Apr. 2002
DIVISION WIDE
ACTIVITIES:
The
Technical Services Workflow Task Force met with the Series TF to finalize plans
for implementation of their recommendations.
Ann Ercelawn began the process by revising the documentation and then
training Bryan Kurowski and Yan-Xia Zhong in the new procedures.
The
Materials Routing Task Force submitted its final report and will attend the May
1 meeting of the TSWFTF.
Pete
Wilson was asked by TSWFTF to look at whether UKM records should be excluded
from our PromptCat profiles. Based on his research and recommendation (to
exclude them) the task force accepted and implemented his suggestion that we
stop receiving the UKM records. These brief cataloging records were more of a
hindrance than a help to catalogers. Mary Ellen Wilson contacted OCLC to
request the elimination of UKM records from our PromptCat profiles. This change
has already been implemented by OCLC (though there will continue to be books in
the pipeline for a few weeks to come).
The file of PromptCat records for UK books sent to us on May 5 shows 21
out of 36 titles matched to UKM records, and thus no cataloging records were
delivered. For US books, 30 out of 331 titles sent were matched to UKM records
and so no records were delivered.
The
RS Building Access Task Force turned it its final report to Flo Wilson on April
30.
An
analysis and report from June McNeil, Vanderbilt Ergonomic Analyst, will guide
us in planning how to label microfiche in the future. Sue Davis is
investigating alternatives to stamping microfiche envelopes as currently
practiced. She has developed a simple
possible alternative but is waiting to hear back from a supplier.
The
sample file of Retrocon Batch records was received from OCLC. The Inventory
Reduction Project Task Force members are reviewing the records.
Charlotte
Lew, Daphne Walker, and Sue Davis spent April 15 inspecting and sorting through
a recently acquired collection stored in the Annex. Because of poor storage
conditions quite a few of the volumes suffered from insect and mold damage and
could not be retained. The trio
salvaged as many items as possible and reboxed and bagged them for a total of
68 boxes.
Peg
Earheart, Rita Breen, Monica Sanchez, Mary Ellen Wilson, and Pat Johnson met
with Internal Audit as part of the annual Procurement Card Audit.
For
those interested in telecommuting, Mary Charles Lasater reports that her DSL
connection is performing beyond her expectations, with no down time and Acorn
response time equal to or better than what she experiences on campus. The
processing speed of her top-of-the-line computer may be responsible in part.
The line charges are more expensive than she anticipated, however, and
explaining the Vanderbilt requirements to DSL line providers was a challenge.
Her software challenges have been with running the virus software and the
weekly system backups. Jody Combs has been a big help with these.
LITS
installed a new version of Climate Notebook onto the network. Sue Davis uploaded new data from both PEMS
and generated reports for the Annex and Special Collections. The new version allows the reports to be
emailed in PDF file format. She also
sent reports to the Image Permanence Institute.
Sue
Davis helped to trouble-shoot the RS GLB portion of the migration from LIB1 to
LIB15 servers. The migration of RS Baker staff went smoothly.
Mary
Ellen Wilson, Zora Breeding, and Sue Davis completed the enjoyable process of
making Merit Award proposals.
PERSONNEL:
The
Cataloging and Authorities Team was devastated this month by the resignations
of Laurie Power and Rich Murray to pursue other career opportunities. We wish them both well in their new
positions, but we mourn their leaving.
Laurie’s cheerfulness and easy-going attitude brightened our days. We are trying to adjust to the emptiness of
her cubicle. We know she will do well
at Ingram. Rich’s last day will be May 17. He has only been with us for 3 years, but in
that short time he won our respect and our hearts. His cataloging skill, hard work, and sense of fun have enriched
the team. Alas, he decided that he
really wanted to move back home to North Carolina and Duke snapped him up.
Don
Jones attended the Kickoff Luncheon for the 2002 Faculty Staff Campaign.
Many
staff attended various sessions of the iLink demo by LITS. Many staff were also
able to attend one or both of the OCLC video presentations. Some of us also
made an effort to attend the Education Director candidate presentations.
Mary
Charles Lasater was very busy as a member of the Music Cataloger search
committee. Several staff attended the
Music candidate presentations and the informal meetings with the candidates
that followed.
Ann
taught the SCCTP's new course on cataloging electronic serials as a pre-
conference to the Alabama Library Association's annual meeting in Huntsville,
Ala.
Denise
Chavez turned in ten more Acorn Notes to Lisa this month, bringing her total to
thirty. Good work!
The
Cataloging and Authorities Team has hired student assistant Joel Norton, who
will start in May.
Sue
and Charlotte offered another session of the Introduction to Preservation
Concepts workshop on April 18.
Machelle
Keen has taken on the role of Ingram representative, following Laurie Power’s
departure. Patti Skipper will be Machelle’s backup.
The
Binding/Marking staff is looking forward to the summer's return of Leslie
Grantham, now a graduate student at Peabody. Both of Preservation’s student
assistants left in mid-April to study for finals, with promises to return in
the fall.
Daphne
Walker has again requested summer leave. While she is gone, Carrie Sprouse from
Central Periodicals and Myra Foxworth, graduate student in Divinity, will be
learning book repair in the repair lab over the summer.
On
Apr. 12, Roberta Winjum participated in an ACRL chat session moderated by
Maureen Sullivan on “Academic Library Futures: Identifying Strategic Issues
- An Open Forum”. The archive of the session is at http://library.tamu.edu/21stcentury/new/chat/chat_maureen_archive.asp
ANNEX:
April
found us showered with incoming transfers, end of semester's returned books,
higher than usual withdrawal requests, and several Annex staff absences. Retrieval of new requests for circulation
was 197 items higher than last month.
