Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for January 16, 2003

 Date: January 16, 2003

Present: Janet Brooks, Heidi Johnson, Pamela Kosted, Karen Marriott, Pauline Rodriguez 

Also present: Donna Morris, Debra Spindle (both arrived about 8:30 a.m.)

1. Cataloging Update 

Staff members attended various system and OLA functions during December. 

Veronica and Lacey, the pages working in Cataloging, were a great help during the week after Christmas, when Cataloging was short-staffed.  Veronica in  particular worked a large number of extra hours.  Pauline appreciated Phil Tolbert’s allowing Veronica to make up hours missed in Capitol Hill during the holidays by working in Cataloging. 

Karene Adkins notified Pauline on January 6 that she did not plan to return to work following the birth of her baby.  The Cataloging Technician position was posted on January 10, and closes on January 23. 

Pauline went to BI on January 8 to meet with Dave to discuss cataloging of a title in Japanese.  He was quite helpful, and the book should be cataloged shortly.  

Pauline appreciates Marilyn Backus’s having compiled a list of library staff who can assist with translation of various languages. 

Crystal visited MSL on January 8.  She enjoyed her visit, and said she learned a great deal; she says that she did not have enough time to learn all that she wanted to. 

Crystal and Clyde attended an Amigos workshop, “Cataloging Fundamentals Using OCLC Connexion”, in Tulsa on January 9.  Pauline and Jana attended another Amigos workshop, “Making the Connexion: Using OCLC’s Cataloging Interface”, in Tulsa on January 10.  Both workshops contained some information that was too basic for MLS staff, but also served as a good introduction to the upcoming OCLC cataloging interface.  Pauline also collected good information to be used in planning the migration; she has shared it with Jim Welch and Anne Fischer. 

Cataloging is currently being overrun with videos and print added copies. 

Notes on Cataloging statistics handouts (see attachment) 

New titles cataloged are still up, 19% over what was done during the first 6 months of the last fiscal year.  Print titles cataloged are up, but nonprint (AV) titles are down.  Titles with added copies are running about even with this time last year, but nonprint titles with added copies are up.  This trend is the reverse of what has been seen in the past.  Actual labels printed are down, which indicates that more titles but fewer copies are being purchased.  This helps to explain why Tech Processing’s workload is somewhat less that last year’s. 

2. Interlibrary Loan Update 

Pamela mentioned the continued big increase in ILL requests.  Loan requests have increased about 400% in the last 20 years.  Budget cuts at small libraries across Oklahoma have impacted requests sent to ILL enormously.  Discussion followed about plans for the new Downtown library that will positively effect the Interlibrary Loan Dept.  A mail technician position, separate from the DN library Serials position, will be added to handle mail for the building, including ILL.  This will allow Sharlott time to work on other activities.  Additional part time help is also being considered. 

3. Materials Selection Update 

• Library Visits 
• Selectors conducted an annual visit to VI and 6 month visits to CH and DC during December.   
• Karen and Janet had a follow up visit with Lisa/VI on Jan. 7th.   
• Selectors have 2 annual visits during January, one to ED and one to RE. 
• Selectors will conduct annual visits at DN and SO during February. 
• Basement 
• MSL staff continue to work scheduled times in the basement. 
• The box count has been low during the holidays, but may be on the way back up.  Maintenance delivered 70 boxes on Monday, January 13, 2003, almost doubled what has been received each week during November and December. 
•  Meetings and workshops 
•  Julie attended the Children's Programming meeting at the Sam Noble museum in Norman on Dec. 18th.
•  Janet attended the YA Programming meeting on January 15th.
•  Janet will be attending the Contact training.  An orientation meeting will be held on Jan. 21st, with the first training session beginning Feb. 4th
• This is a 14-week training each Tuesday from 9-12. 
• Janet spent an afternoon with Melissa/MC giving her an overview of MSL procedures.  She had already done replacements, so Janet answered questions she had.  They also discussed weeding quite extensively. 
• Crystal visited MSL.  She talked with Janet and Julie.  Janet gave her a quick tour of the materials in stacks and the basement transfers. 
•  Webpage 
• Selectors completed the Spotlight On…. Black History Month by the first of January.  Crystal/CAT contributed a pathfinder for the Spotlight On.  Janet has forwarded information to Teresa for inclusion on the Webpage during February. 
• Janet will update and forward information to Teresa about children's book awards when the new winners are announced at ALA at the end of January.  
• Budget FY04 
• Susan and Kim prepared Continuations information for inclusion in the budget information packets Karen sent out last week. 
• Selectors are beginning preliminary examination of the budget in preparation for FY04.   
• ILL Study 
•  Janet shared some of the information gathered over the past 12 months related to MSL activity with ILL requests. (see attachment) 

