Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for March 13, 2008

Materials Services Division Managers’ Monthly meeting

March 13, 2008; 8:00 A.M.; Capitol Hill Library

Present: Karen Marriott, Janet Brooks, Heidi Johnson, Pauline Rodriguez-Atkins.

Materials Selection update – Janet

Library Visits

During February, the selectors made an annual visit to DN and a 6-month visit to CT.

During March, selectors made an annual visit to ED and a 6-month visit to DC.

During April, selectors are scheduled to do an annual visit to MC and 6-month visit to VI.

Spotlight On

Selectors are updating the Spotlight on Asian Americans. It will go to Teresa by the first of April and up on the webpage in May.

Janet and Karen are evaluating how useful the Spotlight bibliographies are to customers and staff to decide if we need to continue to update them.

Training

Janet conducted a mini-workshop on weeding on February 17. It was very well attended and the evaluations very positive.

Janet conducted a mini-workshop on gifts to MC staff on March 6 and is scheduled to do another one for them on March 13.

Janet and Karen met with Stacy and Kellie about training library staff to serve as materials mentors. They would conduct training in gifts, withdrawals, replacements and customer comments. Mentor training will take place on April 29.

Janet and Karen are looking at alternative ways to get staff the information they need. Janet provided an article to the March ShelfLife about the order information on the catalog as a way to assist staff.

MSD Tech

Jeanie continues her training. Kim will contact other managers shortly to arrange training at ILL, CAT and TP.

FY09

Janet is working on FY09 budget requests. Other than a few items for the basement, she does not anticipate any large requests.

Selectors have not begun working on materials fund allocations for FY yet. Once Karen has forwarded figures from library managers, they will begin meeting about fund allocations.

Daily Link

Staff are participating in the Daily Link/Service Principles activities enthusiastically. This activity is usually conducted after our morning stretching exercises.

Meetings/Workshops

Janet and Julie attended the X-change meeting on February 18.

Staff continue to attend the sexual harassment workshops.

Janet attended the Prepare: Respect, Service and Safety workshop on February 28. Kim is scheduled to attend the training in April.

Anna and Kim attended the Reference tools workshop at ED on March 4.

Janet and Julie attended the YA Services Retreat on March 5 and gave a presentation on developing displays in the library.

Janet attended the Safety Committee meeting on March 11.

Several staff are attending the Excel workshop on March 18.

Julie and Ruby are attending the True Communications Workshop on March 20.

Julie is scheduled to attend the Children’s Services meeting on April 2 and Marilyn is scheduled to attend the Adult Services meeting on April 9.

Ruby is scheduled to teach the Reading Advisory workshop on April 17.

Spring Collection Workshop

Janet asked for any final updates to the collection workshop. She will begin updating the manual as necessary next week to have it ready for the workshop on April 1.

Technical Processing update – Heidi

So far, the runs in March have been on average 590 labels per day which is about a hundred labels less than February’s average of 693 labels. Technical Processing currently receives an average of 31 boxes of materials a day which is about 20 boxes less than February’s average of 51.

Many thanks go to the staff in Cataloging who willingly helped out when TP was without any Receiving or Data Entry Techs one day and again during the days when only one Receiving Tech was present at work. Thanks also to all TP staff who helped out with duties other than their own, like unloading boxes and generally filling in wherever needed. TP is happy to report that most staff are back to work at this time.

Heidi once again has contacted CFS to have old credit memos applied, especially to the AV account.

All Ingram accounts continue to be current.

All TP staff have been scheduled to attend one of the Sexual Harassment workshops. Juanita is supposed to return to work on March 17 and will at that time be scheduled for an online make-up session.

CH’s roof repair has been completed without any further leaks into the building after the initial soaking Cataloging received. Staff once again can enter the building through the side door.

Heidi attended the last X-Change meeting at ED on February 18.

Heidi met with staff about any additional supplies needed for the new building, like mail carts, mats, etc. Materials Services Division Managers’ Meeting 2 March 13, 2008

TP is discussing the daily service principles every day, with staff taking turns facilitating the daily sessions, with some interesting discussions developing. Also, some staff get very artistic and creative when illustrating their sessions.

Heidi requested samples for CD replacement binders to hold up to 24 CDs. Several vendors have sent their samples; due to short staffing, Heidi has not yet had the opportunity to evaluate them.

Heidi is to meet with Jim Welch in IT on Tuesday, 3-18, to discuss setting up a form to use as binding slips when sending MLS’s materials to be rebound to the HFGroup.

Cataloging update – Pauline

Meetings and training attended:

Veronica – Generational Diversity workshop, February 20

Jill – OLA SSRT, February 21

The roofing project at CH led to a severe water leak in Cataloging. On February 18, staff arrived to find that several ceiling tiles had collapsed and water had soaked three desk areas. The computers and barcode printers were actually sitting in water. Three computers, two barcode printers, and two ergonomic desk chairs were damaged. IT staff arrived shortly and were able to rig up two temporary work stations for the Cataloging Technicians who were affected. Paula returned to her desk later that week. The roof is now completed and Maintenance has replaced the carpet tiles that were water damaged. Veronica moved back to her desk on March 12.

