Materials Services Division Minutes - January 08, 2016

Statistical Summaries

• Since the beginning of the fiscal year MSL has ordered 14715 titles for a weekly average of over 525 titles.  A total of 93137 items were ordered for an average of 3326 per week. 
• MSL received over 5869 recommendations from customers to purchase titles, for an average of 210 recommendations per week. 
• A total of 194 boxes of withdrawals and gifts have been received.  Almost 35 boxes of transfers and gifts were sent to CAT. 
• 1,450 titles new to the collection were cataloged in December, including 85 Launchpads; approximately 100 records for mass market paperbacks were added.
• Approximately 13,000 new items were added to the collections in December, including about 650 browsing collection items.
• 10,800 titles were cataloged during the first half of the fiscal year; about 105,000 items were added.
• ILL staff forwarded 785 requests from MLS customers to borrow materials through ILL in November, and 777 in December.  Of the materials requested in November, 644, or 82%, were borrowed.  Complete statistics for December are not yet available.
• In response to a question from Tim, the average rate for borrowing materials for customers through ILL is about 56%.  MLS’s rate is exceptional partially due to the care taken by ILL staff to request materials from libraries likely to lend.
• ILL staff responded to 2600 requests to lend MLS materials to other libraries in November and December.  1,075 materials were lent, for an average fill rate of 41%.

Report on Action Items

• Janet/Tim - Discuss discovery options during meeting with Ebsco. Tim gave an update on the meeting with Ebsco. 
• Tim - Follow up on RSS video feeds in OPAC.  Completed.
• Pauline - Schedule meetings and send invitations for the first three months of 2016. Pauline scheduled meetings and provided a list of who chairs each meeting.

New Business

Discussion regarding Materials Services Director Position

• Tim discussed with the managers some of the ideas he has for the director’s position. 
• No firm decisions have been made regarding the position.
• More information should come soon.

Cost of Shelf Ready Report

• Tim asked managers where they were in this project and asked about a deadline.
  • Managers indicated that they were aiming for a February deadline.  This might need to be pushed back since Heidi has been out.
• Pauline reported that she and Heidi are still waiting on statistical reports from TLC.  Tim will find out the status of the reports.
• MSL staff are conducting surveys of processes and activities.
• Staff Process Surveys are due to Janet January 8th
  • Staff are reviewing various processes that they do routinely and outline what resources they use, how much time they spend, suggestions for streamlining activities and suggestions for tools to assist them with accomplishing tasks.
• During the week of January 11th and January 25th, staff will be participating in activity surveys.
  • Staff will record the amount of time spent in various activities each day.
  • Janet plans to use the information gathered during the surveys to develop the cost of shelf ready report for MSL, as well as provide updated information to assist in workflow management.
• Both of these surveys were conducted about 10 years ago, so Janet has something to compare.

Budget 2016-17 (preparation)

• Managers provided Tim with information regarding their processes for budget requests, both for their departments and the system budget.
• Tim reported that he scheduled a budget review meeting to look at unfilled requests.  If requests won’t be filled before the end of the fiscal year, he’d like to have the opportunity to transfer funds where they are needed.  This requires approval from the commission.
• The new budget process will include setting targets, output and outcome. 
• Janet mentioned the need to have discussions or be included in the budget planning at the library level, since some library plans will impact budgeting for collection.

