Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for May 20, 2004

May 20, 2004 

Capitol Hill Library

8:00 a.m. 

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

Materials Selection Update - Janet 

• Library Visits 
• In May selectors conducted an annual visit to WA and 6-month collection reviews to VI and CT.  Janet and Karen met with Priscilla and Debbie at BI for an annual visit follow up meeting.  Normally selectors are scheduled for visits to ED, CH and DC in June.  Because of the move we will postponed these visits until July.   
• Staff Recognition 
• Materials Selection staff had a Pizza/Game party on May 7th for staff recognition. 
• Meetings attended 
• Julie attended the Lunch and Learn series on May 13th. 
• Ruby and Susan are scheduled to meet with TP/CAT staff on May 21st.
• Julie attended the YA programmers' meeting on May 5th. 
• Susan attended the Adult programmers' meeting May 12th. 
• Janet attended the X-change meeting on May 17th. 
• Janet will attend the library managers' meeting on May 26th. 
• Janet attended a Sequoyah meeting on May 14th. 
• Janet attended a United Way Allocations committee meeting on May 5. 
• Budget 
• Selectors have held two meetings to discuss and negotiate the fund divisions for FY05.  They plan to have their recommendations to Karen early the week of May 24th. 
• FY04 
• Selectors are on their way to finalizing FY04.  They are currently spending some of the SELFU.  Each selector is to encumber their amounts by a specific date, so not all are going out at the same time.  Janet will be looking at the balance of all funds the first of June to make sure all is encumbered by the end of the FY. 
• Move to the new building
• MSL is tentatively scheduled to move starting June 18th.  MSL staff have already begun boxing a good portion of the items in the office.  Janet will ask library staff to start sending all gifts and withdrawals directly to the Friends starting June 1st.  This should allow MSL staff enough time to clear basement shelves before we move.  Staff is planning to work all day June 7th and June 8th in the basement.  Withdrawals and gifts will again be delivered to the basement in the new building, once shelves are dismantled from the old building and reassembled in the new building.  This should be sometime in late July.   

Cataloging Update - Pauline 

• Cataloging is slowly adjusting to being on the second floor alone, since Automation has moved to their new home. 
• The workload picked up in April, after being slow January through March.  The number of new titles cataloged was up, but still below the peaks experienced at the beginning of the fiscal year.  This is the first time that the number exceeded 20,000 before May.  The number of titles with added copies was the highest of the fiscal year, however; so much so that the total number of titles sent out was also the highest of the year.  It’s the first year that the total number of titles has exceeded 35,000 before May.  The number of labels printed was the highest since January, but still lower than any month JulyDecember.  Even so, the total labels for the year is higher that last year’s total through May. 
• Since Margaret came on board at the end of May, the number of transfers processed has increased by more than 50%, from 980 to 1506.  Laqueta’s school semester has ended, and she began working 30 hours per week on May 10.  Margaret and Laqueta have also helped with Cataloging Technician tasks, and have processed new materials for Tech Processing on several occasions. 
• Maintenance delivered 38 boxes on May 18.  6 were gifts, 5 were “re-labels” for DN, and the rest were transfers.  Now that Automation has moved, Laqueta and Margaret had the idea of using the north hallway, outside Anne’s former office, for additional storage.  They unpacked several boxes onto the bookshelves in the hallway, and there is room for more boxes to be stored there.  Pauline is negotiating to have both work extra hours through the end of the fiscal year. Also, since Automation is gone, Pauline has inherited custody of the copy money, coffee money, and copy machine documentation.  Maintenance for the copier next year is in Cataloging’s budget. 
• Pauline met with the Cataloging Technicians to discuss how workflow might change with the new barcode printing system.  Heidi sat in on part of the meeting, to discuss how the changes would impact Tech Processing.  They developed a basic plan, but will need to meet again before and after the changeover, to refine it.  There is no clear timeline for the switch.  The most recently purchased sheets of labels have been a constant source of problems for Cataloging and Tech, so the switch will be most welcome. 
• Elizabeth, Linda, and Julie visited Cataloging on April 23.  Elizabeth spent time with Cataloging Technicians discussing gifts and new editions; Linda got a general overview of the department and spent time learning how the Technicians do their jobs; Julie discussed CD cataloging issues with Crystal.  All were interested and asked good questions.  
• Crystal attended a Tech Support Group meeting on April 27.
• Jill attended an SSRT meeting on April 29. 
• Denise and Kim visited Cataloging on April 30.  Pauline presented training on keyword searching in the staff catalog and the Library of Congress online authority file.  They discussed ways that the MSL Technicians could apply these skills to their work. 
• Clyde attended meetings of the Recognition Committee on May 4 and May 18. 
• Ursula attended the Lunch ‘n Learn session “Vision of Teams” on May 13. 
• Pauline attended the Oklahoma Union List of Serials membership meeting on May 14.  The membership voted to waive membership dues for the upcoming fiscal year. 
• Veronica volunteered at the Primavera Festival on May 15. 
• Cataloging celebrated Crystal’s graduation by taking her to lunch on May 18. 
• Ursula attended a MetroDocs meeting on May 19. 

