Materials Services Division Updates for June 2003

Since no Materials Services Division Managers meeting was held during June, this document contains updates on the activities of each department since the May 15 meeting. 

Materials Selection 

Annual Visits 

• Selectors conducted 6-month visits to CT and VI and an annual visit to WA during May. 
• During June selectors are making 6-month visits to ED and annual visits to CH and DC.   
• Janet and Karen had a follow up meeting with Mary/WA. 
• Selectors will plan a 6-month visit to RE during July. 
• Janet will conduct follow up meetings with Phil/CH and Katrina/DC during the first couple of weeks of July. 

Budget 

•  Selectors are continuing to make selections from FY03 budget.  
• Janet divided some of the remaining SELFU between selectors.
• There are still funds with money left.  Selectors are working to encumber these amounts before the end of the FY.   
• In the next week or so, Janet will look at the budget and determine if more money is available to distribute and encumber before FY03 ends. 
• As soon as Jimmy can input FY04, selectors will submit selections for technicians to input.    
• First order list for FY04 will go out July 2. 
• Selectors will stay within 5000 items for each weekly list, as we did in FY03. 

Hispanic Grant 

• Janet encumbered the final amount of the Hispanic Grant with an order that went out on June 5.  
• She will wait until the first of July to see how much of the money comes back from discounts and cancellations. 
• She has been in contact with Linda Goodman of Bilingual Publications.  Linda will send a new list of titles that Janet can use to spend the discount money. 

Basement 

• Selection staff continues work in the basement.  Each staff member was scheduled for only 9 hours during June. 
• Staff are busy processing the Holocaust Resource material. 
• Some transfers and gifts are being worked.
• Less than 50 boxes a week have been received since February.  Janet is continuing to monitor, since the new weeding schedule has begun.   

Staff Recognition 

• Materials Selection Pizza Party/Staff Recognition is scheduled for June 20.  

Meetings 

• Janet attended the X-change meeting at BI on May 19. 
• Janet attended the Library managers' meeting and provided some feedback on the Spanish Language materials. 
• Janet will attend an open playtime at VI on June 23 and serve as a resource person for parents interested in choosing appropriate books for their children. 
• Julie conducted a basket-weaving workshop at VI on June 11. 
• Ruby is scheduled to visit ODL with Ursula to talk about GovDocs. on June 18.
• Julie and Ruby are volunteering to read stories at the Saturday "Kidgits" program. 
• Elizabeth is scheduled to train for True North on June 23. 

Library Intern 

• Library Intern John Hanson visited Materials Selection on June 4.   
• He met with Kim and Susan and observed them processing CO's.  
• He also observed Elizabeth working a system reserve list and a cancellation list.   
• He met with Janet in the afternoon to talk about the general selection process, the tools we use, how we decide what to select, etc.  He asked very good questions and was very interested in our process. 

New DNLLC 

• Selection staff are scheduling tours of the new DNLLC.  Megan and Kim are scheduled for June 12 and Janet and Denise for June 26.  Others will go during July. 
• Staff continue to weed the professional reference collection and transferring periodicals to DN in preparation for the move. 

Spencer 

• Ruby and Janet are scheduled to work at the SP bookmobile on June 30.  They will transfer as many materials as they can that day.  Other selectors will be scheduled on subsequent days. 
• Materials should have been withdrawn prior to our working there, so selection staff can spend the time transferring materials. 

