Materials Services Division Updates for February 2013

Department Highlights – CAT/ILL

Average turnaround time for new titles in Cataloging in January was 1 working day; average for the FY13 is 1.25 working days.  

In December, the average turnaround time for borrowing materials in ILL was 8.46 calendar days.  

ILL has recently been made aware of an issue with a particular borrowed material.  The problem involves a social work textbook titled The strengths model by Charles Rapp.  The title has been published in different editions with varying subtitles since 1997, most recently in 2011.  ILL has received numerous requests for various editions of this title in the last few months.  The most popular edition seems to be the 2006, with the subtitle Case management for people with psychiatric disabilities.  At least one copy of this edition is now 60 days overdue; the replacement cost ranges from $250 for a used copy to $750 and up for a new copy.  Given this information, ILL will no longer attempt to borrow any edition of this title for MLS customers.

Statistical Highlights-MSL

During January, Materials Selection ordered 3537 titles and 20343 items.  So far in the first two weeks of February, there were 2082 titles and 11031 items ordered.

In January, Materials Selection received 1304 suggestions to purchase titles and regretted 558 suggestions.  In the first two weeks of February, 963 suggestions have been received.  Most of the suggestions received are for books.  Since the beginning of 2013, Materials Selection has received 1419 suggestions for print materials.

During January, Materials Selection staff spent over 96 hours working with transfers and gifts in the basement.  During the first 2 weeks of February, over 56 hours were spent with basement work.  Since the beginning of January, approximately 85 boxes of transfers for AL were sent to CAT.

Department Highlights – TP

The average daily run for January was 977 items per day, for a total of 20,507 items in December.  The average for February so far is 914 items per day. The processors are still current on processing all “rush” materials; they are processing non-rush materials from January 10, which is from the run 6 working days ago. Study guides and dated materials like continuations are also current.

During January, TP received a daily average of 56 boxes of materials a day, for a total of 1179 boxes.  The daily average in February so far is 46 boxes. TP has received 776 boxes so far for this month.

CAT and TP had finished all materials to be transferred to Almonte previously sent  to the Service Center. There are once again about 30 boxes and overtime work will resume shortly to finish these transfers as soon as possible.

Cataloging/Interlibrary Loan update

2,781 new titles were cataloged during January.  This brings the total for FY13 to 18,014 titles cataloged, including 4,316 e-media titles.

24,987 barcode labels were printed in January, a 60% increase over December’s total.  This includes 3,480 labels used for reprocessing materials being transferred between MLS libraries, mostly to Almonte.  21,507 labels were printed for materials added to the MLS collections, a 50% increase from December.  152,980 barcode labels have been printed in FY13, a 7% increase over the same period last fiscal year.

During January, the average ratio of copies to titles was 4.29 copies per title, bringing the average for FY13 to 4.72 copies per title.

ILL received 814 requests from MLS customers to borrow materials from other libraries in January, forwarded  94% to lending libraries, and borrowed 738 items for MLS customers, for a fill rate of 80%.

ILL staff evaluated 1,223 requests to lend MLS materials to other libraries in January, and were able to lend 561 materials, for a rate of 40% of requests filled.  Fewer requests to lend materials were evaluated, and fewer materials loaned, in December and January due to staff shortages.

Mary, Margo, Lisa, Alex, and Brandon participated in the interview process for the part-time ILL Technician.

Morris Crisp began working as the new part-time ILL Technician on February 19.  ILL is happy to have him and he is already a big help.

The hiring process for the part-time Materials Services Technician is ongoing.

Reliance Label Solutions has complete replacement of defective labels for barcodes with labels that meet specifications.

Pauline met with Karen Marriott and Jimmy Welch on February 18 to discuss plans for implementing RDA cataloging.

Pauline presented a session on ILL at the Circulation Forum on February 13.  A number of staff were there.  They were very interested and asked many good questions.

The Catalogers met on January 29 to continue planning for the RDA transition and implementation, as well as discussing other issues impacting cataloging.

The ILL Technicians met on January 30 to review the hiring process for the new ILL Tech and discuss OCLC’s upcoming switch in ILL products.

The Cataloging Technicians met on January 31 to discuss ways to effectively utilize the Materials Services Technician position and other issues regarding barcodes and holdings.

Staff from Cataloging and Technical Processing worked overtime January 29 through February 15 to print barcodes and process materials transferred to the AL collection.  Big thanks to Paula and Jill, Cataloging Technicians who put in extra hours during this time.  Pauline and Heidi Johnson split supervisory duties during overtime hours.

Since additional transfer materials have been received, overtime for Technical Processing staff will resume temporarily February 28 through March 2.  Bravo to all the Cataloging Technicians for working hard to print barcodes for these materials during regular working hours.

Pauline has been invited to attend the Connect Librarian Forum on March 12, to talk about RDA and its implementation.

Materials Selection Update

Library visits

Selectors conducted annual visits with DN staff during February

In March, Selectors will conduct annual visits to ED and HR

Meetings/Workshops

Janet attended the Children’s Services retreat on Feb. 6.

Melissa and Ruby attended the wellness workshops offered.

Lisa attended the staff association meetings on January 24 and February 28

Melissa attended a webinar on downloadable music on Feb. 20.

Melissa attended the OLA Ethics Committee meeting on Feb. 22.

Basement

Janet presented new procedures for working in the MSL basement.  Staff are currently working with the procedures.  Janet is evaluating the process and making adjustments as necessary.

All staff are spending at least 1-2 hours each week assigning transfers and gifts.

Staff Meetings

Janet met with each selector, on-on-one, to discuss work priorities and workflow issues.  They discussed what was considered priorities, how to rearrange work to allow more time for priorities and shared tips on handling the workload.

She plans to meet with the technicians to discuss the same topics.

Almonte

Janet helped Almonte staff with getting material arranged on their shelves before opening.

Staff continue to assign transfers to Almonte and adding orders for them.  

Janet plans to do another shopping trip for children’s paperbacks in the next week or so.  

LaVetta reported that the Juvenile DVD shelves are fairly full, so staff are making adjustments to transfer assignments and orders, for now.

Technical Processing update

Baker & Taylor’s and Ingram’s accounts are current. B&T’s new accounting person assigned to MLS’s accounts, Jennifer Hensley, is wonderful about applying credits to open invoices without needing to be prompted to do so.

Katie Herd has returned to work on Feb. 25 after having her baby on Dec. 31, 2012. Everyone was glad to see her back.

Patrick Williams is supposed to get back with Heidi about a weather curtain prior to the budget deadline. Several meetings had been scheduled, but none has taken place so far.

Kevin Colwell is the new Staff Association rep. for departments in the Service Center, other than MTC.

Heidi will be on AVL March. 4-8, 2013. Kristin will take care of any workflow issues within the dept., Pauline will be available should a supervisor be needed.

Heidi is working with John Rahhal to estimate budget amount needed for next fiscal year’s processing supplies.