Jana has been selected for the Leadership MLS program. Her first meeting was on March 12.

Ursula is serving as the CH building coordinator for the American Heart Association fund raiser. She attended the volunteer luncheon on February 19, and has held one fund-raising raffle. She has several other raffles and events planned.

Aaron has been named a member of the Staff Recognition Dinner committee.

Jill, Aaron, Veronica, Paula, and Jana have attended the Staff Responsibilities re Sexual Harassment workshop. All Cataloging staff have now completed the training.

Ursula assisted with the RFID project at VI on February 19.

The Catalogers held a meeting on February 22. They talked about ideas for changes to the genre heading list, as well as various procedural questions.

Pauline has requested that the MSD Tech position be opened. She has provided Roy with additional questions for the application; these should make selecting applicants for interviews easier. She will check back with Roy around March 24.

Cataloging is conducting Daily Service Link sessions each day. Pauline is not able to attend all sessions, as she is in ILL on some days. Pauline and the catalogers are leading sessions for the month of March; beginning in April, all staff will take turns leading sessions. Materials Services Division Managers’ Meeting 3 March 13, 2008

Cataloging statistics

After the January high, the number of titles cataloged in February dropped to a near-record low for the year, while the number of titles enhanced reached a record high for the year. The overall result is that total output of titles remains almost identical to this time last year. The number of barcode labels printed continues to exceed last year’s output.

Although there has been considerable variation among monthly totals for titles cataloged and enhanced, title production for the fiscal year remains nearly identical to last year. The number of labels printed and copies per title have consistently outpaced last fiscal year. Materials Services Division Managers’ Meeting 4 March 13, 2008

ILL update – Pauline

Due to circumstances outside our control, Brittany’s first day as a full-time employee was March 10.

Karen is back to working regular hours.

The new ILL forms are in and have been sent to libraries! They are much easier for ILL staff to use when placing requests.

ILL staff are participating in Daily Service Link discussions. Pauline is not able to attend all sessions, as she is in CAT on some days. The discussions are more informal than in some other departments, due to the small staff. All staff are involved and contribute good ideas.

ILL statistics

ILL’s February workload dropped slightly from January’s high. Most requests were submitted to FirstSearch within 24 hours of being received in ILL, although some took a little longer.

The number of requests to lend materials remained high. ILL continues to fill 50% or more of all requests to lend.

Turnaround times for borrowing and lending materials via FirstSearch are continually improving.

For materials borrowed from other libraries, turnaround time for filled request equals the time from submission of the request to receipt of the material. For unfilled requests, turnaround equals the time from submission of the request to receipt of notice that it cannot be filled. MLS does not completely have control over turnaround for borrowed materials. Each request may be sent to multiple libraries; each library must respond by filling or declining the request before it is forwarded to the next library. Not all libraries respond to requests as quickly as MLS does. When a library fills a request, the time until it is received in ILL depends upon the distance and the shipping method used. Turnaround times have steadily declined, however. This is partially due to the fact that MLS ILL staff can control the amount of time from receipt of materials in ILL to routing them to MLS customers; that turnaround is usually 24 hours.

For materials lent by MLS, turnaround time for filled requests equals the time from receipt of the request to shipment of the material. For unfilled requests, it equals the time from receipt of the request to time the request is declined and forwarded to another library.

As is evident from the turnaround time for unfilled requests, ILL staff pride themselves on checking all received requests within 24 hours of receipt. Considering that turnaround for filled requests includes time for materials to be routed through the system reserve process, the less than 72 hour time frame is also impressive.

Administration update – Karen

There are a few issues remaining before the contract for construction of the Service Center can be awarded. The roof has required some redesign. It was thought that the driveway plan would require a city variance, but that will not be necessary.

Budget will be locked on April 14. Managers are reminded to request any special items that they expect to need for the new building.

The 95% drawings for the RE upgrade are complete. Kay Bauman, Todd Olberding, and Donna Morris are going to Phoenix to tour an updated inner-city library there.

Dr. Ann Caine will be resigning from the Commission at the end of April. There is no word on her replacement.

The RFID project is continuing. BE is scheduled for the week of March 17, CH for the week of March 31 (project begins April 1).

The ODL appropriations bill is still pending. It is possible that it might include funding for statewide licensing of downloadable audio books.

Jim Welch is working on a plan to allow customers to use credit cards on CyberMars.

Karen is concerned that circulation of AV materials is going down, although book circulation remains steady. The managers discussed various possible reasons for this.

Questions/Miscellaneous

Janet reminded managers that updates to the Collection Management workshop manual are due on March 17.

The next meeting will be on April 17, 2008, 8:00 A.M., at Downtown. Janet will chair.