Department Highlights
Statistical Update
- Interlibrary Loan
- OCLC’s FirstSearch Resource Sharing (ILL) service is scheduled to be discontinued as of Monday, May 19. ONLY the Resource Sharing service is being discontinued; the FirstSearch database is not. Library staff and customers will continue to have access and be able to use FirstSearch to search for materials to be requested through ILL.
- 903 requests to borrow materials through ILL for MLS customers were received in April.
- 697 materials borrowed through ILL were received and routed to libraries in April. Materials are not always received during the same month that a request is placed. During April, 210 of the materials received (30%) were requested in March. In March, 940 requests were received and a total of 718 of the requested materials were borrowed, for a fill rate of 76%.
- In April, requests to borrow materials for MLS customers were submitted to libraries an average of 1.18 working days after the requests were received in ILL.
- Staff in ILL evaluated 1,678 requests to lend MLS materials to other libraries in April. 966 materials were lent; of these, 879 were requested in April; average fill rate was 52%.
- In March, MLS materials lent to other libraries were returned to ILL an average of 25.05 working days after shipment.
- Materials Selection
- Since the beginning of the fiscal year through the first week of May, a total of 12,486 customer suggestions were received in MSL. This averages out to 284 suggestions per week.
- Since the beginning of the fiscal year, 28916 titles and 191,451 items were selected and ordered for the system. This averages out to 657 titles and 4,351 items per week.
- Since the beginning of July, a total of 741 boxes of withdrawals and gifts were received in MSL. 428 boxes were sent to the booksale, 153 boxes of transfers and 23 boxes of gifts were sent to CAT.
- Cataloging
- 2,858 new titles were cataloged during April, including 505 e-media titles.
- 21,625 barcode labels were printed in April; 19,931 for new materials and 1,694 for reprocessed materials.
- 2,300 titles new to the collection were received in Cataloging during April.
- In April, titles with more reserves waiting than copies purchased at the time of receipt were routed out of Cataloging to Technical Processing within one working day of receipt into Cataloging.
- Titles new to the collection were routed from Cataloging to Technical Processing within 5.07 working days of receipt into Cataloging during April.
- Average ratio of copies to titles was 4.91 copies per title for April.
- Cataloging Technicians are staying caught up on printing barcodes for transferred materials sent from Materials Selection.
- Technical Processing
- In Technical Processing, the average daily run for April was 906 items per day, for a total of 19,931 items. The average for May of 2014 so far is 912 items per day. The processors are current on processing all rush materials and are processing non-rush materials from the run 8 days ago Study guides and dated materials like continuations are also current.
- During April, TP received a daily average of 51 boxes of materials a day, for a total of 1109 boxes. The daily average in May so far is 47 boxes.
New Business
Transition to TLC
Karen reported on the current plans for transitioning to the TLC ILS. She emphasized that the plans are fluid and may require changes as MLS and TLC continue the process. There have been and will continue to be issues that are not anticipated, or functions that may need additional consideration.
As of the meeting date, TLC is still working with test data supplied by MLS, in order to prepare to convert all our data.
Cataloging will continue to print barcode/spine labels after the transition; the labels will be the same size and have approximately the same configuration as the current labels.
Reserve slips will continue to be printed in Technical Processing, and new materials with customer reserves routed at that time.
It does not appear that items ordered under the current ILS can be received in the TLC system. This means that the receiving functions of both systems will need to be run concurrently for some time after the cutover. It is not clear how long this redundancy might be necessary. Karen will keep Heidi apprised about this.
Because of the issues with receiving materials ordered under each system, part of the FY15 materials budget must be maintained under the current system, so that MSL will be able to order materials during July and August. Karen and Janet will work on determining the appropriate amount of funds to maintain under the current system.
Because of the transition, there is no significant increase in the materials budget for next fiscal year.
Karen warned the managers that MLS will not be able to order nor catalog materials for a short period, probably a week, before the cutover. The redundant receiving systems will allow materials to be received during that time.
TLC will provide a number of new features for Books by Mail (BM) customers. In the past, BM customers often did not have individual library cards; materials were checked out on the department card and routed to the customer. Some customers have expressed interest in getting individual cards so that they can utilize the system’s e-media collection. A workaround has been set up to allow those customers to have cards if requested.
After the transition, all BM customers will have individual cards. BM materials will be added to the catalog, although the holdings will only be available for staff viewing. Most of the materials currently in the BM collection are already cataloged in the collection, and will merely need to be barcoded. Pauline and Karen will discuss further as plans become more firm.
Karen and the managers discussed issues surrounding the uncataloged paperback collection. When mass market paperbacks are currently ordered, frequently copies are cataloged for some libraries, and maintained in the uncataloged collection at others. After the transition, all copies of a given title must either be cataloged or uncataloged. Karen and Janet will work on planning a way to determine whether a title will be cataloged or not.
In the TLC system, every barcode must be attached to a bib record. Performing full cataloging for every mass market paperback is not feasible. The managers discussed ideas for creating some type of brief record for each title, with no classification or subject heading information. Pauline shared some ideas and will work on expanding and testing them before the next meeting. Pauline and Karen may discuss the issue further with TLC at the item maintenance planning session on May 16.
Updates
- Technical Processing update – Heidi
- All Baker & Taylor and Ingram accounts continue to be current.
- The HFGroup’s driver returned MLS’s bindery materials on Wednesday, May 7th. The processors are currently checking and reprocessing them. They should be returned back to the libraries within the next 2-3 weeks.
