Office of the University Librarian
Monthly Report—September 2002
In the past the Office of
the University Librarian has not distributed monthly reports. Since the divisions’ monthly reports are very
informative and useful, we thought we should let staff know what we’re up
to, too. This is our first effort,
and we’ve organized it by person, alphabetically.
This one is also longer than ones in the future are likely to be since
we need to provide some contextual information.
Let us know what you think.
During the month of
September the following activities took place in Office of the University
Librarian.
Marshall Breeding
Grant from the National Science Foundation
This month we received the
official award letter from the National Science Foundation notifying us that our
grant has been approved. We had heard unofficially earlier that the grant had
been awarded, but now we can proceed with the project. The project will involve
hiring a technician to work with the Library Technology Officer to develop
procedures for the digital recording of television news broadcasts and for
conversion of the existing collection. A position description has been drafted
and submitted to the Library Personnel Office. The grant will support the
purchase of a large increase in our digital storage capabilities for the video
files that will be created, as well as assorted hardware and software for
capturing, editing, and manipulating digital video.
TV News Activities
As with any large database,
there are a number of areas where attention is needed to make the resource
consistent and correct. Some problems were introduced as records were loaded
into the system, and others related to manual editing have accumulated over the
years. The level of searchability available in the database makes errors more
apparent, though it also makes them easy to correct. This month we have been
involved in a project related to the reporters
- created a listing of all the reporter names in
the index, which showed that there were many variant spellings for many of
the reporters and some syntactical problems related to how the names were
extracted from the abstract and inserted into a separate reporter’s field
- fixed all the identified problems related to
syntactical variations in the names and for corrections that had sufficient
numbers to warrant a global change.
- programmed to effect improvements in the
ordering system for tape loan requests performed through the website.
These improvements included
adding breadcrumbs to the interface to show the current status in the progression
of steps involved in creating an order. Breadcrumbs
were also added to the search and retrieval part of the interface. Additional
queries were added to the staff interface of the ordering system.
Marshall was nterviewed by
Paula Hane of Information Today for an article about the TV-NewsSearch
database. This article titled Vanderbilt Improves
Television News Archive was published in Information
Today Volume 19 No 9 (October 2002).
Participated in a conference
call with CNN staff, Paul Gherman, Flo Wilson and Kevin Davis (Legal Office)
regarding the Archive's plans to digitize and provide access to streaming video
of CNN content.
Image Management Software Committee.
This group continued its
efforts. In the meeting held this month, we reviewed work done to date and
agreed to develop an interim report to allow projects to move forward. We completed preliminary research on the
TEAMS digital asset management system from Artesia Technologies. Marshall meet with Special Collections staff
to review procedures for the Photo Archives project.
Leadership Vanderbilt
As a member of the
Leadership Vanderbilt 2002 professional development group Marshall participated
in the month's general session and small group meetings related to their
assigned project and presentation.
Web Task Force
Created a new version of the
electronic journals resource that displays holdings. Rick Stringer-Hye has
populated this field for the titles of a single aggregator. This preliminary
step will help us be ready for a larger scale approach such as using data from
Serials Solutions for electronic journal holdings in the E-Journals resource
Etana
Worked with George Anglin
and Kay Pothisiri to set up the new server for the Abzu database. Abzu has been
running on a shared server along with other library applications since it was
put into production. This new server purchased with funds from the Mellon
grant, will allow this resource to run on a dedicated server. We methodically
went through the steps in configuring the server for Perl, ODBC, and
DB/TextWorks so that LITS staff will be well prepared to provide support for
this environment.
Extra-curricular Activities
Taught workshop on wireless
technologies for Suburban Library System.
Wrote Systems Librarian
column that was published in the October 2002 issue of Information Today Volume
19 No. 9: "An
Update on Open Source ILS".
Paul Gherman
Paul attended the board
meetings of the University Press, the Nashville Library Alliance, the Friends
of Libraries, and he participated in the Tennessee Electronic Library planning
meeting. He reported on the Television News Archive at the ICOLC meeting at the
Marriott in Nashville, which was planned and coordinated by Elaine Goleski and
Susan Smith. He took part in the NINCH (National Initiative for a Networked
Cultural Heritage) Town Meeting on Copyright and the Media at Georgia Tech,
where he talked about the Television News Archive. He attended a retirement
reception for Mike Rothacker, the director at Volunteer State. He participated
in conference calls with the Office of Research at OCLC and with CNN about the
Television News Archive.
Elaine Goleski
Library access/card issues
*Regular
activity in this area averages 100 e-mails/month, and some messages deal with
multiple names/problems.
*More
activity than normal in August.
Significant turnstile problems in Management required daily follow-up to
resolve. The Management turnstile was
nonfunctional for several days.
