Materials Services Division Updates for August 2012

Cataloging/Interlibrary Loan update 8/16/2012

• Average turnaround time for new titles in Cataloging for July was 2 working days.  This includes only time that materials were in Cataloging; it does not include time in Technical Processing.
• On August 2, the Cataloging Technicians set a record for the number of barcode labels printed in a single day, with 2,312 barcode labels.
• ILL will begin shipping most materials to other libraries via UPS instead of US Mail on August 20.  This will help with tracking and could reduce costs for materials lost in transit.  It will also reduce the workload on the Mail Technician at DN.
• 2,218 titles were cataloged in July.  This is the highest total ever recorded for the month of July.
• ILL received 934 requests from MLS customers to borrow materials from other libraries in July, forwarded 93% to lending libraries, and filled 82% of the forwarded requests.  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.
• ILL staff evaluated 1,732 requests to lend MLS materials to other libraries in July, and was able to lend 806 materials, for a rate of 47% of requests filled.
• Pauline and ILL Technician Alex Hinton met with representatives of UPS on August 16 to set up UPS shipping for ILL.
• Clyde Herrod, Alice Fielding, and Ursula Ward attended online training for the new cataloging protocol RDA.  Pauline plans to meet with Jim Welch in the near future to discuss implementation.
• On August 16, a party was held honoring Ursula Ward and Clyde Herrod for having each been employed at MLS for 30 years this year.

Materials Selection Update August 2012

Workshop

• Janet coordinated with Stacy/PLA, Heidi and Pauline for collection training.   The TP/CAT/ILL sessions are scheduled for August 28^th and the MSL session is scheduled for Sept. 13^th.  Both sessions are scheduled at the SC.
• Janet is getting thumb drives to put the collection manual on instead of printing a paper manual.
• As of 8/15, 20 participants were signed up for the workshop.

Brainstorming sessions

• MSL staff meeting was held on July 20^th.  At this meeting, staff spent some time brainstorming about important selection functions that would be nice to have in a new ILS.  The results from this session have been forwarded to Karen
• Janet, Kim and Lori met to discuss the workflow in the basement, particularly how to deal with hot titles.

Library Visits

• During July an annual visit was conducted for Capitol Hill and a 6-month visit to Belle Isle and Northwest.
• In August, Selectors did an annual visit to CT, Books by Mail and Book Centers.  They also conducted a 6-month visit to DN.
• In September, Selectors are scheduled to do an annual visit to DC and a 6-month visit to ED.

Meetings/Workshops

• Janet met with the sales rep from Roadrunner Press, a new Oklahoma publisher.
• Janet attended Tech Support meeting on July 24.
• Lisa attended the staff association meeting on July 26^th
• Susan, Melissa and Janet met with the sales rep from PebbleGo on July 30th
• Ruby attended the United Way Committee meeting on Aug. 1.
• Karen, Janet, Ruby, Melissa and Kim met with Karen Peck from Playaway on August 6^th.
• Kim assisted Heidi with TP interviews the week of August 13^th.

TP Update 8-16-2012

• The average daily run for July was 952 items per day, for a total of 19,985 items in July.  The average for August so far is 1167 items per day. Statistics seem to indicate August will be another record breaking month with TP already receiving more than 15,000 items from Cataloging by August 17, with 2 more weeks to go in the month. The processors are still current on processing all “rush” materials; they are processing non-rush materials from August 1, which is from the run eleven working days ago. Study guides and dated materials like continuations are also current. 
• During July, TP received a daily average of 60 boxes of materials a day, for a total of 1277 boxes.  The daily average in August so far is 50 boxes.
• Heidi and Kim Rickey have been interview candidates for the Technical Processor position in TP. The last interview will take place on Monday, August 20, 2012. Heidi hopes to start the new processor the week before she leaves on vacation on September 17.
• Heidi attended the Safety Committee meeting on August 14 at Belle Isle.  The emergency exit signage information for the Service Center is still a work in progress; Maintenance is still working on marking the correct exit locations on the map. A definite completion date was not given.
• TP staff is still working on completing their Hazard Communication safety training for the current quarter.
• Since it takes about 4-6 weeks to procure a new set of wheels for the transfer tables in TP, Heidi has ordered a backup set in case one of the other tables develops problems with its wheels. It is very difficult for TP to continue their work without all of their transfer tables in working condition, and TP would like to avoid any future downtime of any of their tables.
• The Service Center had visits from three of the software vendors Anne Fischer was consulting with about a new ILS system. Since Big Bin and the automated sorter would require special interfaces with the new ILS system, all vendors wanted to get a firsthand look at operations in the Service Center.