Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for February 19, 2009

Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes

February 19, 2009; Capitol Hill Library; 8:00 a.m.

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

Cataloging Update - Pauline

Meetings and training attended:

Aaron – SA meeting, January 22

Cataloging’s January output of barcode labels printed was 13,533, with a daily average of 712. 1575 new titles were cataloged, for a daily average of 83. Monthly totals and averages have dropped each month since October’s high, but generally exceed those of the first three months of the fiscal year.

Lisa and Kristin have been assisting Capitol Hill Library with shelving during the last month; they have also assisted Tech Processing with unboxing.

Jim Welch has installed the new mlsDigiMarc application on the catalogers’ computers, so that they will be able to download records for Overdrive materials. Pauline has been working with the application; she and Jimmy are still working to debug it.

Pauline visited Ralph Ellison Library on January 26 to evaluate the Black Heritage Collection. She determined that much reclassification is needed, and met with Michael Owens and Kim Ventrella to establish a plan.

RE is sending 1 shelf per week of the BHC to Cataloging. Pauline reviews the materials and reclassifies as needed; the Cataloging Technicians print new barcodes; and the MSD Technicians reprocess the items. Items are returned to RE without BHC location code or stickers, so that staff can decide whether to maintain them in the BHC.

Cataloging has begun doing their daily Service Links with the Capitol Hill staff. The two groups rotate leadership of the links. CAT staff go down to CH each morning for the link. It seems to have increased interest in the link process.

Thanks to Heidi, CAT staff have received a listing of the new group abbreviations used by MSL, and are able to order the correct number of barcodes for the correct agencies when the abbreviations appear on workslips.

CAT staff are working to find a way to make sure that added copies of titles ordered for the Family Talk collection are marked correctly.

Pauline has been assisting Phil Tolbert from CH with interviews for a half-time circulation clerk.

All staff have completed the Culture Survey training, and are working on the survey.

Veronica will be assisting in ILL next week (February 23-27); Lisa and Kristin will be filling in for her.

ILL Update - Pauline

ILL has been facing some interesting problems lately.

As of the end of January, 2009, ILL has received 4,700 requests to borrow materials from other libraries, 1,301 more than this time last fiscal year. The scary thing is that this is only a 4% increase in requests! 3,882, or 83%, of those requests were filled. So far, ILL has borrowed 1,196 more materials than at this time last year,

During the same period, ILL received 11,718 requests to borrow MLS materials via FirstSearch, and 3,275 via AGent, for a grand total of 14,993 loan requests. This is about a 2% increase in requests, which is frightening given that there have been several occasions when ILL has needed to suspend lending or simply decline to lend due to lack of time. 6,574, or 44%, of those requests were filled.

The Trans-Amigos Express courier service continues to have problems. There have been frequent occurrences in which no courier shows up, or shows up late in the afternoon. Pauline has been in frequent contact with Amigos about this; she has heard from other libraries in the area that their service is equally erratic.

The new ILL forms are now available through the Supply/Forms catalog.

Jimmy has continued to tweak the new mlsILL application to deal with bugs and/or make it more efficient. He and Pauline are talking about creating a method of using it to notify customers of unfilled requests.

Joyce has notified Pauline that there may be a delay in getting some of the postal shipments out, since she is running low on postage at this time.

Pauline attended a meeting on February 10 to discuss preliminary information needed to plan for the move to the Service Center.

All staff have completed the Culture Survey training, and are working on the survey.

Nicholas will be off next week (February 22-27); Veronica will assist in ILL mornings that week.

Materials Selection Update - Janet

Personnel

Ruby has been out on FMLA leave from 2/11 and returns 2/19.

Part time MSD Tech, Amy Treadwell’s last day is February 27. The position is now opened. Kim hopes to review applications the first of March, with testing and interviews to follow shortly.

Library Visits

During January selectors conducted visits to BI and CH.

During February they are making annual visits to DN and 6-month collection reviews of CT. Melissa is adding a couple of the extensions to her schedule in the eastern part of the county.

During March, selectors will do an annual visit to ED and 6-month collection review of DC.

Customer Suggestions

Janet has been conducting brainstorming meetings with selection staff, looking for ways to streamline the customer suggestion process. She held meetings with Technicians, then Selectors. She also held meetings with Technician/Selector pairs to look at issues specific to each selector’s areas.

Janet forwarded to staff the comments made during the individual meetings. At the February staff meeting, staff will begin prioritizing some of the suggestions, looking towards some possible solutions.

Northwest

The RFID tagging is nearly complete in compressed shelving. Steve thought they had about 3000 more items to tag, which may be the AV stored in the basement. Kim is following up with Steve.

DN has not been able to supply the page hours needed to help with NW shelving in compressed shelving. Julie and Charla were going to discuss some ways to help with that project. With the loss of our MSD Tech, this chore may be put back on the MSL Techs for a while if DN cannot help out.

More material is being boxed and stored in compressed shelving to make room on the shelves for areas still growing.