4. Technical Processing Update 

• Sharla's last day was on Jan. 3.  Christy started her new position as Data Entry Technician on Jan. 6.  Heidi has been filling in as Receiving Tech, so has not worked on her budget much.  However, TP hopes to have a full staff again very soon.  The position opening for Receiving Technician closed on Monday, Jan. 13.  Seven current MSL employees applied, and Roy will schedule tests as soon as possible. (Update since 1-16-03: Heidi is considering four possible candidates and is scheduling interviews for Monday, January 27.) 
• Receipt of materials continues to be less than it was a year ago at this time; however, since TP has been short staffed all of January, this has been a good thing.  
• Barbara Janousek from the Minneapolis Public Library called on 1-7-03 to inquire about MLS's experience with BTE and Library Video Co.   Questions about shipping, billing, and customer service experiences Heidi was able to answer; other questions about fill rate, pricing policy, etc., were forwarded to Janet. 
• TP has been having a lot of problems with materials received from Instructional Video, mostly due to videos produced by very small companies or individuals.  Some of the videos have terrible sound quality, others have problems with the quality of the picture, etc.  Gary from Instructional Video has been ordering replacement videos in each case, some of which take a long time to arrive.  Normally the company wants to treat these as no charge replacements which means TP has to hold all other items on the invoice until the replacements are received.  Recently, however, Heidi was able to talk them into allowing MLS to short-pay these invoices and Instructional Video now rebills for the replacements when they are shipped to TP.  This will speed up receipt of Instructional Video Co.'s materials a lot. 
• Bindery materials should finally be returned to TP within the next week.  Normally TP receives these rebound materials back before Christmas.  When Heidi called  Quality Book Binding Company early January, she was told that some of their equipment broke down, but they are finally back in operation again.  (Update:  The bindery is to deliver the rebound materials on January 24, 2003.) 

5. Administrative Update 

Karen stated that, because of the state budget shortfall, ODL might lose funding for the statewide database licenses.  If this happens, we will need to assume the cost and the funding of other database subscriptions might be affected.  

Managers should not expect a big increase in funds for the FY04 budget.  She also told managers that if the Commission decides to close Drexel, arrangements would be made regarding materials still on order for DX.  (Since the meeting, the Commission decided to close DX.  Karen has notified MSD managers to reassign any materials still on order for Drexel to Downtown.  Ruby has reassigned DX orders for standing order paperbacks, and Susan reassigned any outstanding DX continuations to BI as circulating copies.) 

6. Questions/Information for Donna Morris 

Managers presented statistical information on selection, receipt, cataloging, processing, and usage of materials to Donna and discussion followed.   

Other items under discussion were:  

• Budget projections 
• Impact of State budget cuts 
• Extension libraries 
• Decision about closing of Drexel library 
• Ongoing negotiations regarding the new Downtown library building 
• Possible delay in Capitol Hill library remodeling 

(Donna left about 10:00 a.m.) 

7. Downtown Project Evaluation This ongoing project was discussed as far as number of materials transferred, costs, process and procedures, impact on booksale, savings of transfers vs. purchase of new copies, impact on staff in each dept., etc. 

8. Genealogy and OK Collection 

Genealogy materials formerly housed at the Ralph Ellison library will be recoded for DN.  Pauline will check with Automation whether "GEN" has been activated as a valid location for DN.  Debra is currently considering having some of the Genealogy materials rebound and/or re-inventoried so all materials will have the new, legible barcodes on the outside of the material. 

9. Miscellaneous 

It was decided to change the location of the April, July, and October meetings to Downtown to hopefully include ILL and Donna.  Donna asked to be put on the distribution list for the minutes of all MSD monthly meetings.  Pauline has since distributed a revised list of the MSD meetings with their dates and locations.