visited Cataloging on August 8, to work on drawing a floor plan of the department’s current configuration. 
• Cataloging held a staff meeting on July 27, and worked on an exercise to flowchart the route of materials through the department.  Pauline will meet with smaller groups, based on job duties, to begin building more detailed charts.   

Materials Selection Update - Janet 

• Library Visits
• During July, Selectors completed a 6-month collection review of RE. 
• During August, Selectors are conducting 6-month collection reviews of DN and SO.   
• In September, they will do a 6-month review of BI and an annual review of MC. 
• Spotlight On 
• The updated Spotlight on Hispanic Americans has been forwarded to Teresa/PLA.  It should be up on the Internet the first of September. 
• MSL Help in TP 
• Kelly worked in Tech from August 3 to August 9th.   
• Denise helped out on August 4th all day 
• Christina on August 5th all day 
• Kim on August 8th all day.   
• All indicated that they enjoyed learning and doing something different, but were happy to get back “home” to MSL. 
• Endowment Grant 
• Selectors have submitted 3 sets of orders for the Endowment grant.   
• There are 3 more large orders scheduled to go out over the next 3 weeks. Then there will be one week with a smaller amount go out on List 10 on 9/8/05. 
• MSL Techs assist with Mail 
• Denise and Christina provided back up assistance for the Mail room on August 11th.   
• Denise is scheduled for another slot on August 18th. 
• CD Music 
• Julie and the Technicians are working hard to get all of the CDs unboxed and roughly arranged on the shelves.  Janet hopes to have the boxes removed by the end of September.
• Once CDs are unboxed, they will make an effort to get the CDs sorted better and start processing them again. 
• NW Orders
• Selectors are continuing to place orders and make transfers for NW. 
• Janet has submitted quite a number of orders since the first of FY.  She is trying to do small orders each week.
• DN staff have loaned us a few extra ranges of shelves in the compressed shelving. 
• Todd is in the process of ordering additional shelves to place in the ranges to increase our space.   
• Training
• Janet spent time with Lavetta at VI, giving her information about selection processes and schedules.   
• She also spent time with Julianna, the new librarian at VI, giving her feedback on weeding the reference collection and answer some of her collection maintenance questions. 
• Elizabeth trained two sessions of True North on August 1 and August 15th. 
• Janet and Ruby worked with Steve/OR on August 9th.  Janet gave him an overview of selection and some guidance on weeding.  Ruby showed him how to enter replacements. 
• Janet, Ruby and Susan attended the introduction to the wireless Internet on August 10th. 
• Kim and Janet are scheduled to attend the workshop, “Overcoming Barriers” on August 31st at WA. 
• Denise is scheduled to attend the “What’s that you Say” workshop on August 31st at MC. 
• MaC Manager 
• Janet met with Kim/MaC on August 17th.  She gave her an overview of MSL. 
• Meetings Attended 
• Elizabeth had her first Outstanding Service Award committee meeting on July 28th. 
• Janet taped a Read About It segment on August 10th. 
• Janet attended the Children’s Programmers meeting on August 10th. 
• All staff attended the pension meetings held on August 10th and August 12th.
• Janet attended the X-change meeting at BI on August 15th. 
• Janet will attend the Tech Support meeting on August 23rd. 
• Janet will attend the Commission meeting on August 25th. 

Technical Processing Update - Heidi 

• The runs have been on average 685 labels per day.  TP currently receives an average of about 47 boxes of materials a day.  
• Technical Processing is finally fully staffed again.  Juanita and Dana started on August 15 and their training is progressing nicely.  Heidi will still be helping with the processing of materials, especially AV materials, until the new processors are up to speed.  The oldest non-rush materials to be processed in TP at this time are from the August 15 run. 
• Technical Processing once again would like to thank Materials Selection, Cataloging, and especially the part-time MSD technicians who helped out during these last few weeks.  TP could not have done it without you.  Special thanks also to all the processors in TP who volunteered to work overtime to get the materials to our customers. 
• All TP staff have attended the scheduled pension meetings. 
• Heidi has been corresponding with a student from Alaska who will be moving to Oklahoma City and is interesting in voluntering 2-3 hours a week at a library.  She hopes to have this volunteer assist with processing uncataloged paperbacks. 
• This is all the update Heidi had time for as more stacks or materials are waiting to beprocessed.    

Administrative Update - Karen 

• Karen mentioned that the form about choosing a retirement plan should be received at payroll time. Staff need to mail their completed forms no later than August 23rd to Lloyd in the Business Office.  The calculator that Jim Welch provided will be available through August 23.   
• 27 prospective operators for the café at the RJN Downtown Library have submitted their applications.  Applications are accepted through August 25th. 
• The next issue of the Metro Magazine should be out September 25, 2005. 
• Maintenance will start replacing windows at some of the libraries. 
• Jane Seymour will be the featured author at the next Friends’ author dinner.  MLS will be sure to reorder some of her books prior to this event. 
• Lloyd is working at this time with the auditors and on the final budget. 
• Karen reminded managers that if they use any of the library’s credit cards for purchases, to send their RFPs to the Business Office at the same time they return the credit cards. 
• Karen referenced several items from the Ad Team meeting and the last Commission meeting (minutes on the Intranet).  She pointed out the higher than expected tax receipts which enabled the system to add $1.5 million to the reserve fund for the new building.
• The Friends awarded Downtown another grant of $3000.00 for rebinding of genealogy materials for the next year.  Karen mentioned to Heidi that both regular and grant bindery groups could be sent at the same time if the bindery will invoice them separately.  This would mean a larger number of materials will be sent in both  the fall and spring bindery groups from Downtown, but there will not be the confusion of keeping track of 4 bindery groups within the same fiscal year.  
• Karen reminded managers about the August 23 deadline for nominations for the Outstanding Service awards.

The meeting adjourned 9:05 a.m.  The next meeting is scheduled for September 15 at the Capitol Hill Library; Pauline will chair.