Technical Processing 

• Receipt of materials continues with a daily average of about 30 boxes per day.   The runs have consisted of between 300 and 700 labels. 
• The current bindery materials are almost reprocessed; some of them have already been returned to the owning agencies.  There were no problems with any of the materials rebound.  Quality Book Binding Company picked up the special DN magazine bindery group consisting of 49 volumes of the magazine "Poetry".  This should use up the rest of this fiscal year's bindery budget with about $35.00 left over.  
• Erica attended a beginning Excel workshop on May 19th.  Loretta and Heidi are working on  the instructor's manual for the Basic Materials Processing workshop and hope to have it completed and forwarded to Planning by the first week in July.  Heidi will attend an Accounts Payable workshop on July 16th; she hopes this will help when dealing with vendors' accounting departments or vendors like Amazon.com. 
• Heidi attended the X-Change meeting at BI on May 19.
• Christy has returned from vacation and is busy trying to catch up with all the problems left for her to deal with.  Laqueta had oral surgery on Monday, June 9th, and is recuperating at this time.  Heidi will be on vacation June 13-June 19, to return on Friday, June 20th.  Erica will be on vacation the first week in July. 
• Technical Processing has viewed a safety video on the prevention of repetitive motion injuries.  Staff have been practicing the exercises taught on this video.  Heidi has completed the building safety checklist for the 2nd quarter of the year and mailed it to Karen. 
• Technical Processing staff enjoyed their "Staff Recognition" held on May 20th.  Staff received a certificate of praise from their co-workers, a small cooler filled with their favorite soft drink and an apple, plus fulsome praise from their manager.  This was the first year that Cataloging and Technical Processing held separate events. 
• On 5-29-03, Heidi and the processors evaluated samples submitted by Brodart and Gaylord along with their bids for plastic book jacket covers.  The samples were not Durafold wrappers, and after trying both Gaylord's and Brodart's samples, TP recommended to continue using the Durafolds.  They are still the easiest to use and the most durable of all the wrappers tried so far.  
• After consultation with Frank, Technical Processing can now buy a new VCR from their 303 General Supplies budget whenever the old one quits.  Most VCRs are less than $100.00 now; it costs at least $40.00 to get a VCR even looked at in a repair shop.  It may be more cost effective to just buy a new one than try to get one repaired.  Since TP requires a VCR to preview many of the videos purchased, Frank said they can be considered  part of the supplies budget rather than needing to be input as Furniture, Fixtures, and Equipment in account 408. 
• Heidi went shopping at Wal-Mart and bought a new hand-held carpet sweeper; the old one was worn out after 2 years of constant use.  She also purchased a knife sharpener to safely sharpen the book knives used by the processors; the old wet stone previously used was just too unsafe for use. Γ Heidi met with Ed Altwies from Midwest Tape.  One service the company provides for $0.50 per copy is photocopying of Disney video artwork and shrinking it so it can easily be inserted into one of the regular sized video cases Metropolitan Library System uses.  Heidi would like to further investigate this service and do a cost comparison to our current, time consuming procedure of cutting down the artwork to make it fit the video cases. 

Cataloging 

• Pauline attended her last OLA Board meeting on May 16.
• Pauline asked Jim Welch to consider implementing two changes to barcode printing discussed at the last managers’ meeting: including office code instead of SY for professional materials cataloged for offices; and printing “PR” instead of “R” above the call number for materials coded BPR (branch professional).  Both changes have been implemented. 
• Pauline attended the X-Change meeting on May 19. 
• Cataloging of all Spanish materials in regular Dewey classes has been implemented. 
• Pauline attended the Library Managers meeting on May 21 to discuss the BPR coded materials and cataloging of Spanish materials. 
• Cataloging’s staff appreciation party was held on May 27.  Staff went together to the park near SO, and played with water guns, bubbles, and other fun toys.  Each was then presented with an insulated lunch bag saying “I’m appreciated”, and containing a snack; and with a sheet describing things that other staff members appreciate about each person.  Lacey and Jasmine attended; everyone was glad to see them. 
• John Hanson, intern from OU SLIS, visited Cataloging for a morning.  He spent time with each cataloger and technician, and asked a number of good questions.  Everyone enjoyed his visit. 
• Pauline, Jana, Crystal, and Clyde attended the TSRT workshop planning meeting on May 30.  The group is planning a basic workshop on MARC formats.  Pauline will give the introductory speech, and Jana will lead a session on video or audio formats. 
• Paula attended Excel II training on June 2 and 4. 
• Jill was scheduled to attend Word II training on June 3 and 5, but the class was cancelled due to low enrollment.  She has been enrolled in another class for September. 
• Pauline visited ILL on the morning of June 4, to learn more about their processes so that she can represent them more effectively with Amigos. 
•  Jana has been on AVL June 2-13.  MaryGrace has come in three days each week to assist with cataloging, which has been a great help. 
• Pauline attended PowerPoint II training on June 10 and 12.  The training had been scheduled for June 9 and 11, so the rescheduling caused some headaches, but ultimately worked out. 
• Paula attended VCirc training on June 10. 
• Ursula attended OCLC Connexion training in Lawton on June 10. 
• Jill, Paula, and Veronica attended MARC for Non-Catalogers training in Lawton on June 11.  Robin worked extra hours that day, which was a big help. 
• Jill attended SSRT meetings on May 15 and June 12. 
• All Cataloging staff have completed second quarter safety training on prevention and/or treatment of repetitive stress injuries. 
• Pauline will be out for ALA and R&R June 19-July 3; she will be back in the office on July 7.  She is confident that Cataloging staff will get along fine without her, with the guidance of Heidi and Karen.