Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for September 13, 2007

Materials Services Division Managers’ Monthly meeting

September 13, 2007; 8:00 A.M.; Capitol Hill Library

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

Materials Selection update – Janet

• Library Visits
• During August, selectors made an annual visit to CT and the Extensions. They also made a 6 month visit to DN. They spent extra time at NP weeding the collection. 
• During September, Selectors are conducting an annual visit to DC and to Book Centers and Books by Mail. They also are doing a 6 month visit to ED. 
• During October, they will do an annual visit to VI and a 6 month visit to MC.
• Spotlight On:
• The spotlight for Hispanic Americans is up on the web now.
• Selectors are in the process of updating the Native American spotlight for November. 
• MSD Tech
• Anna has spent several days in the past couple of weeks learning the processes of CAT and TP. 
• Focus
• Several MSL staff are helping at FOCUS at registration or as room facilitators.
• United Way
• MSL is putting together a basket for the United Way drawings at FOCUS. 
• Meetings/Workshops
• Janet attended the Xchange meeting on August 20 at BI.
• Staff attended the Blood Borne Pathogens training on August 22. 
• Janet conducted collection training for librarians at RE on August 23. 
• Janet met with the Tech Support Subcommittee looking at the search screen tips.
• Janet met with Brodart Rep. Jim Hollingsworth on August 28 and met with him at Encyclomedia for a demonstration of their database.
• Janet and Julie attended Encyclomedia on August 29 and 30.
• Janet attended a portion of the AdTeam meeting on August 29 to see the Leadership Team presentation that Julie is a part of. Julie continues to meet with AdTeam and the Leadership Team. 
• Janet attended the Safety Committee meeting on Sept. 11. 
• Kim is scheduled for a Staff Recognition Dinner committee meeting on Sept. 18.
• Julie is visiting with CAT/TP on Sept 18. 
• Janet is meeting with the consultants for the staff appraisal evaluation, on Sept. 25. 
• Janet has postponed the workshop on Gifts on scheduled for Sept 26. 
•  Ruby conducted Readers’ Advisory workshops at MC on Sept. 5 and 12.
• Julie and Ruby are scheduled to tape a Read about It segment at the end of the month. Janet hopes to do a segment as well. 

Technical Processing update – Heidi

• Good news! Materials receipt has picked up. So far, the runs in September have been on average 718 labels per day which is an increase of more than 150 labels compared to August’s average of 555 labels. Technical Processing currently receives an average of 50 boxes of materials a day which is an increase of 14 compared to August’s average of 36. 
• The runs have been larger, several staff members, processors included, have been out, and the dept. is still without one of its processors. However, TP is uptodate on processing all types of rush materials and is currently processing  nonrush materials from the run five days ago. 
• Heidi is still trying to schedule tests and interviews for the processor opening, but has had little success so far. Another group of candidates are supposed to test Friday and again next week. Roy also mentioned an upcoming job fair which might generate additional interest. 
• The Baker & Taylor and Ingram accounts continue to be current at this time. 
• Heidi attended the True Colors workshop at SO on August 28. Christy is scheduled to attend the workshop at the VI on September 25. She also attended the XChange meeting on August 20 at BI. 
• Heidi attended a United Way committee meeting on Sep. 5. She and other members of the United Way committee have continued to contact various local organizations and businesses about donations for MLS’s UW campaign. Quite a few of the request letters are being answered and donations, many of them free admissions, are starting to come in. 
• Heidi and Karen will send a sample bindery group to the HF Group sometime in October. 
• Anna from MSL worked in TP on August 24 only. Since almost no materials were received prior to the scheduled August 20 date, that date was canceled. Anna came to TP only on Friday, August 24, to learn about purchase order procedures and the weekly closeout function. She also practiced  her processing skills and the processors gave her some tips and pointers. 
• Heidi, along with Karen Marriott, Donna Morris, and several other Ad Team members, attended a demonstration of an automated RFID sorter in Dallas on Sep. 6. A RFID sorter would eliminate the need for both the sorting and boxing processes currently performed in TP on a daily basis. On Sep. 11, Heidi and several members of the same group saw a demonstration of a vertical lift module recently installed at Tinker. A module like that would again be of tremendous value to TP when binning books as both a space saver, a work saver, and a back saver for staff. 
• The final design meeting with Studio Architecture took place on Sep. 5. Some details still need to be worked out, but overall, the building is taking shape and seems to incorporate space and designs to fit everyone’s needs. 

