Materials Services Division Updates for August 2014

Date:  August 21st, 2014
Time:  8:00 am
Location:  Service Center Conference Room

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

Departmental Highlights

In MSL, since the beginning of the fiscal year, a total of 2277 customer suggestions were received.This averages out to 285 suggestions per week.

Since the beginning of the fiscal year, 4221 titles and 30355 items were selected and ordered for the system.This averages out to about 603 titles and 4336 items per week.

Since the beginning of July, a total of 133 boxes of withdrawals and gifts were received in MSL.105 boxes were sent to the booksale, 6 boxes of transfers were sent to CAT.

• In CAT, 2,573 new titles were cataloged during July, including 1,053 e-media titles.
• 14,935 barcode labels were printed in July; 13,859 for new materials and 1,076 for reprocessed materials.
• 1,274 titles new to the collection were received in Cataloging during July.
• In July, titles with more reserves waiting than copies purchased at the time of receipt were routed out of Cataloging to Technical Processing within one working day of receipt into Cataloging.
• Overall, titles new to the collection were routed from Cataloging to Technical Processing within 2.06 working days of receipt into Cataloging during July.
• The average ratio of copies to titles was 6.53 copies per title in July.
• 1,067 requests to borrow materials through ILL for MLS customers were received in July.  993 requests were submitted to lending libraries, for an average of 93%.
• 806 materials borrowed through ILL were received and routed to MLS libraries in July.  Materials are not always received during the same month that a request is placed.  During July, 237 of the materials received (29%) were requested in June.  In June, 1,067 requests were received and a total of 763 of the requested materials were borrowed, for a fill rate of 72%.
• In July, requests to borrow materials for MLS customers were submitted to libraries an average of 1.11 working days after the requests were received in ILL.
• Staff in ILL evaluated 1,670 requests to lend MLS materials to other libraries in July.  914 materials were lent; of these, 821 were requested in July; average loan fill rate was 49%.
• In July, MLS materials lent to other libraries were returned to ILL an average of 16.34 working days after shipment. 

In TP, the average daily run for July was 568 items per day, for a total of 12,492 items. The average for August so far is 510 items per day. The processors are current on processing all rush materials and are processing non-rush materials from the run 2 days ago. Study guides and dated materials like continuations are also current.

During July, TP received a daily average of 31 boxes of materials a day, for a total of 687 boxes.  The daily average in August so far is 44 boxes.

Cataloging/ILL Update

The MLS catalog will be frozen at the end of the day on Friday, August 22.  No new records will be added until September 3.  UPDATE: The entire Cataloging staff did a tremendous job of getting materials cataloged and barcode labels printed before the deadline.

Most ILL services will be suspended beginning August 20.  Service will resume on September 3.

All Cataloging Technicians attended training for creating item records and printing barcodes for the CarlX system on August 13.

All ILL staff attended training for handling ILL materials in CarlX on August 15.

CeCe Brown and Marty Thompson brought the members of their OU SLIS class to visit the Service Center on August 5.  The class toured the building with Pauline and Heidi, and spent time visiting with Cataloging and ILL staff.  The instructors were most appreciative and the students impressed.

Pauline completed the final revision of the system’s CarlX index profile, identifying the MARC fields to be indexed in various types of catalog searches and the display format rules, establishing criteria for searching shortcuts in the staff catalog.  She also revised the system’s rules for fields to display in MARC records.

ILL continues to have problems periodically with the Trans-Amigos courier service.  Pauline has been in contact with Amigos and is working to resolve the problem.

Materials Selection Update

Library Visits

• Selectors made annual visits to CT, BC, and BBM during August.
• They are scheduled to do an annual visit to DC during September.

TP Assistance in MSL

• During the last week in July and the first of August Kevin, Tony, Alan, Taylor and Lenard assisted with work in the MSL basement. 
• MSL staff really appreciated their help with getting the backlog of boxes taken care of.

Order Problems

• There was a system problem with the orders that were scheduled to go out on 8/15/14.  The orders did not go through so no purchase orders were printed and reserves were not placed.
• Janet and Kristine examined the orders to see if there was something that would have caused the system error and were not able to determine a definite problem. 
• Anne and Jimmy worked through the weekend to fix the issue and the orders went through the system successfully on Tuesday, August 19^th. 