- The sorter is continuing to experience problems with some of its indicator lights. The company continues to try to fix the problem. Yet another parts assembly is being shipped to hopefully fix the glitch. At least the sorter itself is functioning properly and can be used to sort materials.
- Jennifer Cluck from Tulsa City-County Library System toured the sorter room and Technical Processing’s set-up on April 24. One of their committee members is one of the drivers working for Tulsa City-County who also had some questions for some of MLS’s drivers which were returning from their afternoon routes.
- Heidi attended the Commission meeting on April 17 at NW to receive her 35 year service certificate. Melanie Levick also attended to receive her 10 year certificate.
- Heidi was scheduled to attend the Safety Committee meeting, scheduled for May 13. It had to be cancelled and will be rescheduled for some future date.
- On May 5, Heidi, Kim Rickey (MSL), and Ruby Soutiere (MSL) met with Sabine McAlpine, longtime sales rep. for Thorndike, the large print publisher MLS has monthly standing orders with.
- On May 6, Heidi and Kristin attended an Acquisitions design meeting DN for the Carl X conversion. The next meeting is scheduled for May 23rd.
- Heidi attended the meeting with Bradbury Associates at the Downtown Library about the executive director search on April 28th.
- Kevin Colwell, the SC’s Staff Association rep., is scheduled to attend the next SA meeting on Thursday, May 22, 2:00 p.m., at VI.
- John Rahhal issued a purchase order for a company to clean TP’s task chairs. Staff was pleased with the process and the results.
- Materials Selection update – Janet
- Library Visits
- During May, Selectors conducted annual library visits to SO and LU.
- During June, they are scheduled to visit AL and BE.
- Staffing in MSL
- Kim Rickey was promoted to Outreach Specialists and began her duties there 5/12/14.
- Janet is handling questions or problems with orders.
- She is currently working on old P.O.s, determining if we will receive certain orders and reordering or cancelling as needed.
- Susan is handling questions or problems with Continuations and Periodicals.
- Other duties have been redistributed to technicians.
- The MSL Assistant position is opened to in-house promotion only. Janet hopes to begin the interview process by the middle of June.
- Part-time MSL Technician, Lessa Keller-Kenton submitted her resignation, effective June 13, 2014. She is moving to Pennsylvania to attend library school.
- Janet will wait until later in the summer to replace this position. She wants to have the assistant in place and wants to see what impact the new ILS will have on workflow before she decides the status of this position.
- Staff Meetings/Workshops
- Janet and Melissa attended the Executive Director Search meetings on 4/28/14
- Susan attended a training session on Library Aware through Ebscohost.
- Kim and Ruby met with one of the Large Print reps on 5/5/14
- Janet and Kim attended the Acquisitions Design Meeting for the ILS on 5/6/14
- Melissa attended the Chick-filet Leadercast on 5/9/14
- Melissa is scheduled to attend the OPAC design for the ILS on 5/20/14
- Ruby is scheduled for a United Way meeting on 5/21/14
- Lisa is scheduled to attend the Staff Association meeting on 5/22/14
- Janet is scheduled to attend the second design session for Acquisitions on 5/23/14
- Cataloging/Interlibrary Loan update – Pauline
- Pauline attended the managers’ meeting with Bradbury Associates on April 28; Jenny, Alice, Alex, and Paula attended the staff meeting with the firm on April 29 at the Service Center.
- Pauline, Mary, Clyde, and Paula attended catalog design sessions with TLC on April 15 and 22; the next session is scheduled for May 16.
- Pauline has completed the CarlX index profile, identifying the MARC fields to be indexed in various types of catalog searches; and the display format rules, establishing criteria for searching shortcuts in the staff catalog. She forwarded the documents to TLC on May 7. Some of the display format rules are dependent upon the system’s ability to pull data from specific positions in MARC fields. Pauline has not heard whether this will be possible.
- Pauline appreciates the input that she received for the profiles and rules from the Cataloging staff serving on the catalog design team, as well as the support from the entire Cataloging and ILL staffs. They kept both departments humming while Pauline worked on the documents.
- OCLC’s FirstSearch Resource Sharing (ILL) service is scheduled to be discontinued as of Monday, May 19, and ILL will have to shift operations to the new WorldShare ILL platform. Pauline has adapted all files for uploading data to print ILL labels to work with WorldShare output, but most processes require more steps. All ILL staff have set up WorldShare logins and been experimenting with the product. Unfortunately, all WorldShare bugs do not appear to have been resolved, so there may be a few hiccups over the next couple of weeks. Pauline is confident that customers will not notice any decrease in service.
- ILL’s service through the Trans-Amigos courier service has improved somewhat. Deliveries are received daily, usually between 10:00 and 11:00. There have not been any recent occurrences of delivery not coming until late afternoon. Pauline continues to monitor the situation.
- Two students from UCO, Jennifer Newkirk and Sarah Johnston, visited Pauline on April 30 as part of their technical services practicum requirements. They were most interested in cataloging operations, although they met all staff and learned a bit about ILL as well. Heidi was also gracious enough to provide them with a tour of Tech Processing. Both were impressed with the size of MLS operations and the quality of work produced.
- Several staff members will be taking AVL throughout May and June, but there will always be sufficient staff in each department to handle daily activities and respond to questions.
Our next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 19, 8:00 AM, at the Service Center. Heidi will chair.
