Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for July 23, 2009

Materials Services Managers’ Meeting 

July 23, 2009; DN 3rd floor Director’s Conference Room

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

Guests: Kim Rickey/MSL, Aaron Killough/CAT

Technical Processing Update - Heidi

The average daily run in June was 652 items and so far in July, 587 items. The dept. processed a total of 14,347 items in June. Technical Processing continues to be current on all of its processing. 

In June, TP received an average of 33 boxes of materials, and so far in July, also 33 boxes per day. However, with all the new orders going out for the new fiscal year, the number of boxes received has increased somewhat during the last week. 

All B&T accounts continue to be current as Heidi contacts the accounting dept. every month to have credit memos applied to open invoices. Ingram accounts continue to be current as well. 

TP staff are working on their blood borne pathogens training for the 3rd quarter. 

Alexis Austin’s last day with the library system will be August 4. 

Joan Shelton’s retirement party has been scheduled for Wednesday, July 29, 2009, at 12:00 p.m. 

Alan Siavashi and Heidi Johnson attended the Commission meeting on June 18 at SO where Alan received his 15 year service certificate. 

Several staff will take some of their vacations during the next few weeks. 

Heidi is taking AVL from July 27-31. Once she is back, she will start testing and interviewing to fill the Data Entry Tech’s position vacated by Alexis Austin’s resignation.

Heidi, along with other future building occupants, attended a tour of the new Service Center on June 30; and again on July 16 with staff from TP. Staff from TP are in agreement that the new building is HUGE and that the day was hot, especially for the afternoon tour! Staff seemed to be excited about the new building and the move. Everyone from TP was pleased that the dept. will have the added window with a view of the Capitol. The next tours are scheduled for Aug. 3 and 4, both days from 4-5 p.m.; managers will attend both tours to be available for questions, etc. 

Karen Marriott, Pauline Rodriguez-Atkins, Anita Roessler, and Heidi Johnson met on June 18 with the postmaster of the post office in the location of the new SC. Mr. Cargill was very helpful and assured managers that he would be pleased to work with them to set up mail delivery to their satisfaction. Their post office also delivers the mail to the Capitol and is already set up for deliveries to multiple suites in a building. 

Karen and Heidi met on June 23 to compile an inventory list of items from the current TP location which are to be moved to the new SC. 

Heidi contacted Bruce with Southwest Solutions about getting a final prototype for the tubs to be used in the new SC. The new plastic tubs Bruce brought to TP for approval are a vast improvement over the noisy metal tubs previously considered. The company is supposed to slightly modify the handholds in the tubs before TP gives final approval. Bruce is also to inquire about other color choices for the plastic as the black sample provided shows book dust too easily.

Doug Bentin from MAC is scheduled on Friday, 7-24-09, to video tape some of the current work processes as performed in TP. He is then supposed to come back to the dept. once moved to the new SC and tape the new work processes. 

Heidi is pleased to report that the new CD/DVD property labels locally printed by Standard Printing are even better than expected. After originally experiencing some problems with the coating on the paper and the way the circles were cut, they are now using a different kind of paper without a coating. Also, their die now completely cuts through the hole in the middle and takes out the small circles usually left behind when pulling off the round donut label. The labels look funny when rolled up, but have the advantage of none of the small circles coming off at the wrong time during processing and getting stuck where they are not wanted. 

TP had a problem with the latest batch of CD cases ordered from Demco. When opening the cases, they crackle, and after moving the hinges a few times, they crack apart. Heidi has notified Demco of the problem and they will send replacement cases after first inspecting them when receiving the next batch from the factory. 

Cataloging and ILL Update - Pauline

Meetings and training attended:

Aaron – Staff Association, June 10, July 20

Jana – Read About It, June 12

Pauline – Appreciating Staff Comm., June 19

Pauline, Aaron – OLA TSRT, June 26

Aaron – Leadership, July 8, July 23

Pauline – Social networking class, July 21

Catalogers have completed uploading of all backlogged records for downloadable audio recordings. So far, they have received no new records for downloadable audio or downloadable e-books. 

CAT and ILL staff are working on safety training. 