Conferred with Card Office staff to schedule daily downloads in an
attempt to resolve problem. After more
than a week, some success, but sporadic problems continue. As individual problems continue to be reported
at Management, I send an e-mail to the Card Office about each one.
*Attended
meeting early in September with Biomedical Library and Card Office staff to
resolve ongoing problems with Biomedical turnstile, mostly relating to IDs not
being in the database and problems with lost card codes. Discovered that Card Office was not
automatically adding library access schedule to new student records created
between semesters. Card Office had
assumed we wouldn't want students to have access "early." The reverse is true, so Card Office will now
add access schedule whenever a student record is loaded. This should solve a lot of problems for all
divisions.
*Discovered
late in September that Peabody door reader not functioning correctly. Will follow up with Card Office staff to see
if problem can be fixed permanently.
OUL Office
*Resignation
of Alyce Dobyns-Ladd on September 13 meant position vacancy. Fortunately, VTS person (Mark Cabus), who
had been here when Alyce was on leave in July-September, was able to go to
full-time status immediately.
*Workflow
continues relatively normally, even with Alyce's departure and Susan's key role
as the coordinator for ICOLC Conference local arrangements September
19-21. She was onsite at the Vanderbilt
Marriott during the conference and spent a significant amount of time in
September processing registration for the meeting.
*Spent
time training Mark in card issues, patron record creation, use of Pegasus, etc.
Development Activities
*Edited
final version of copy for the next issue of the Acorn Chronicle. First galley proofs due in early
October. Issue expected to be mailed in
early November.
*Significant
effort in support of the Friends of the Library Board in identifying speaker
for Fall annual meeting. Meeting
scheduled for November 19. Meeting site
has been confirmed.
*Preparations
for Wild Bunch Brunch on October 27.
Invitation designed and mailed.
Met with Special Collections to confirm location and arrangements.
*Met
with Creative Services for preliminary design for Crispin and Pupo-Walker
bookplates.
*Continued
conversations with calligrapher regarding design of custom bookplates for
special presentation volumes.
*Met
with representatives of firm handling University's direct phone solicitation. Library participated in this activity for
the first time, and results were encouraging.
*Met
with library head at the American Baptist College to discuss development and
fundraising.
*Made
preparations for and attended Friends of the Library Board meeting on September
26.
*Confirmed
arrangements for showing of vintage film, "Buck Greene Goes to
Vanderbilt" as part of Reunion activities on October 25.
Other activities
*Planning
and invitation design for Staff Service Awards on October 3.
*Regular
activities: Library Staff Newsletter,
LMC minutes, editing, drafting, and proofing correspondence and reports for OUL
and for Development operation, weekly administrative staff meetings, weekly OUL
support staff meeting, LMC meetings, monthly Development Officers' meeting,
processing daily patron record creation reports and weekly record expiration
reports.
John Haar
Collection Development
The Collection Development
Advisory Group is considering a possible library-wide subscription to the
Encyclopedia of Associations online. Gale
produces this source under the title Associations Unlimited. The database includes both the Encyclopedia
of Associations and the Encyclopedia of Associations-International Organizations.
Six VU libraries currently acquire one or both of these titles in print. If we replace all our print subscriptions with
one online subscription, each library would save money. We will also consider placing the online subscription
on the shared electronic fund. Gale
provided a trial of the database during September.
Homepage Development
We have begun to display
holdings information on the Electronic Journals web page. The data is displayed in a middle column between
the title and source information. Currently we are displaying data only for
Project Muse and American Chemical Society titles, but we expect to add much
more data in the future through holdings information supplied by SerialsSolutions.
We are conducting a beta test of SS, which sends regular holdings updates
that we can also add to e-journal catalog records.
The ability to display holdings is particularly useful in cases where
we have access to an e-journal from multiple sources.
One example is Science, where five separate aggregators supply access,
each with a different set of holdings (check the Electronic Journals page
to see the comparison). Thanks to
Rick Stringer-Hye and Marshall Breeding for their work on this project.
Norman Nash
Norman worked with the proposed 2002/03
budget. This involved updating data for
each unit to reflect the 2002/03 approved budget. This was followed by a meeting with Associate Provost Tivis
Nelson to define library proposals and to seek numbers associated with
guideline factors and data to fill voids in the library’s data sets. Norman
also reviewed an estimate pertaining to
fencing and electrical fixtures from Plant Operations to enhance building
security. This review is continuing.
*Lisa
planned and participated in the Acorn Note Recipients Lunch on 09/03/02. 4 staff members and their supervisors
attended.
*Staff
Development Coordinating Committee (SDCC) sponsored a Brown Bag session on
09/04/02 where June MacNeil, an ergonomist from the Department of
Rehabilitation Services at Vanderbilt gave a demonstration and overview of the
field of Ergonomics.
