Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for October 18, 2007

Materials Services Managers Monthly Meeting

October 18, 2007; 8:00, a.m.; Director’s Conference Room, Downtown Library, 3rd Floor

Present: Janet Brooks, Chair, Heidi Johnson, Karen Marriott, Pauline RodriguezAtkins

Guests: Dana Morrow, Julie Ballou, Kelley Hoffman, Heidi Port

Agenda:

Welcome Guests - Janet Brooks

Janet welcomed Leadership Class members: Julie, Kelley and Heidi.

Outreach Update - Dana Morrow

Dana shared information about the “Our World: Strumming on Soul, Classical Music of India” program scheduled for November 2007.

She also shared information about upcoming projects, including the Aboriginal storyteller in October 2008, Turan Throat Singers in November 2008, and the Zydeco music players for Spring Fling in 2009.

Cataloging Update - Pauline RodriguezAtkins

Meetings and trainings attended:

Jill – Support Your Support Staff conference, September 27

Jill – OLA A Place for Everyone workshop, October 11

Jana – Read About It taping, September 28

Veronica Escobar returned to work on October 15. Everyone is glad to see her.

Veronica passed her U.S. citizenship test on September 7. She will officially become a citizen sometime in October.

Anna Todd from MSL spent a threeday rotation in Cataloging September 1113. She spent most of her time working with the Technicians, but spent some with each Cataloger. Staff who worked with her commented on how quickly she caught on to tasks. The Technicians felt that she would have no difficulty assisting in Cataloging if the need arises. 

Julie from MSL visited on September 18. She talked with Jill about the juvenile series file and how it is used, and discussed cataloging TNF and JNF materials with Jana and Aaron.

Pauline attended the stakeholders’ meeting to discuss updating the performance appraisal process on September 25.

All fulltime staff not on leave attended Focus on October 8.

Cataloging offered an information booth at Focus. Staff prepared a flyer with important information, and offered candy kisses to any staff member who asked a question. They worked hard to encourage everyone not to hesitate to call with questions or comments.

Pauline attended a meeting with Studio Architects on October 17 to go over furniture needs for the new Service Center.

The workload appears to be holding steady. The number of titles cataloged through September is almost equal to the same period last year. The number of titles enhanced is down 11%, as it was in August. Overall, the number of titles handled this year is down 6% from last year. However, the number of labels printed is nearly identical. Currently, there are 4.39 copies per title; there were 4.14 copies during the same period last year.

Cataloging received 30 boxes of transfers on October 9, and another 7 on October 15. No one has had much time to work on them, since Margaret has been busy helping Tech Processing. 

All Catalogers and Pauline will be out of the office on October 29, to attend an OLA workshop on classification. All Technicians will be in the office.

ILL Update - Pauline RodriguezAtkins

Meetings and trainings attended:

Karen – Basics of WorldCat Resource Sharing, October 2

Pamela – WorldCat Resource Sharing Administrative Functionality, October 3

Karen and Pamela also attended Focus on October 8.

Karen and Pamela are getting most materials received in ILL routed out within 24 hours of their having been received.

When the new system reserve process was implemented, ILL reserves were not filled for over a week. Jimmy Welch located the problem and corrected it; system reserves now come daily. Unfortunately, some requests went unfilled because of the delay in getting materials to fill them.

There have been significant problems with the TransAmigos courier service. The contracted courier stated that the company had not been paid, and refused to continue service. Amigos has begun using a different contractor. Deliveries are coming daily, but timing is not always regular.

Materials sent to and from Pioneer Library System are sent to Southern Oaks, where a Pioneer courier picks them up once a week. Recently, SO discovered four large boxes routed to Pioneer which had been placed in the back room and forgotten. The materials have now been routed, and hopefully there will be no more issues with Pioneer routing.

Pauline is continuing to work on getting removable labels for ILL materials.

Pauline is also working with Spaces to reconfigure the ILL office for better communication and a more open feel.