Jana has been asked to assist with a new Oklahoma Voices project at the BE library. She attended tapings on May 26 and June 15. 

Pauline is working with Karen, Heidi, and Anita on plans for handling U.S. mail at the Service Center. They met with the area postal service supervisor on June 18. 

The inventory of furniture to be moved from Cataloging and ILL to the Service Center has been completed. 

Matthew Pierce, a new librarian at ECU, visited Cataloging on June 19. He spent time with Ursula, Jana, and Pauline, getting an overview of a cataloger’s job and workflow. 

Cataloging staff were treated to a staff appreciation luncheon from Swadley’s Barbeque on June 29. 

ILL staff were treated to a staff appreciation field trip to Borders on June 30. 

The Leadership MLS group visited ILL on July 8. They received an overview of department operations, and asked questions about the department and  leadership in general. 

Nicholas (ILL) has been on AVL since July 13; he will return on July 27. All the MSD Technicians (Kristin, Lisa, and Julia) have helped out in ILL while he has been gone; their help is much appreciated. 

Pauline attended the ALA Conference in Chicago July 11-13. She learned valuable information about catalog usability, appreciating staff, and graphic novel issues, as well as visiting with various vendors. 

Pauline visited the Service Center with other managers on June 30. Cataloging and ILL staff visited on July 16, along with other staff members who will be working there. Everyone is impressed and excited. Pauline took pictures on both dates and sent CDs to all who attended the tours. 

Paula was invited to the Commission meeting on July 16 to receive her 10 year certificate, but was unable to attend due to the Service Center tour. 

Cataloging finished the fiscal year with 20,782 titles cataloged, including 747 downloadable audio titles; and 18,445 titles with copies added, for a total of 38,924 title records added or updated. These totals are all increases from 5% to 8% over FY08. 177,902 barcode labels were printed for new materials; 11,435 replacement barcode labels were printed, for a total of 189,337 barcode labels printed. This is an increase of 5% over last fiscal year. We have not hit our milestone of 200,000 labels yet, but we are working on it! 

ILL finished the fiscal year having received 8,679 requests to borrow materials from other libraries, and filling 7,285, or 84%, of them. This amounts to 41% more requests received than last year, and 49% more filled. The department received 27,507 requests to lend MLS materials to other libraries; 11,868 were filled, for a fill rate of 43%. The number of requests to lend received via AGent declined 22%, but the number of requests filled increased by 4%; the number of requests via FirstSearch increased by 28%, with 14% more filled. Overall, ILL handled 36,186 requests during FY09, an increase of 19%, and filled 19,153, an increase of 35%. 

Materials Selection Update - Janet 

Library Visits

During June Selectors conducted an annual library visit to BE and a 6-month to WA. 

During July selectors are making an annual visit to CH and a 6-month to BI. 

August will be a busy month for visits. Selectors make annual visits to CT and the Extensions and a 6-month visit to DN.

Budget

Selectors finished out FY09 with little trouble and have begun encumbering FY10. 

So far in FY10, each list has been in excess of 5000, which helps out with the additional funds for extra copies of titles. 

Periodicals Renewal 

Susan sent out periodicals renewal to libraries and offices. They are due back to her the first of August. 

Electronic Customer Suggestions 

Janet plans to meet with Jimmy soon to discuss how to change the way customer suggestions and system reserves are handled in MSL. 

Staff have been brainstorming for several months and are ready to take their suggestions to Jimmy. 

Meetings/Workshops

Janet met with Leslie Gelders with ODL’s Literacy Department to review the materials for the GED program that is presented on OETA and sponsored by the Oklahoma City Foundation. 

Janet met with the AdHoc committee on Communications. The committee plans to meet again on July 27th at BI. 

Janet and Kim attended the Supervisory Skills Workshop on 6/23/09 and 7/21. Janet shared notes from the workshop with the managers. 

Janet met with the Leadership group on 7/8/09. She gave them a tour of the department and talked about her leadership philosophy. 

Janet attended ALA from July 10-14. She attended a few really good sessions, but overall did not feel very challenged by the sessions she attended. 