Meetings attended

Melissa and Janet attended portions of the Children’s Services Retreat on February 4.

On February 11, Janet met with Jamar, DC’s new library manager, to review the collection maintenance manual and some procedures he needs to know right away. Jamar is planning to attend the collection workshop in April.

Melissa and Janet attended portions of the YA Services Retreat on February 17.

Kim and Janet are attending the Supervisory Skills series beginning February 24.

Technical Processing Update Heidi

The average daily run in January was 724 items; so far in February, the average run has gone up to 764 labels. In January, the dept. processed a total of 13,748 items. At this time, Technical Processing is current on their processing without any backlog at all.

So far in February, TP has received an average of 41 boxes of materials a day as compared to January’s total average of 37 boxes per day.

Heidi has been spending most of her time catching up on some of the dept.’s statistics, especially if needed for upcoming budget decisions.

Heidi is still working with B&T’s accounting dept., CFS, to clear out some of the old items. When Heidi received the latest statements for the adult account, it was discovered that only corrections from one worksheet had been entered; the second worksheet had been ignored. CFS has now corrected this oversight.

All Ingram accounts continue to be current.

Heidi attended the February 10 meeting regarding the schedule to move to the Service Center.

All TP staff have completed the staff training for the MLS Culture Survey; staff are now taking the actual survey.

Heidi, Karen, and Kimberly have all attended the “Code of Conduct” training facilitated by Stacy from PLA on February 12.

Alexis is scheduled to visit Materials Selection on February 24.

Alan will be on AVL March 16, 20, and 21; Heidi alerted Cataloging that help will be needed from at least one of the MSD Techs on those days.

Heidi Port visited Kevin and Heidi Johnson in TP on February 13 to tape short video segments for the upcoming American Heart Association drive. Ursula from CAT also participated in this taping.

Maintenance has attached the digital converter box to TP’s TV monitor.

Heidi has contacted the HFGroup about their scheduled pick-up times during March and April. Heidi will notify the agencies about the bindery schedule once a firm date has been set.

Heidi has scheduled TP’s V2R sessions with Planning for March 3 and March 23, both days at 3:00 p.m.

Heidi and Teresa Goggins met on February 4 about putting TP’s supply catalog online. Teresa is currently working on a draft.

Bruce and Jack from Southwest Solutions have delivered a prototype of the tub to be used in the new Service Center. It is a good starting point, but the final version will need to have several improvements incorporated. The current model is very noisy, the edges are too sharp, and the handholds are not big enough.

Administrative Update - Karen

Service Center

Karen mentioned that most likely, the move to the SC will take place around the middle of October. There are still many variables to be considered.

Training on the sorter and other new equipment should take place from September 28 through October 12. Karen talked with Pauline and Heidi about the need to create an outline for the new procedures before training commences.

Karen said the furniture bid information should be received sometime this week. This information will go before the Commission in March, with a chance for final approval by managers before then.

Karen also encouraged Pauline and Heidi to start finalizing place assignments prior to the move. Discussion followed about the logistics of the move and lists which need to be compiled for this purpose.

Karen handed out a preliminary job description for the part-time sorter operators, to be hired effective October 1, and asked managers for their input.

SO Remodeling Project

Randy Wayland, Todd Olberding, Donna Morris, and the City of Oklahoma City are in the process of choosing an architect for SO’s remodeling project.

RE Remodeling Project

RE Library is scheduled to reopen in August, before the new Service Center move.

NW Library

The 65% completion plans have been received from the architects. There is a furniture planning session scheduled for March. Even though many books have already been purchased and transferred to NW’s collection, many subject areas still need to be filled out and additional materials must be purchased. Karen discussed the need to possibly increase the budget for NW for the upcoming fiscal year.

Jones Library

Karen mentioned that the city of Jones is still interested in making plans for a new library.

Edmond Library

The City of Edmond is still asking for a second library. A meeting has been scheduled for May 5 to further discuss this need.

New Appraisal System

Karen said that a new version has been received by MLS. The final version should be received later this year. One advantage for managers: it will be an online version, so should generate less paperwork.

Downloadable Audio Books

Pauline plans to attend the March Library Managers’ meeting to show cataloging records for downloadable audio books.

Baker & Taylor New Fuel Surcharge

Jim Welch is trying to work out a way to keep track of the amount charged by B&T and determine its effect on the materials budget.

Budget

Karen distributed copies of the timeline for inputting next year’s budget. Managers discussed various issues carried over from last year’s budget or related to the move. (Heidi has learned since the meeting that Denyvetta plans to send out the figures for the travel budget requests next week.)

Miscellaneous - all

Pauline distributed copies of a basic MARC record for a downloadable audio book. She asked for comments on the use of the subdivision “sound recordings” at the end of each subject heading. After some discussion, the managers agreed that the subdivision is appropriate. No other media heading will be added. The general material designator after the title is “electronic resource”.

The meeting adjourned at 10:00 a.m. The next meeting is scheduled for March 19 at CH; Pauline will be the chair.