Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for September 18, 2003

 Date: September 18, 2003 

8:00 A.M.

Capitol Hill Library meeting room

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

1. Technical Processing update – Heidi 

• Runs are between 500-1100 labels at this time.  TP receives an average of about 55 boxes of materials a day.  The garage is at this time overflowing with delivered materials. 
• Now that TP is at full staff again, Heidi and Christy have been busy catching up on a backlog of defective materials to be returned, paperwork, filing, etc.  Heidi has been trying to order sufficient supplies to last while she is on vacation for three weeks, and to make arrangements for her absence.   
• The bindery will pick up the fall bindery group on Oct. 22, at which time they will also bring back the genealogy materials rebound for DN.  The fall bindery group should be returned to TP around Christmas or New Year's at which time the bindery will pick up the next genealogy group for rebinding.  The spring bindery is tentatively scheduled to be picked up by Quality Book Binding Company around March 23 or 24 at which time they will also return the rebound genealogy materials. 
• TP received 6 shipments of materials from Ingram without invoices on 8-22-03.  Apparently no invoices were ever input due to a problem at their Ft. Wayne warehouse.  Despite several calls to Ingram's customer service dept., our Ingram sales rep., and the customer service supervisor, TP is still without invoices for these materials.  The latest information is that the problem is still ongoing at Ingram; now the vice president, Larry Price, is apparently involved and trying to find a solution to this problem.  The saga is still ongoing. 
• Heidi had BTE's AV account added to the list of accounts she can access online to print out invoices.  As it turned out, just in time, as BTE seems to be experiencing more than their normal number of invoicing problems. 
• TP is receiving more and more trade books in a smaller format.  The smallest wrapper used in TP was 10".   The processors suggested trying out 8" wrappers to avoid having to cut off the excess when processing these smaller books.  After trying them out, the processors are enthusiastic about how much faster and easier it is to process these materials.  As soon as TP can make some storage space for these 8" wrappers, Heidi will start ordering them in larger quantities since they are more cost effective in addition to being easier and less wasteful to use. 
• TP has received a new sample of a video case from Showcases to use for Disney videos.  This is the first sample to really stand up to repeated dropping onto the corners of the case.  These cases are fairly expensive.  Heidi will conduct a cost study after she is back from AVL whether it would be more cost effective to use these cases than spend extra staff time on cutting down the art work on Disney videos to make them fit into the case currently in use. 
• TP had a leak over Gene's desk and 5 books were water damaged.  Maintenance has called a roofer who is supposed to fix the problem.  A  timetable for the repairs has not been announced yet.

2. Materials Selection update – Janet 

• Cataloging Visit -  Veronica visited MSL and worked with Megan, Elizabeth and Kim.  She was given a tour of the activities in the basement and shown the materials in Stacks. 
• Library Visits - Selectors conducted 6 month visits to DN and SO during August.  During September selectors will conduct a 6 month visit to BI and an annual visit to MC.   In October the selectors will do a 6 month visit to WA and an annual to BE.  Because CT will be moving their collection during November, we are rescheduling our normal annual visit from November to the first part of October. 
• Meetings Attended  
•  Julie attended the Juvenile Programmers’ meeting 8/20/03.   
•  Janet attended X-change on 8/18. 
• Kim is serving as a committee member for the United Way Drive.  
• Ruby is serving as committee member to the Staff Recognition committee 
• Janet and Julie will be attending Encyclomedia September 25 & 26.  
• Janet will be presenting 2 programs with the Sequoyah YA committee and working in the Sequoyah booth. 
• Training 
• Elizabeth and Kim trained August and September True North. 
• Ruby is going to Tulsa to observe their Readers Advisory workshop, so she will be better prepared to work on MLS’s workshop. 
• Spotlight On -  Selectors are working on the Spotlight On…Native Americans during September. 
• Grants 
• Selectors have begun submitting orders for the Friends Grant.  The first list went out on List 11, 2 weeks early.  Ruby is scheduled to have the next order for list 15, October 9th.
• Ruby received $3000 in grant money to purchase large print for MC.  She will work the orders around the other grant lists and replacements.

• Technician Meetings 
• The Technicians and Kim have begun having meetings to discuss various clerical issues and to share tips.  They are also beginning work on updating the procedures manual for the clerical staff.

