Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes for August 18, 2011

Materials Services Division Managers' Meeting Minutes

August 18, 2011; Service Center; 8:00 a.m.

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

Guests: Kellie Delany, PLA, Stacy Schrank, PLA

Collection Workshop - Janet, Kellie, Stacy

Everyone teaching the MSD Collection Management workshop was in agreement that the manual has become very cumbersome, both in volume and in weight. It includes much information, but due to its size and how much information is listed, finding the information is difficult at times.

Janet had previously spoken with Kellie and Stacy about possibly converting at least parts of the workshop to an online format available through the LMS.

Discussion centered around which parts of the workshop might be appropriate for online workshops, which parts should still be taught face to face, and which could be presented in a different format. The group talked about identifying the target audience(s) for each area. Some of the information currently contained in the workshop could be listed as FAQs for a particular department.

Karen suggested adding a section about transitioning to electronic resources.

Stacy is to prepare a list of these individual workshops, the amount of time needed for each, proposed frequency for offering them, and forwards this list to the MSD managers for approval. Stacy also suggested meeting yearly to talk about needs for presenting the workshop prior to the next budget deadline.

There was also discussion about improving access to MSD procedures available on the staff Intranet. One suggestion was to break up the current “assistance available” document into smaller segments to make it easier to locate relevant information. Stacy and Kellie will work on this and submit the revisions to the MSD managers.

The next Collection Management workshop is scheduled for Sep. 14, 21, and 28, 2011. That will be last workshop offered in its present format. Karen asked that further discussion of plans for the revised format be added to the agenda for the Oct. 20 meeting.

Cataloging/ILL Update - Pauline

Interviews for the Cataloger position were held July 18 through 22. Julie Ballou assisted Pauline with the interview portion; Mary, Clyde, and Ursula monitored tests and participated in informal interviews. Pauline appreciated all their work and feedback very much.

Cataloging is happy to report that two Catalogers, Alice Fielding and Jenny Rempel, have been hired. Pauline is pleased to be able to fill the newly authorized position as well as the position opened following Aaron Killough’s resignation. The first day of work for both will be August 22; their first day at the Service Center will be August 23.

Aaron’s last day at work was July 15. Staff gave a going-away sundae party for him on July 13, and wished him well in his new position.

Pauline is working with Clyde and Mary to plan training for the new Catalogers.

Joan Kendall is continuing to work temporarily in Cataloging as a Materials Services Technician. It is expected that she will be there until early October. Vickie Ross is back to her regular position as a Cataloging Technician.

The Cataloging Technicians have stopped printing barcode labels for materials transferred to NW. The Materials Services Technicians are currently working on processing all NW materials for which barcodes have already been printed.

Pauline met with Karen, Heidi, and Patrick Williams on June 17 to discuss evacuation procedures for the Service Center. Pauline, Heidi, and Patrick followed up with a building walk through on July 22. They discussed the best exits from the building in an emergency, reviewed the gathering point for staff in an evacuation, and learned how to manually open the gate to the parking lot.

Pauline attended the ALA conference and RDA pre-conference. She felt that the ALA sessions were among the best that she has attended. The RDA session was interesting and frustrating. She is still working to process the information, and will continue to work with Jimmy to make sure that the system is prepared for RDA.

Since RDA’s implementation has been postponed, the Technical Services Roundtable fall workshop will focus on the new edition of Dewey. Pauline has been asked to present it.

The OLA Information Matrix campers visited the Service Center on July 19. They were very enthusiastic and interested, and asked many questions. Cataloging and ILL staff interacted with them very well, explaining what they like about their jobs and how they came to be in them.

Pauline and Brittany met with staff to discuss the results of the Class and Comp study. Overall, everyone was pleased with the results.

Billing for OCLC services has switched from Amigos to OCLC as of July 1. The first monthly bill from OCLC was received with no problems. Amigos Accounts Receivable still seems to be struggling to understand which accounts are related to whom. Pauline receives database invoices, and Susan receives invoices relating to cataloging and ILL services.

After consulting with the Cataloging Technicians, and careful consideration, Pauline and Karen have established that the media code for Playaway audio players will be AMP, for Audio Media Player. If Playaway videos are added, the media code will be VMP. These codes can be used even if preloaded players are purchased from another vendor in the future.

The media descriptor on the spine label for Playaway audios will be AUDIO PLAYER.

Pauline is working to deposit funds to the system’s LC deposit account so that she can renew the subscription to Cataloger’s Desktop.

Unfortunately, a number of Great Courses materials were received in Cataloging without sufficient guides, or without guides having been delivered with materials. Pauline has been working with Heidi, Janet, and Kim Rickey to get them sorted out.

Meetings and training attended:

Brittany – Project Review Committee, July 12

Brittany, Ursula, Vickie – Influence when you don’t have power or authority, July 29

Pauline – X Change, August 15

Materials Selection Update - Janet

Annual Visits

In July selectors made an annual visit to CH and a 6-month visit to BI.

In August selectors are doing annual visits to CT and the Exts. They will be at JN/NP most of the day on 8/23 and LU/HR on 8/24. They’ll be at WR on 8/31 at various times.

In September they are scheduled to do annual visits to DC, BC, and Books-by-Mail. They will also do a 6-month visit to ED.

Budget

MSL finalized FY11 with the addition of one more order list.

Selectors are working with a preliminary budget for FY12. They are waiting to see what the final figures for the materials will be after the commission passes the budget.

Northwest

Janet met with Julie Ballou and Stuart Williamson to provide them some information and statistics on the stored material for NW.