As of the end of September, ILL borrow and loan requests are at about presuspension levels. Approximately 80% of requests received from MLS customers wanting to borrow materials were filled within the month. About 28% of requests received from other libraries via FirstSearch, and 68% of those received via AGent, were filled in September. The most common reason for not filling loan requests is that all copies of the requested title are out. 

Pauline and Pamela will both be out of the office on October 29; Karen will be in.

Technical Processing Update - Heidi Johnson

So far, the runs in October have been on average 709 labels per day which is a slight decrease compared to September’s average of 730 labels, but still a marked increase over the months before September. Technical Processing currently receives an average of 46 boxes of materials a day which is a slight increase compared to September’s average of 42.

On the day after Focus, TP received 140 boxes of materials.

The runs have been larger, several staff members, processors included, have been out, and the dept. is still without one of its processors. In addition, one of the receiving technicians will be on extended leave, possibly until January 2008. However, TP is uptodate on processing all types of rush materials and is currently processing nonrush materials from the run five days ago.

TP’s new processor will attend the new employee workshop on Monday, October 22, and report to the dept. on Tuesday.

Due to many meetings and staff shortages, Heidi only glanced at the latest Baker & Taylor and Ingram statements. Several of the accounts have some older items listed which need to be investigated. Heidi will do so as soon as workload permits again.

Christy was asked to be a member of this year’s Outstanding Service Awards committee and has been attending several meetings Downtown.

Technical Processing is preparing a test bindery group of 20 materials to send to the HF Group. Pickup is scheduled for the week of October 22.

Julie visited Technical Processing on September 18. A major item of discussion was plans for the new Service Center and how the move might impact workflow within TP and the rest of the Division.

Heidi and all of TP’s staff attended Focus 2007; everyone seemed very pleased with how the day developed. Several staff made very positive remarks about some of the workshops they attended. Heidi had the pleasure of meeting Tom Massey and introducing his presentations. 

Heidi and the rest of the United Way committee were very pleased with the number of staff who responded with contributions and donations and helped MLS not only to reach this year’s goal of a 10% increase over last year, but to even slightly surpass it.

Heidi attended the board meeting of the Friends on October 16 at the Edmond Library. She talked about the purpose of the Technical Processing Dept., its history, its current setup and the planned move to the new Service Center. She also did some showandtell of bringing materials as received in TP, and what they look like once TP has prepared them for customer use. She also discussed some of the issues faced when processing audiovisual materials, often caused by the packaging of CDs and DVDs as received from the manufacturers. Heidi felt the presentation was well received and provided the Friends with a glimpse behind the public scenes.

Heidi attended a meeting with the architects on October 17 to discuss furniture needs of the dept. for the new Service Center.

Linda Taylor, former cataloger with MLS and now Associate Professor with OSU in Stillwater, contacted Heidi about MLS’s handling of CDs, especially property labeling and repackaging into more durable cases. Heidi sent Linda some samples in addition to corresponding by email and phone.

Amanda Gettler with Right Management, the company working on revising MLS’s performance appraisal system, will be in TP on October 24 to job shadow some of the staff. 

Materials Selection Update - Janet Brooks

Congratulations to Julie Ballou for her nomination for Outstanding Service Award.

Library Visits

During September selectors made annual visits to DC, Book Centers and Books by Mail.

They also made a 6month collection review of ED.

During October, Selectors are conducting an annual visit to VI and a 6month collection review of MC.

In November, they make an annual visit RE and a 6month visit to SO

CAT/TP Visits

Julie visited TP and CAT on Sept. 18 th

Spotlight On

The Selectors updated the Spotlight On Native Americans during September.

The bibliographies have been sent to Teresa Goggins and will be up on the webpage in November.

Appraisal Job Shadowing

Janet attended the “key stakeholders” meeting looking the appraisal process on Sept. 25 th . The consultants for the appraisal study will be job shadowing Materials Selection staff on October 24 th . Janet plans to have them work with Ruby, Kim, and Kelly.