3. Cataloging update – Pauline 

• Laqueta has begun working in Cataloging.  She and Robin are working well together and are keeping on top of transfers.  Robin has begun doing more prep work, freeing Cataloging staff for other tasks. 
• Pauline participated in interviews for Technical Processor and Receiving Technician. 
• Pauline attended X-change on August 18. 
• At the OLA Support Staff Conference on August 21, Pauline presented a breakout session titled “Grassroots Advocacy from the Ground Up”.  It was well received, and mentioned favorably in the workshop evaluations.  She was able to participate in the remainder of the workshop; Jill participated also.  Both felt that it was a very positive experience. 
• Veronica visited MSL on August 22.  She enjoyed herself, especially the opportunity to work with the MSL Technicians.  She also appreciated getting to see the stacks; she said it was “really good to see all the work we all put together as a team.  We rock!!!” 
• Jill and Veronica volunteered at Septemberfest on September 6. 
• Jill attended a Word II class on September 11 and 12.  She enjoyed it, but said that she thought that it could have easily been a three day class. 
• Recall of materials classified in 468 continues to progress. 
• Clyde has been on AVL September 15-19, and has frequent AVL scheduled for the rest of the year.  MaryGrace has come in part-time to help while he is gone, and will come in each time that he is off. 
• Pauline has been working on the list of videos to be reclassified into juvenile classes.  She has identified a number of series which will not be recalled.  She considered the date that the video was added to the system, whether additional copies have been added since that time, and the number of copies with enough circs to indicate withdrawal.  Cataloging will place a 590 note, visible only to Cataloging staff, in bib records for titles in series not reclassed.  The note will state that if new copies are received, older copies are to be recalled for reclass or withdrawal before new copies are added to the bib record.  Pauline has also identified series for which reclass is appropriate, as well as some about which she is uncertain.  She is consulting MSL staff about those series.  Once she has identified all series to be reclassed, video recalls will resume. 
• Cataloging does not have new Dewey books yet, but Pauline plans to attend the Library Managers' meeting on September 24 to alert managers about anticipated reclassifications. 
• Automation staff installed an older computer temporarily in Cataloging, for use until the new one authorized in the budget is purchased and installed.  It has been helpful to have, although it would be more helpful with a barcode scanner attached. 
• Automation staff also installed Meeting Room Manager on Pauline’s and Heidi’s PCs.  This was necessary to allow them to view meeting room bookings for CH, for scheduling purposes. 
• The replacements for the damaged ergonomic underdesk and top-of-desk keyboard drawers have been received and installed.  Cataloging has also received its new slim-line book truck, for use with transfers.  It is working out well. 
• Cataloging Technicians have implemented a new storage arrangement for AV type-on labels.  All three Technicians worked together to make it happen, and they all report that it has made locating type-on labels much easier. 
• Lately, Cataloging has produced several runs with large numbers of labels, some over 1000.  Unfortunately, these runs have been made up of singlecopy titles, which slows preparation for taking the run to Tech.  Pauline is keeping an eye on the situation. 

4. Administration update – Karen 

• Budget 
• The Finance Committee and the Commission approved the budget with some changes. 
• $5000 was added to Luther’s materials budget. 
• Retirement issues - The Commission is taking a hard look at the retirement program and its expense.  People who have been employed long enough to be vested will receive the benefits that have already been established; however, it is possible that retirement benefits for people who have not been employed long will be reduced. 
• Building projects 
•  The Choctaw building has been delayed; turnover is now scheduled for mid-December 
• The Downtown completion date is still December 31. 
• Customer Service Month - October is Customer Service Month.  The Ad Team is not planning a system-wide contest for best customer recognition activity. Supervisors are encouraged to try to raise staff’s awareness of internal customers.  If an agency does a particularly good job of something required by a department, like not reprocessing AV, or routing correctly, managers should e-mail the library manager, and cc Denyvetta and Karen.
• CIPA  - The Ad Team has sent some legal questions regarding CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act) to the system’s attorney.  They are looking at the procedure for unlocking the filters on public access computers.  It may be more strict than the law requires. Information as to how many requests for unlocking are received is being gathered from library managers. 
• Travel - Anne Hsieh has mentioned that the auditors will be looking carefully at travel next year, due to public concerns about people traveling at public expense. Anyone who takes AVL in conjunction with a professional trip is to attach a copy of the leave form to the travel request.  When submitting travel request forms for overnight travel, attach a list of conference hotels and their rates.
• The Belle Isle 40th anniversary celebration is September 27-30.  Everyone is encouraged to attend at least part of it. 

6. MSD managers’ standards – All 

• Managers reported on their evaluations of the “Communication/Policies and Procedures” section of their standards. 
• Based on the managers’ recommendation, there will be no changes to the section.  

7. Miscellaneous – All

• Janet asked about how Tech and Cataloging determine whether a CD is an edited version.  She expressed concern about the fact that there is no indication in the catalog record of the edited version.  Pauline will discuss this with her staff. 
• Heidi has discovered that the media type is not printing out on some of the workslips, partly due to the use of the new AUD (audio) funds.  Janet has alerted Jimmy in Automation to the problem.  He is looking into how to correct it.  In the meantime, selection staff will indicate in the vendor instructions whether an order is for a cassette (CAS) or CD.   
• Pauline mentioned that she and Ursula have been working on plans for cataloging DVD-ROMs.  However, no barcodes can be ordered, since there is no media code for DVD.  Also, it is not clear what the media icon for DVD will be.  Pauline will contact Jim Welch about the issue. 
• Pauline showed OCLC cost statistics and usage ratio reports from FY04.  She commented that Cataloging’s ratio of exports and first-time uses to titles cataloged are both 1:1, which is an excellent ratio.  She will forward the reports to Karen. 
• Heidi asked to change the meeting date from October 16, due to scheduling conflicts in Tech Processing.  Everyone agreed to change to October 21. 

The next meeting will be on October 21, 8:00 A.M., at Downtown.  Janet will chair.