Materials Services Division Updates for December 2007

MATERIALS SERVICES DIVISION UPDATES

December 2007

Since no Materials Services Division Managers meeting was held during December, this document contains updates on the activities of each department since the November meeting.

Materials Selection

Submitted by Janet Brooks

Library Visits

During November, selectors made an annual visit RE and a 6month visit to SO. Because RE has been without a manager, the visit was primarily a collection review. Janet spent about an hour with each of the librarians to review collection maintenance processes and gave each one a copy of the Collection Maintenance and Management notebook. 

During December, selectors are scheduled to do an annual visit to WA and a 6month collection review of BE. 

In January they conduct an annual visit to BI and a 6month to CH.

New MSL Tech

Kelly Rains resigned effective Nov. 21. 

Anna Todd, the parttime MSD tech was promoted to fulltime MSL Tech. She began her fulltime duties on Dec. 3. Anna is still going to school, so her schedule is adjusted to accommodate her classes. Most of her training is spent finetuning her work and working with Ruby to streamline her processes.

MSD Tech

The MSD Tech position remains open. 

Kim and Janet hope to interview applicants after the New Year. 

Spotlight On

Selectors are updating the Spotlight on Black History Month. 

Janet will have the completed bibliographies to Teresa/PLA by January 2. 

The spotlight will be up on the webpage the first of February.

Meetings/Workshops 

Janet, Julie and Kim attended the Xchange meeting on November 19. 

Julie met with the Leadership team and provided AdTeam with a summary of their work. The Leadership team will have their “graduation” luncheon on Wednesday Dec. 19. 

Several staff have been invited to attend the ReadAbout luncheon rescheduled for Dec. 28. 

Technical Processing

Submitted by Heidi Johnson

So far, the runs in December have been on average 640 labels per day which is a big decrease compared to November’s average of 820 labels. Technical Processing currently receives an average of 32 boxes of materials a day which is a big decrease compared to November’s average of 43. 

Many staff members in TP have been fighting viruses and allergy problems. However, TP is uptodate on processing all types of rush materials. The processors are currently processing nonrush materials from the run eight days ago. Heidi has once again talked to Margaret, the MSD Tech housed in CAT, about helping out with processing some of the older, ordered materials in TP. TP is very grateful to be able to call on Margaret for help. 

Heidi attended the very informative training regarding sexual harrassment at the XChange meeting Downtown on Nov. 19. 

Technical Processing is pleased to announce that all of the books sent as sample bindery to the HF Group were bound as ordered, without misspellings or other errors, and returned within the promised time frame. Heidi was pleased that the company called twice to verify information prior to actually rebinding the books. The only drawback when dealing with this company is the need to supply a binding ticket for each book sent. 

Technical Processing once again ran out of blue cards before the reorder was received. This time the dept. was out for only a few days, but adjustments to the order schedule have been made to ensure TP will have a continuous supply of blue cards at all times. TP used to reorder when the dept.’s supply had been depleted down to one stack of 15”. TP will now reorder when the supply is down to the last box being opened; each box contains 4 stacks of 15” each. 

On Tuesday, Dec. 11, a leak was found in the garage area where two of the different roof levels meet. The next day, the automatic door closer in the garage would no longer automatically close the door and had to be replaced. 

Due to the ice storm and many staff members still being without power on Dec. 11, the CH Building Christmans party has been postponed to Tuesday,  Dec. 18. 

Juanita Mendoza’s first scheduled day of maternity leave will be January 11, 2008. The dept. gave her a baby shower on Dec. 5. Everybody seemed to enjoy eating cupcakes and drinking punch while watching Juanita open her presents.

Cataloging

Submitted by Pauline RodriguezAtkins

Brittany Barber has been selected as the new MSD Tech based in CAT. Her first day will be December 18. 

The new phone system has finally been installed! Extensions for all staff are correct as they appear in Who’s Who. 

The results of the cataloging survey issued earlier in the year have been posted on the Intranet. 

Meetings and training attended:

Pauline – X Change, November 19 

Ursula – Federal Depository Libraries meeting, November 29 

Pauline visited ScottRice with Karen Marriott on November 30 to view possible options for furniture in the new building. 

ODL staff’s visit to the MLS depository was scheduled for December 10, but did not occur due to weather. There is no word yet on a reschedule date. UPDATE: The visit has been rescheduled for January 4, 2008. 

The CH Christmas luncheon was scheduled for December 11, but has been rescheduled for December 18. The workload increased even more dramatically during November than during October, as compared to the previous month. The increase in new titles cataloged is particularly impressive, given that in the past three fiscal years, only four months have recorded a higher total. 

(statistics on attached pdf)

Interlibrary Loan

Submitted by Pauline RodriguezAtkins

The removable colored labels have been received. Hopefully, their use will be implemented before the holidays. 

Stuart in PLA has developed a system that will reduce the amount of time spent downloading data for labels. 

UPDATE: Implementation of the removable labels began on December 17. A  few bugs remain to be worked out, but overall staff are happy with them.

The ILL workload has remained relatively stable. In November 2007, ILL staff submitted 476 requests to borrow materials from other libraries, nearly identical to October’s total. Of these, 348 requests were filled, and 148 were denied by all libraries contacted. 57% of requests were filled by the first  library contacted. It is worth remembering that at least some of the filled and unfilled requests had been submitted during October; and some of the requests initiated in November were not filled until December. This explains the fact that the totals do not always add up to 100%. 

(statistics on attached pdf)