Materials Services Division Updates for October 2014

The regular meeting being cancelled, the Materials Services Managers provided updates of departmental activities in lieu of minutes.

Statistical Updates

• Since the beginning of the fiscal year, Materials Selection added a total of 8,712 titles and 57,344 items.  Since the beginning of September, when we migrated to CarlX, a total of 3,459 titles and 21,551 items were added.  Orders are averaging 432 titles and 2,694 items per week in the new system.   Orders have been smaller since going to the new system, as MSL continues to learn and refine procedures.  Most recent orders seem to be returning to a normal rate.
• Since the beginning of the fiscal year, Materials Selection received 3,926 customer suggestions to purchase materials, for an average of 245 suggestions per week.  Prior to the migration, MSL averaged about 296 suggestions per week.  Since going to the new system, the weekly average dropped to 181.  Part of the decrease may be attributed to problems early in the migration with the way suggestions were received and customers’ inability to find where to submit suggestions on the LS2Pac. 
• Due to the migration to the CarlX system, no receiving or daily barcode statistics are available for September. The processors are current on processing all rush and non-rush materials received from Cataloging. TP is not sure when any statistics might become available again.
• During September, TP received a daily average of 41 boxes of materials a day, for a total of 1014 boxes.  675 were received from Baker & Taylor, 339 from other vendors. The daily average in October so far is 46 boxes.

Call Numbers and Barcode Label Printing

• The September 24 upgrade to CarlX allowed Cataloging to print barcode labels with call numbers of up to 10 characters per line, but still allowed only 4 lines.  Cataloging was able to print barcode labels and route about 75% of materials held due to the call number issue.
• A second upgrade on October 14 allowed Cataloging to print barcode labels with call numbers containing 5 lines.  This allowed the department to complete printing barcodes for nearly all held materials.
• Unfortunately, Cataloging has discovered a new problem.  Although call numbers may have up to 5 lines and up to 10 characters in a line, the total call number cannot exceed 32 total characters.  This does not affect a large percentage of call numbers, but does have an impact.  Some materials are still being held until the issue is resolved.
• Library staff should feel free to check with Cataloging to see if materials are being held due to this problem.

ILL Notifications and Material Titles

• Several library staff have mentioned that ILL customer notices do not include the title of the requested materials.  Customers have contacted libraries asking for that information, especially when they receive notice of material not borrowed.
• Anne Fischer has been working with MLS and TLC staff to resolve the problem.  As of October 20, mailed notifications regarding ILL materials will include the title of the material.  Anne is working with TLC to set this up for e-mail as well.
• In the meantime, ILL staff are working to keep more specific records.  Library staff should feel free to call them if unable to provide title information to a customer.

Technical Processing Update

• Baker & Taylor’s and Ingram’s accounts continue to be current. 
• All full-time staff attended Focus 2014. 
• Even though TLC was able to incorporate Big Bin into the new CarlX receiving function, there are some problems with printing out the list for titles binned longer than 30 days. Anne has been notified of the problem. 
• Once again, the sorter has been experiencing some problems. Several boards went bad and had to be replaced. However, as far as TP can tell, the sorter is working correctly now.
• Since there had been so many problems with the sorter lately, initially it also got blamed for the many “misrouted” items appearing at the branches. However, upon further research, it was determined that most of these misrouted items were missing their system reserve routing slips. The sorter was actually sorting them into the correct bin for customer pickup locations, but since there was no routing slip, this was not apparent. The branches are working on getting used to the new system and to changed procedures, and have communicated with each other about better ways of putting on routing slips for holds, and about ways to make sure they are printed and put on the correct materials. Katherine was instrumental in catching and identifying most of the misrouted materials that were sent through the sorter during that “week of the misroutings”. Thank you, Katherine!
• On September 24, all three of the finalists for the executive director’s position were present at the Service Center and were given a tour of the facility.
• Katie Herd has returned from maternity leave on September 29 and says she is very happy to be back at work.
• IT has switched out the PCs at both of the tagging stations; Heidi has also received a new computer.
• Maintenance has temporarily fixed TP’s ongoing problem with the light switches in the department. They also have ordered new switches which should permanently fix the problem. Thank you Maintenance!

Materials Selection Update

• Selectors conducted annual library visits to DC during September.
• In October, they are making visits to JN and VI.
• In November, they are scheduled to do visits to RE and WR.
• Staff continues to become familiar with Carl-X procedures.
• Susan, Kristine, and Lauren are getting periodical and continuation titles entered into Serials.  This is a long and tedious task, but they are slowly making headway.
• Purchase orders are sent out every morning, except Monday.  Kristine is emailing purchase orders to the major vendors.  She receives email confirmations that an order was received, which should reduce the number of lost orders we experienced in the past.
• On 9/23, Janet attended the Q&A session with the candidates for the Executive Director position.
• Lisa attended the Staff Association meeting on 9/25 and is scheduled to attend the meeting on 10/23.
• Ruby attended the United Way Committee meeting on 10/8.
• Janet met with Lavetta and Angie Walton/OUT on 10/15 to discuss Come Read with Me selections.  She also worked with Angie, selecting titles from the withdrawals stored in the MSL basement.  They selected some JF and YA titles for some middle school and juvenile detention center Come Read with Me sites.
• Ruby is scheduled to meet with Andrew, the new CH librarian, on 10/24.
• Marilyn is scheduled to attend the Ancestry in Oklahoma conference on 11/7-8.

Cataloging/Interlibrary Loan Update

• Paige Nifong, part-time ILL Technician, resigned her position effective October 10.  The position was posted and has been closed.  Pauline, with assistance from Mary Long and the ILL staff, will interview applicants the week of October 20.
• Pauline has been working with Susan Ryan and Greg Bennett on creating and managing MARC records for serials, including periodicals.  There have been some hiccups, but they are working through them.  Questions regarding MARC records may be directed to Pauline; questions regarding issues, subscriptions, check in, etc., may be directed to Susan or Greg.
• The Cataloging Technicians have taken over creating brief MARC records for mass market paperbacks, inventorying the items, and getting them sent to libraries.  The Technicians are working steadily through the backlog that accumulated during the migration.  Staff at several libraries have contacted Pauline for instructions for handling donated mass markets.  Procedures are as follows:

1. Write the library’s code on the bottom of the pages of the paperback
2. Package the materials for routing to Cataloging.  Do not put any other kind of materials in the package.
3. Label the package “mass market paperbacks” and route to Cataloging.

Please be aware that donated mass markets are lower priority and will not be returned to libraries as quickly as purchased ones.

• Pauline attended the managers’ sessions with the candidates for the Executive Director position on September 23.  The candidates also toured the Service Center; Alice Fielding served as the guide for Cataloging and ILL.
• Greg Bennett provided serials training for Margo Ellis and Morris Crisp in Cataloging on October 8.  Margo is assigned to check in department periodicals, with Morris as backup.  Since the training, all issues of periodicals have been checked in.
• On October 14, Pauline spoke to a library media class at UCO, at the invitation of the instructor, Dr. Patsy Couts.  The students were very interested and enjoyed hearing how a large scale technical processing operation works.
• All Cataloging and Interlibrary Loan staff attended Focus on October 13.