Cataloging update – Pauline

• Meetings and trainings attended: 
• Jana – True Colors, August 28
• Jana – OLA TSRT, September 7
• Karen Davis began work in ILL on August 20, but returned on August 24 for a going away party. 
• Pauline attended a meeting with Joshua Hill of Studio Architects on September 5, to view the final floor plan for Cataloging’s area in the new Service Center. They made some adjustments to the plan. Pauline is basically pleased with the space, but is submitting a few additional ideas. 
• Anna Todd from MSL has been on a three day rotation in Cataloging September 1113. She has spent most of her time working with the Technicians, but has spent a bit of time with each Cataloger. Staff who have worked with her commented on how quickly she has caught on to tasks. 
• The Catalogers have formulated a response to their survey, and have submitted it to Stuart in PLA to be added to the Intranet. 
• The workload has picked up somewhat. The number of titles cataloged for July and August is down 6% from the same period last year; however, at this time last year, it was down 22%. The number of titles enhanced is down 11%, as compared to an increase of 2% last year. Overall, the number of titles handled this year is down 9% from last year. However, the number of labels printed is down only 4%; it actually increased 3% in July 2007 over July 2006.
• Cataloging did experience its first over 1000 label run on September 10. More important, on September 11 staff had to stop printing barcodes to avoid going over the agreed limit. This has not been necessary in recent months. 
• All staff have finished Bloodborne Pathogens safety training except for Pauline, who plans to attend on September 17. 
• Cataloging staff have decided to put together an information booth for Focus.

ILL update – Pauline

• ILL is “getting there”. Pauline, Pamela, and Karen should have all lost several pounds of weight from their behinds, given how hard they are working. 
• Most materials, both borrowed and loaned, are being sent out from ILL within 24 hours of arriving in the department. 
• ILL resumed lending on August 22. New green labels have been designed for loaned materials, similar to the red ones used for borrowed materials. System reserves are being placed for materials to be loaned. The process still has a few bugs, but is continuing to be refined. 
• ILL has established new filing systems to allow for more effective tracking of borrowed and loaned materials. 
• Pauline is negotiating with Reliance Label Solutions to get removable labels to be used instead of paper, which takes longer to attach.
• ILL borrowing for August is at its highest level for the past six months. Lending for the last eight days of the month was at a level comparable to what existed prior to the lending suspension. 
• Pauline has developed a way to use online statistics to generate a report of titles requested each month. She will forward the report to Karen Marriott for distribution to MSL staff. This will avoid the need to send ILL request forms to MSL. 
• All staff have finished Bloodborne Pathogens safety training except for Pauline, who plans to attend on September 17. 
• Pauline expressed her appreciation and pride in Karen and Pamela for their dedication to learning new systems. 
• Pauline and others have heard a number of comments about how much ILL service has improved.

Administration update – Karen

• The MLC Finance Committee met on 9/7 and approved the final budget and a revised purchasing policy. Both will be on the agenda for approval by the full commission on 9/20. 
• The Ad Team met on 9/12. Roy Ballou presented a report on positions filled in FY 07 and current recruitments. (A copy of the report was circulated among the managers during the managers meeting.) 
• Jim Welch, Anne Fischer, Heidi Johnson, Donna Morris, Todd Olberding, Lloyd Lovely, Patrick Williams and Karen Marriott went to Dallas on 9/6 to view an RFID sorter. Jim showed the video he took of the sorter during this visit to the Ad Team. Karen will arrange for managers to view it at the next meeting scheduled for DN. 
• The City Council of Oklahoma City has approved holding a bond election on 12/11. The bond package includes several library issues. 
• The sale of land for the NW Library has not finalized as of today. There are plans to hold a community meeting about the library on October 16. A location has not yet been announced. 
• The Policy & Procedures Committee submitted updates to two existing policies with related procedures and one new policy with related procedures to the Ad Team for review. Ad Team members have a week to comment before final drafts are prepared for consideration by the A & P Committee at their next meeting. The time for this meeting has not been determined. 
• The Service Center Steering Committee met to review the serviceability study. Several upgrades were approved including access control hardware and carpet tiles among others. Indirect lighting had already been included in the base bid. 
• Karen attended a number of meetings including Deputy Executive Director meetings, Ad Team meetings, MLS Leadership luncheons and presentations, Service Center Users meetings and Steering committee meetings, XChange, Policy & Procedures committee, and meetings with IT about RFID sorter and other Service Center issues. In addition to the visit to Dallas to see the sorter, she visited Tinker with Heidi, Jim and Todd to view a vertical lift storage device being considered for the Service Center. 

Collection Management workshop - All

• Janet announced that the workshop will be held on October 3, 10, and 17.
• She distributed a proposed agenda; everyone agreed to it. 
• Janet asked that everyone send her updates to the manual by September 28. 

Questions/Miscellaneous

• Pauline asked for clarification of the procedure regarding feature film DVDs received with additional discs containing different films. It was confirmed that in such cases, only the disc(s) containing the selected film will be cataloged and added to the collection. 

The next meeting will be on October 18, 2007, 8:00 A.M., at Downtown. Janet will chair.