*Held
an SDCC meeting on 09/10/02.
*Library
Orientation session for new employee, Susan Timmons, LA III in Order Services
on 09/23/02.
*Attended
the Technology Training Coordinators Committee meeting on 09/24/02.
*Planned
the 2002 Benefits Open Enrollment sessions on 09/26/02, presented by the
Benefits office
Jim Toplon
Interlibrary Loan
The
library divisions, excepting Biomedical, agreed that bound periodicals could be
loaned through ILL to our IRIS/Information Alliance partner libraries. We communicated the policy--including
case-by-case approval, a brief loan period, in-library use, and secure shipping
and return--to Universities of Kentucky and Tennessee, which are also liberalizing
their lending terms for us.
LITS
accomplished most of the work involved with installing a second Ariel
workstation in ILL. The office
photocopier will be removed once the Ariel installation is complete.
A
recent upgrade in our Clio (ILL management) software allows us to search Acorn
(to look up call numbers for requests from other libraries) in a window within
the program. Implementing the feature
saves some printing and results in faster updating for many requests; the
search process itself is slow, and the printed results lack some desired
elements, so we are evaluating whether to continue the new procedure.
The
same software upgrade makes it possible to carry data from our Web ILL request
forms through to the ILL "Review File" in OCLC, substantially
reducing the amount of re-keying required to process Vanderbilt users'
borrowing requests. We have been
working with LITS to make necessary modifications to the output of the Web
forms. The process is in production now for journal article requests, with our
other forms to follow soon.
We
revised our charges to borrowing libraries for copies and loans, both to
simplify the fee schedule and to bring our fees more in line with those of
libraries from which we borrow. The new
rate for copies will be announced and become effective mid-October. The new rate for loans will go into effect
in January.
Copyright Clearance
In
September, Jim Webb concentrated on processing permissions for electronic
reserves. As expected, the volume of
electronic reserves requiring copyright clearance has increased over last year,
and of course requests continue to arrive.
Staff Development
Rachel
Adams is the new Staff Council representative for Group 19 (along with Scott
McDermott, for staff in Central, Divinity, OUL, Science & Engineering, and
Special Collections), completing the current term.
Jim
Toplon presented a proposal for a technical improvement in the ISO Interlibrary
Loan standard at a meeting of IPIG (ILL Protocol Implementers Group) in
Chicago. The proposal, which involves
conveying piece-specific identification in transaction messages, was
provisionally approved and will be posted for the required time for comments.
Jim
Toplon is one of the library volunteers for the 2002 Vanderbilt Community
Giving Campaign, and reminds his colleagues that giving has never been easier
(simply visit http://www.vanderbilt.edu/community_giving/
and click on the 'Pledge Now!' icon - or ask Jim for a paper form).
Flo Wilson
Began
significant budget preparation work.
Reviewed methodology for distributing technical services costs with
Roberta Winjum and Mary Ellen Wilson.
Worked with Norman on updating budget model for the 2003/2004 year.
Continuing
analysis of LibQUAL results and planning for written report and results
dissemination with the committee consisting of Angel Bruner, Dennis Clark, Jody
Combs, John Haar, MAT Trotter, and Flo Wilson.
Began work on further development of action items resulting from the LMC
Retreat agenda. Preliminary discussions
of focusing on service quality improvement as a library priority.
Marshall
Breeding, Jody Combs, John Haar, Rick Stringer-Hye, Flo Wilson and Roberta
Winjum met to discuss the interrelationships between ACORN and the e-resources
web database with a future goal of improving the management of these currently
separate updating activities. Roberta
will form a group to study possibilities.
Met
with Paul, John, Bill, and Juanita to discuss developing a proposal for a GLB
planning project and study.
In
a meeting of Flo, Jody, and Lisa, Lisa agreed to update the library staff
database on the web, including email addresses, as new people are hired and as
staff leave, so that an extract can generate a complete email distribution list
for notifying all staff. Given the
different email systems in use and the limited nature of the information coming
to LITS, this has been difficult in the past.
Lisa's office has the most current and up-to-date information on all
library staff.
Resource Services activities
The
RS Management Team worked on further development of a statement on Building
Access for RS staff (both Baker and GLB).
Attention
was returned to the action items from the Staff Satisfaction Survey and further
review and action planned.
A
recommendation to revisit the RS web pages was made, given the significant
development of the technical services web pages. The group reconfirmed that all
RS documentation was to be made available on the web, and teams were urged to
continue efforts in that direction.
Meetings:
Image
Management Software Committee met and agreed upon an interim recommendation
that would enable projects, which may currently be on hold, to proceed.
Sat
in on teleconference call with CNN, Paul, Marshall and Kevin Davis, related to
the TV News digitizing project.
Attended
Mike Rothaker's retirement party at Vol State.