Technical Processing Update - Heidi 

• Runs are between 300-1000 labels at this time. TP currently receives an average of about 35 boxes of materials a day.   TP again has been short staffed due to AVL, jury duty, etc.  
• Melanie Levick, TP's new processor, started April 26.  Her training is proceeding nicely, and Technical Processing is very glad to have her on board.   
• Heidi attended the X-Change meeting at Belle Isle on May 17. 
• Heidi has been in frequent contact with our new credit rep. at the new combined accounting department, CFS (Consumer Financial Services), for both Baker & Taylor and Baker & Taylor Entertainment.  Tammy Billings, B&T's sales rep., has been very helpful in getting Heidi in touch with the right people.  Our new credit rep.'s name is Patricia Rice, and she has worked very diligently  to clear out some old items from MLS's accounts.   
• Heidi has worked with Connie Cravens, the sales rep. for Sagebrush, to set up MLS's account so that split quantities, confusion over when to send which materials, and other problems with shipments can be avoided.  Future shipments from Sagebrush will show whether this goal has been achieved.  Sagebrush has also recently assigned MLS a designated customer service rep. whose name is Lezlie Manahan.  Hopefully this will simplify MLS's transactions with Sagebrush/Econo-Clad in the future. 
• Five staff from Edmond attended the processing workshop held by Loretta on May 18.  Five more are scheduled to attend on May 24, also from Edmond.  
• Elizabeth, Linda, and Julie from Materials Selection visited TP on April 23.  Since this was Linda's first time in Technical Processing, she found this orientation especially helpful.  Ruby and Susan are scheduled to visit on May 21. 
• Even though Heidi had volunteered to help with the second day of the Luther move, her help was not required after all as Luther was moved all in one day.  Someone there really worked hard to get it all done in one day! 
• Josh facilitated a Lunch and Learn sessions on May 13 at Southern Oaks.  He is also scheduled to teach several of the True North new employee orientations later in the year. 

Administrative Update - Karen 

• The Downtown offices are to move to the new library according to the proposed schedule.  The move of the library itself depends on the date for the grand opening which is still to be coordinated with the City. 
• The new Luther Library is now open. 
• Midwest City is closed for work on the floor. 
• The Public Services Council decided to not separate JNF from ANF at the new DN library.  JNF and ANF will still be interfiled on the shelves. 
• Denyvetta Davis and a committee are looking at the system reserves process and its associated costs.  They visited the Tulsa City-County Library to see how Tulsa handles their system reserves.  The committee hopes to make some recommendations by February 2005. 
• Sony is supposed to send 15,000 CDs to the library as part of their settlement for overcharging customers.  The CDs will be delivered to Maintenance.  Julie is supposed to look at an initial list to decide which ones to add to the collection.  The majority probably will not be added, or will be added copies. 
• Karen mentioned that Channel 9 and their affiliate in Tulsa are participating in a statewide literacy project.  As part of this project, they are sponsoring a children's book drive for "new or gently used books".  The collected materials are to be delivered to Maintenance sometime in early July. 
• Karen attended the Retirement Board meeting; for details, see the minutes of that board meeting. 
• The Public Services Committee of the Commission met and approved the fee schedule for the DN meeting rooms.  (The minutes are included in the Commission packet) 
• Helen Chacon, former employee development coordinator with MLS, gave a speech at the last Friends' meeting. 
• The A&P Committee is to meet May 25 to look at annual benefits, salaries, etc. 