Any gifts or transfers MSL staff had ready to go to CAT were removed from boxes with decisions to be made about them later.

Collection Workshop

The next collection workshop is scheduled for September 14, 21, 28.

Managers need to send any updates to Janet as soon as possible.

Janet plans to not printout the manual for the workshop, but provide participants with a USB drive with the manual included on it.

Janet shared a copy of the agenda to see if the times still work for Pauline and Heidi.

Meetings/Workshops

Lisa attended the Staff Association meeting on 6/24

Janet trained 3 of the new librarians at RE on 6/29

Janet introduced Tera/DC manager to some of the collection development procedures on 7/6.

Kim attended the Project Review Committee for the compensation study on 7/12

Janet attended the Tech Support meeting on 7/26

Marilyn attended the Pat Wagner workshops held at OUHSC on 7/28-29.

Janet met with Mary/DN to help her weed the 700 reference collection on 7/29

On 8/2 Janet met with Kellie Delany/PLA to begin discussions about getting collection development information on the Intranet.

Julia continues to conduct Oral History interviews with Buddy/DN.

Technical Processing Update - Heidi

Statistics show the number of items processed on average per day in July 768 items for a total of 15,354 processed items. The daily average so far in August is 867 items. The processors are current on processing all “rush” materials and are processing non-rush materials from August 12.

During the month of July, TP received an average of 46 boxes a day, for a total of 976 boxes of materials. As of 8-17-11, TP has received an average of 43 per day with a total of 557 boxes so far in August.

During FY11, TP received a total of 248,532 items (ILS orders and standing orders) which is a 9% increase compared to FY10. 197,010 if these items were barcoded in Cataloging and processed in TP which is a 4% increase from last year.

The bindery returned the seven materials to be corrected, but sent an invoice for half the regular charges to rebind books. They say that the way MLS prints out the binding slips (with authors’ dates) is confusing to the bindery and caused the dates to be printed on the spine as part of the title information. Since MLS has always printed the binding slips since starting to rebind with this company, this problem was unexpected. Heidi is still in negotiations with the HF Group to get the charges waived. She will also talk to IT about possible changes to printing future binding slips.

Jack with Southwest Solutions has been taking book tubs to be reinforced about every other week. The company now has improved their turn-around time considerably and there should only be about 70 more still needing work on them.

Heidi attended the X-Change meeting at RE on 8-15-11.

John Rahhal is in the process of setting up an UPS account for MLS. This account can then be used by TP and other locations to send packages with UPS. In the past, TP has mailed returns to vendors by certified mail. Often the confirmations were not received in TP, so TP had no way to proof that materials were returned. Shipping these items with UPS will provide a handy tool to use to prove receipt of these materials at the vendors’.

John is also still negotiating with Demco about return of the defective book jacket covers. TP is still waiting for call tags from Demco to return them. John is supposed to once again contact the vendor for a resolution to the problem.

Heidi and Pauline met with Patrick Williams on June 17 for a building walk through. They discussed the best exits from the building in an emergency, reviewed the gathering point for staff in an evacuation, and learned how to manually open the gate to the parking lot.

Administrative Update - Karen

Karen mentioned that an unexpected 2.6% increase in revenue will provide MLS with funding to expand Sunday library hours to all 13 full service libraries. Money has been set aside for additional staffing and possibly some additional system reserve pick-up sites. Also, there is discussion about maintaining the temporary SO location as an additional library once SO has moved back into its remodeled facility. Karen said if this happens, some of the transfers may be added to the new location. Until then, they will need to be stored in Cataloging.

Playaway Service

Karen brought the managers up to date about plans for the upcoming Playaway service. The service is scheduled to launch to coincide with the opening of the NW Library in January. Jim Welch in IT is working on software updates to accommodate this new materials format.

Karen is to meet with the selectors and the Playaway rep. to talk about the opening day collection. She also asked Heidi to participate to discuss invoicing and returns, etc. The meeting has been set for Sep. 6, location to be determined.

The opening day collection will consist of about 50-100 titles, starting with adult materials; juvenile titles will be phased in later.

Pauline stated that Cataloging will need to know the approximate number of materials to be cataloged, a start date for cataloging, and a desired completion date.

Five or six copies of each selected title will be purchased for the opening collection; the exact number will depend on the number of libraries carrying Playaways. They will be carried at CH, DN, NW, VI, WA, and possibly DC.

The media code for Playaway audios will be AMP (Adult Media Player), with “Audio Player” on the spine label. If videos are added at a later date, their code will be VMP (Video Media Player), with “Video Player” on the spine label.

According to Karen, no decision has been made as to whether batteries will initially be supplied with Playaways. If they are supplied, TP will insert a set of batteries with each title during processing. It has also not been determined which departments will be responsible for handling orders for additional batteries. Disposable ear buds will be supplied by the libraries if requested by the customer.

Playaways will not be lent through ILL for at least the first year.

Class./Comp. Results

The results and recommendations of the classification/compensation study have been reviewed and approved by the Finance Committee. They are to go before the Commission at the next meeting on August 25, 2011. If approved, the recommendations will take effect in October.

NW Library

Karen mentioned that the opening of the NW Library has been set for January. The last barcodes for NW transfers were printed in Cataloging early in August and the last books were processed on 8-25-11. Karen will look at any materials left in Cataloging for possible reassignment by the Selectors to other libraries.

Miscellaneous - all

There were no miscellaneous items for discussion.

The meeting adjourned at 10:15 a.m. The next meeting is scheduled for September 15, 2011, at the Service Center. Pauline will chair.