Janet attended the OLA program committee meeting in Yukon on July 17th. She is now serving as the Intellectual Freedom Committee Co-Chair. They will hold their first committee meeting on July 31st at the VI library. 

Julia worked in ILL July 20th. 

The OLA Matrix Camp had a tour of Materials Selection on July 20. One of the students will job shadow Melissa and volunteer to do some work in our department on July 23rd. 

Janet attended the Safety Committee Meeting in Edmond on July 22. Janet announced that the Safety Committee will be meeting at CH on Sept 8 and will do a site inspection there. 

Janet is scheduled to meet with the Tech Group on July 28th. 

Janet is scheduled to go through training for the new appraisal system on July 30th.

Administration Update - Karen

Building Updates

RE- behind schedule for completion. No firm date yet when they will be moving back to their building. Their move should not interfere with the move to the Service Center. 

NW-shelving plans have been incorporated into the floor plan. Karen reported space allocations pretty much have remained the same as what she proposed to selectors in May, except there will be less space for uncataloged items. She will supply new figures soon. 

Bid for NW goes to the commission in the next month or so.

CH-City has had people observing and touring CH for ADA compliance issues  that may need to be addressed before the bond projects can begin. 

SO-Preliminary drawings are proceeding. Funds in FY10 for move, but no date set yet. 

Service Center-completion date has been moved back to sometime at the end of October. Plans call for substantial complete now on Oct. 26th. Furniture will need to be installed after that which will take about 2-3 weeks, then sorter and lift installation and training. Move in would then occur sometime around the end of November or the first of December. 

Managers discussed issues surrounding the mail pick up and distribution. 

Karen asked Heidi and Pauline to review the floor plans and mark locations for all items to be moved. (Does not include items from the furniture plan). She’d  like this input by Sept. 10. 

Commission

Final vote on the budget set for August. 

Karen commented that Donna and Lloyd did an excellent job advocating for staff raises at the June commission meeting when the preliminary budget was approved. 

Outreach 

Summer reading statistics are up this year. 

Library night at the ballpark scheduled for August 3. See Dana if you want to attend. 

ALA 

Karen highlighted a couple of the sessions she attended at ALA. 

Overdrive 

Karen referenced the email sent out last week about the changes to the Overdrive service. 

Epub is gaining usage and receiving reserves on titles. 

Karen is selecting the “epub” editions, not the Adobe or Mobipocket editions.

Books on Tape/Gifts Pauline

After discussion, managers decided that gifts of books on tape or CD will not be added to the catalog unless they match an existing record. 

Any gifts not already in system in that format will be sent to MSL for evaluation. 

Service Center Move-in Plans All 

Managers discussed ways MSL could begin to assist with planning for the move to the service center, especially timing related to orders. 

Selectors should plan to submit larger order lists in the next couple of months. Heidi indicated that it would be okay to submit order lists that are around 6000 items instead of the 5000 item lists selectors were limited to. Closer to the move, selectors should then back off on the size of the lists until after the move. 

About 4-6 weeks prior to the move, selectors will limit AV orders from vendors other than BTE and Library Video. They should also suspend the order of large/boxed sets during that time. 

Near the time of the move, replacement lists may be entered in the computer, but the lists held so material does not arrive during the move. Some of the standard replacements may be done in the next few months instead of later. Janet and Kim will review when replacements are going out.

Miscellaneous - All

Janet asked Heidi if alphabetizing the P.O.s for phone orders was the only issue they had with the Rush account. There were no other issues. Janet will contact Tammy/B&T to see if there is a way to get the rush account purchase orders set up in an alphabetized order. 

When an additional driver is added and the pick up schedule adjusted, drivers will be picking up gifts and withdrawals every day from libraries and delivering to the basement. They should also be picking up Friends boxes from the basement daily. Janet and Kim will look into this and see how it changes the workflow in the basement. 

Heidi brought samples of the new DVD property labels and also samples of some problems they are having with some new CD cases. 

Heidi and Pauline plan to attend the August Library Managers’ meeting to talk about changes in the audio packaging. 

Next Meeting Scheduled for August 20, 2009 at CH. Pauline – chair.