MSD Workshop Manual - all 

• It was decided that after formatting of the manual, a printed copy should be made available to MSD managers by the August MSD meeting, scheduled for August 19, 2004. 

Amigos Conference  Report, 2004 - Pauline

• Fees 
• The fees for searches, exports, holdings displays, and ILL requests will all go up at least 2.5% next fiscal year; exports will actually go up 3.5%.  Credits for original cataloging, holdings deletions, and ILL lending will also go up, but not as much. 
• There will be no change in access fees for next year.  MLS has apparently not received the requested eighth user license.  This is currently not an issue because Cataloging Technicians do not have OCLC access, but I will follow up. 
• There are no changes in the Amigos membership and OCLC user fees for the coming year.  However, there have been no changes to those fees for ten years, and increases are likely in future years. 
• The new prices mean that the fixed fee for Cataloging will probably be in the $25,000 range.  This is within the estimated range. 
• ILL Consolidated Pricing will be discontinued.  MLS has never used this option.  A new Subscription Price structure is being put in place.  It will be similar to the cataloging fixed fee, in that it will be based on the past three years’ usage.  My understanding is that the subscription price would not be re-evaluated each year, as the fixed fee is.  Pertransaction pricing will be changed, to one base price for any search and any request.  No decision has been made as to which the system will choose.
• Software 
• There is still no firm date on the end of life of Passport for cataloging.  The Connexion functionality is improving.  Pauline’s experience is that the speed of Connexion is not up to Passport, and several attendees at the conference reported this also. 
• The big news is that ILL will not be a web-based product similar to Connexion, as previously announce.  Instead, ILL will be absorbed into FirstSearch, probably in about a year, although no firm date has been announced.  It is already possible to request to borrow materials through FirstSearch, but not to lend.  Batch update and download are not available.  All these functions are in development. 
• MLS OCLC Cost/Usage as of 3/31/2004 
• As of the end of March, fixed fee pricing has saved Cataloging $1,038.  Per-transaction pricing has saved ILL $2,154. 
• Cataloging’s exports and produces are running about 10% ahead of the same period last fiscal year.  Original inputs are up by 53%; as of the end of March, original inputs were 10% ahead of all of the last fiscal year.  The ratio of exports and produces to titles cataloged is still about 1:1. 
• ILL’s OCLC requests are down about 14% from the same period last fiscal year, but lending credits are up 23%.  The ratio of searches to requests has remained pretty consistent, at about 1:1.5. 

Miscellaneous - all 

• Heidi asked whether it was OK to send copies of Baker & Taylor credit memos attached to e-mails to B&T's accounting dept.  Karen assured her it was OK to send them as a Calypso attachment. 
• Karen told managers to remind their staff that e-mails are public records.  Also, it has been suggested that staff refrain from using fancy backgrounds and fonts; some of these make it difficult to read the text of the e-mail.  
• Pauline informed Janet that MLS's WebDewey license has been charged to the system's Amigos deposit account, even though it was budgeted in the materials budget. The account has enough funds to pay the charge.  This means that Susan will have an extra $500.00 to spend on other items. 
• Pauline also mentioned that it is almost time to receive the annual Amigos invoice for OCLC access and transactions which is usually mailed out in July. 

The meeting adjourned at 10:38 a.m.  The next meeting is scheduled for June 17, 2004, 8:00 a.m.; Pauline will chair.