CarlX/ILS

• Materials Selection staff attended various training sessions for acquisitions, serials, circulation and OPAC.
• Staff are doing “practice” orders, generating patron recommendations, and becoming familiar with the various functions for order entry and management.
• Staff also began discussing workflow changes that are coming with the new ILS implementation. 
• No orders will be generated beginning August 21^st through a few days after implementation.  After implementation, MSL will generate small orders in a variety of formats and from various vendors to test the live system.  Once staff are sure everything is working, orders will resume a normal pattern.

Meetings/Workshops                                                                 

• Melissa has conducted several ILS workshops as one of the system super trainers.
• Janet met with David Newyear/BI on 7/24/14 to discuss collection maintenance issues.
• Karen, Janet, Ruby, Melissa and Kristine met with Karen Peck/Playaway rep. on 7/29/14

Technical Processing Update

• TP and the drivers have been without the automated sorter starting last week. One of the sorter bands had a tear which kept tripping the sensors. It was replaced without a problem. Then the five strip sorter developed a problem with the speed control sensor which caused the sorter to just stop at various times, for no apparent reason. To begin with, the company shipped the wrong part which did not fit. Once the correct part was received and installed, the sorter worked for about half a day, then it once again stopped and could not be restarted/reset. Now the assumption is that the motor has burned out and Bibliotheca is sending a new one as soon as they can assemble it. So, for about the last week, TP staff and the drivers have been hand sorting all items, including the last batches of “Rush” items to be filled through the current ILS system.
• Baker & Taylor’s and Ingram’s accounts continue to be current. 
• Kevin Colwell attended the scheduled Staff Association meeting on July 24 at ED; the next meeting is scheduled for September 25, 2014, at RE.
• The last purchase orders generated in the ILS system will be printed on August 22, 2014. This is also the last day Cataloging is producing barcodes in the old system.
• TP was informed that TLC will be able to incorporate Big Bin into the new Carl.X receiving function. TP is very grateful that this was possible due to some creative interfacing and awesome cooperation between Jim Welch and TLC. Anne is to talk to TP about the new Big Bin procedures sometime soon.
• As practice orders have been input by MSL into the Carl.X practice database, TP receiving staff has been busy receiving them according to the manuals provided. Staff is starting to become more familiar with the upcoming changes to their receiving procedures.
• TP received its new color copier on Friday, August 22.  All Points, the company the Xerox copier was purchased from, will provide training for staff in its use on Wednesday, August 27, 3:00 p.m...  TP’s previous copier will be moved to LU for their use.
• Katie Herd’s last day in TP was July 29; her daughter Sloan was born on August 4, 2014. Mother, child, and dad, are doing well. Katie’s expected return date is September 29.
• Kevin Colwell was awarded his service certificate for 10 years with MLS.

Administrative update

The Finance Committee approved the final budget for FY15, including a 2% market adjustment to staff salaries made possible by higher than expected revenues.  The remainder of this increase in revenues will be added to the reserve fund for capital Improvements. The budget can now be viewed in its entirety on the Intranet. The full commission will consider the budget on August 28.

Both the City of the Village and Bethany have taken initial steps to secure funds for expanding and improving their libraries. 

The budget set aside for rebinding of materials for FY15 has been reduced from FY14’s amount of $1900.00 to $1200.00.

The Executive Director position closed on August 17. The Search Committee announced that 22 applicants applied for the position.

Some Carl.X system requirements will result in some policy changes. In the past, we did not charge fines for magazines of uncataloged paperbacks because we did not have the expense of cataloging them and we could not give customers title information if they became overdue. In Carl.X, all materials will receive at least a minimal level of cataloging and we will be able to supply title information for overdue materials. For these reasons, we will now be charging fines for all materials. In addition, since the price for these items will be in the brief catalog records, we will be charging that amount for lost items rather than the $3.00 flat fee.  MLS is taking recommendations to the August Library Commission meeting, including fines for paperbacks and fees for meeting rooms.  Please view the Commission packet or MyMetroLibrary for further information.