Grants

Selectors are completing selections for the CT HarperCollins Grant. All selections should be completed by October 18 th.

Susan helped complete a grant using extra funds from the Endowment grant.

Baker and Taylor News

We no longer have access to a secondary warehouse at Baker and Taylor. The setup was causing a multitude of problems for Tech Processing and was not benefiting the library as we had hoped.

MSL is waiting for B&T to initiate a new function that would allow us access to the Muze database. This database would provide much more information about music CDs and the content of DVDs that we presently have access to. Janet will let staff know when this function is available for a test and then need to negotiate with B&T to determine a price for the service.

Workshops/Meetings

The Fall Collection Workshop was cancelled due to lack of enrollment.

Janet postponed the Gift workshop that was scheduled for Sept.26 th . The workshop will now be offered on Nov. 13 th .

Julie continued to attend the Leadership meetings and worked with others on the V2R activities with BE and the BO.

Kim Rickey attended a Staff Recognition Dinner Committee meeting on Sept. 18th and scheduled for another one on Oct. 23.

Julie and Ruby taped Read About It segments on Sept. 28.

Janet, Ruby, Julie, and Susan attended the Focus training on Oct. 2 nd and then assisted with various activities at Focus.

Julie attended the Children’s Services meeting on Oct. 3 rd .

Susan attended the Adult Services meeting on Oct. 10 th .

Lisa Coker attended the OLA workshop “A Place for Everyone”.

Kim and Ruby attended the Developing High Performance Teams on Oct. 15.

Janet is scheduled to attend the Tech Support group on Oct. 23 rd .

Janet is scheduled to attend the YA services meeting on Oct. 31st.

Ruby is going to attend the facilitators’ workshop on Oct. 31 st .

Janet is attending the professional day for the 1 st Amendment Congress on Nov. 1

Statistics

Janet shared statistics compiled from monthly activity reports she is providing Karen.

V2R - Julie Ballou, Kelley Hoffman, Heidi Port

Julie, Kelley and Heidi shared information about the V2R project the leadership class has developed and how successful the Transformation Café session was at FOCUS. 

Administration Update Karen Marriott

Karen has been working with Donna, Kay Bauman and Kim Terry updating several policies.

The changes to the grievance and civil rights policies as well as some new policy recommendations for conflict resolution issues will be going to the full commission in November.

The committee is also looking at a local history fee policy to address the increase in requests to copy material from the Oklahoma collection and procedures addressing when staff leave the system. Karen is updating the fee policy for borrowed materials, withdrawn & transferred materials policy.

Karen announced that the Literary Voices speaker will be Scott Turow.

Karen has participated in several of the leadership class luncheons and presented information related to the group.

Karen attended the NW community meeting. There will probably be another meeting in the future.

Work on the service center continues. Karen has met with the architects, along with Heidi and Pauline to discuss furniture and equipment issues.

Karen reported that DC has made their appointment to the commission. This completes all of the appointments. Because of the increased size of the commission, the monthly meetings cannot be held at smaller agencies such as BE, CH or CT.

Tech Suggestions Discussion - All

Managers reviewed a couple of issues that have been forwarded to the Tech Suggestion Group.

Barcode placement on music CDs. The managers recommend not making any changes to the placement.

Pauline described the history behind several issues submitted by Cataloging. The issues arose from a survey of public service staff conducted by Cataloging. Cataloging staff and MSD managers realize that several of these issues have been addressed by the Tech Suggestion group in the past. However, since they were brought up by library staff, Cataloging felt that it was important to forward them. Aaron Killough, Cataloging’s representative to the Tech Group, will be able to provide explanation at the meeting.

Miscellaneous - All

Pauline announced that calling ext. 3552 or 6063552 will reach her whether she is at Cataloging or ILL. Karen Davis can be reached at 6063830.

Next meeting is scheduled for November 15, 2007 at Capitol Hill. Heidi will chair.