Updates

Cataloging/Interlibrary Loan

• Launchpad cataloging is complete and all materials have been sent to Tech Processing.  Records are currently suppressed in the OPAC, but will become visible on January 11.
• ILLiad implementation is proceeding.  Online request forms are in the last review phase; the next step will be testing.
• Pauline attended a meeting with Bibliotheca/3M for a demonstration of their e-media platform on December 8.
• Pauline and Aaron Killough, ILL, participated in interviews for the new Special Projects Librarian position on December 15.
• ILL is once again experiencing issues with our courier service.  The department received no service at all from December 28-December 30; service has been spotty and very late each day since.  The ILL staff did a great job of communicating with TAE while Pauline was on AVL.  Pauline is communicating with TAE daily about the problem.  She has been assured that our regular service times should resume next week (January 11).
• Cataloging is experiencing some issues with barcode labels not scanning properly.  The problem does not always occur the first time that a label is scanned, nor every time.  Most have been caught in Tech Processing, but some have made it to libraries.  IT cleaned the barcode printers in December, and this has reduced the problem, although it still occurs periodically.  When labels are returned due to this problem, the Cataloging Technicians reprint and test before returning.  The Technicians are commended for taking care of the problem quickly and with minimal disruption for other staff.
• Devin continues to make progress in her cataloging training, thanks to the other Catalogers who work with her to help her understand the system’s and customers’ needs.
• The award winner heading project has been slowed due to TLC’s changes in the process for creating macros to change catalog records.  Pauline has talked to Anne Fischer and determined that the biggest problem is that macros now require Python programming skills.  Anne has agreed to have Python installed on Pauline’s computer, and Pauline is currently investigating training options.
• Since there is no longer an Administrative Receptionist, Maria Watkins has contacted Pauline about having ILL take over returning non-MLS materials to owning libraries.  Pauline met with ILL staff on January 5 to talk about how this can best be handled.  She has forwarded questions to Maria so that ILL can better understand the process.
• Janet asked Pauline for data regarding books that have been requested through ILL.  Pauline has forwarded data for FY15, and is organizing more.  Unfortunately, customer data is automatically deleted when requests are completed, so there is no way to know whether multiple customers are requesting the same title or a single customer is requesting it repeatedly.
• Pauline completed and submitted the GPO Biennial Survey, with much appreciated assistance from Janet, Jon Rollman in Planning, and Sharon Bish at DN.
• MLS has been notified that the vendor for Cataloging and ILL’s blank labels has spun the label production into a subsidiary company, Reliance Barcode Solutions.  Our representatives will remain the same, and there will be interruption in label supply.

Materials Selection

Library Visits

• Selectors completed annual visits to WA during December.
• In January they are conducting visits to BI.  Selectors were asked to schedule their visits for late in the month due to a number of staffing changes, including a new manager.
• During February selectors conduct annual visits to DN

EDI

• Janet and Kristine have been working with Anne/IT testing the electronic ordering system between TLC and B&T.

CollectionHQ

• Lauren assumed responsibility for scheduling the January collectionHQ assignments. She’s been updating staff assignments in light of so many changes related to Project Kaleidoscope.
• MSL plans to put together training packets for collection librarians, since there have been so many staffing changes.

Meetings/Workshops

• Janet attended Leadership Team meetings on 12/2, 12/3, and 12/16 and scheduled to attend the meetings on 1/13, 1/14, 1/20, and 1/27.
• Janet, Susan, Melissa and Kristine attended the training Attorney Bill Comstock conducted on contracts on 12/7
• Janet met with representatives from Bibliotheca on 12/8
• Janet met with new hires on 12/8 and 1/5.
• Janet met with Kellie/DL and Kim/MaC on 12/8 to brainstorm ideas for marketing the Overdrive service in hopes of reaching 1 million circulations.
• On 12/9 Janet attended the meeting regarding closing the 3rd floor to customers. 
• Janet met with Midwest Tape rep on Dec. 14th.
• Melissa participated in the Peer Interview Committee on 12/15.
• Janet taped a segment for Come Read with Me on Jan 6th.
• Janet is scheduled to meet with the MLS Design Team on Jan 12th.

Administration

• Tim reported that the Special Projects Librarians begin Feb. 1.  One of the librarians will work on a project called Creative OK which is a state project.  The other will work with HUM on the new appraisal system.
• Tim met with Edmond City Manager to discuss the possibility of adding new storefront libraries.
• Tim recommended that managers look at starting a materials advisory board that would look at in building shelving, signage, classification of collections.

Review future action items

• Managers will start planning FY17 budget.
• Continue working on the Cost Analysis project

Next meeting scheduled for January 21, 2016.  Heidi will chair.