Two large gift collections for Collection Development were brought to
the Annex. Two researchers, who were "new" to us, spent considerable
time on site, researching periodicals and Government documents for their new
books. Professor Helguera continued his
daily work at the Annex. University Archives increased their holdings here,
some of which arrived by the VU movers.
The
second stage of our Spacesaver compact storage components was delivered and
installed. This consisted of the individual steel shelves, the steel reinforcements,
and the steel support pieces. A few steel pieces were damaged in shipping. We
are awaiting their replacements.
Paul
Murphy, retired Science Librarian, visited us on April 1, 3, and 15th. On April 3rd, a moving company brought 75
boxes of Paul’s donated materials. On
April 15th, Paul returned with 6 more boxes.
April
9th, Campus Planning moved 36 more filing cabinets of materials to the
University Archives in the Annex "Stockade".
The
Ruiz-Ramon Collection arrived April 10th, and is being stored for Central
Collection Development. A special
thanks to Julie Loder, James McCullough, and Joe Collins for their great
assistance with this incoming gift set.
April
11th Carlin Sappenfield and Peg Earheart made a trip to the Dyer Observatory to
view the Astronomy collection there.
While there, brief discussions with Professor Heiser and Professor Hall
occurred.
Professor
Dewey Daane, Owen School, increased his April time in his Library Annex office.
He is working on a new book.
The
Law School faculty and staff increased their visits to the Annex during April
to select materials they have in "University tenant" storage here.
April
17th Susan Gotwald, Assistant to Chancellor Emeritus Joe B. Wyatt met with
University Archives staff and Peg to discuss the Wyatt papers.
Clint
Grantham worked on Science transfers and withdrawals. He processed his first
Central transfers the new way (shelve by next book). Education continued to
send a steady stream of withdrawals from both their regular stacks and their
youth collection.
Joe
Collins has been deluged with returns from campus this month. Patron requests have also been steady which
makes for lots of hustling to meet deadlines.
He worked on a Central new transfer cart, and helped the messenger
unload many a Sci. new transfer cart onto our loading dock. He is bracing for
the Central transfers.
On
April 10th, Leonor Van Cotthem, Paul Van Cotthem, Peg Earheart, Roberta Winjum,
and Lisa Shipman met at the Library Annex with Susan Harris and June McNeil from
Occupational Health. As a result some ergonomic adjustments have been be made
to Leonor's workstation and to repetitive tasks.
During
April Leonor reports that she worked very hard with circulation requests,
especially when Clint was on vacation. She had many, many ILL requests
also. When Clint returned from
vacation, and resumed work on the Education withdrawal project, Leonor received
many OCLC TJC symbols to cancel. The
bulk of the month though was working on new transfers.
Linda
Davis edited records for titles which were sent to the bindery and for titles
which had volumes withdrawn, from Sci. and Educ. She worked with Jon Erickson
in the wording of a retention note for Sci. titles. She also worked on the Cen/Mngt. project of transferring duplicate
copies to the Annex, keeping the best copy and withdrawing the other. She
processed transfers from the Law Library. She also assisted with circulation
and prepared volumes for storage shelving.
Peg
held meetings or worked with visitors on 101 occasions during the month of
April. Additionally Peg retrieved circulation requests, processed Annex
transfers, and helped with Science withdrawals.
Circulation:
729
items circulated to Central, Divinity, Education, Government Information, Law,
Management, Music, RS Cataloging, Science, and Special Collections.
55
of these requested items were Patron Specified Library deliveries - directed to
other than the owning library.
16
additional patrons used the new Annex fax service.
156
pages photocopied and faxed to their offices during April.
508
pages photocopied for 68 Inter-Library Loan patrons.
40
ILL requests rejected for lending, due to the condition of the material or
incorrect citation
415
of our patrons requested their Annex retrievals via the Web.
Storage:
274
linear feet of new transfers received from campus libraries. Newly cataloged
2001 VColls. were also received.
RS
Maintenance:
3,017
Acorn records edited
9
Central and 1 Mngt. titles re-instated
1,392
volumes withdrawn
1
Educ. title recataloged
6
titles reconned (3 for Central and 3 for Education)
5
intra-library transfers processed
3
titles from RS Inventory circulated to Inter-Library Loan patrons. Two were French titles, and one was a London
publication on geology.
Building and
Facilities:
A
10" wheelbase, industrial/warehouse rolling ladder has been ordered for
use with our 1st floor electronic compact shelving.
The
HVAC system needed its usual April tweaking.
Power outages in the building, and a broken fan belt affected
temperature and humidity variances.
Peg
worked with VU Theatre Department staff and Don Hughes and staff regarding the
spider problem in the Detached Building. This building is used for the storage
of sets and costumes.
CATALOGING AND
AUTHORITIES TEAM:
In
preparation for Rich Murray’s departure, the team added his subjects to the
growing list of responsibilities needing reassignment. The revised list can be seen at http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/rs/ocliaisons.html
The
series work previously handled by Laurie has been assigned to Yuh-Fen Benda and
Becky Atack. They are trying to get used to the new responsibility and are
working through the learning curve.
Jeff
Taylor received and processed a new shipment of VU theses. Yuh-Fen Benda was away at the beginning of
the month and many coworkers pitched in to help with LC books in her
absence. On her return, Yuh-Fen worked
with Peter Brush and Prof. Miller to provide information on the 611 volume
Chinese set that the library has owned for many years. Prof. Miller has just discovered the set and
is anxious to improve the accessibility (cataloging) to make this set more
useful. Ann Barnette and Jeff Taylor
processed the maps that Paula Covington brought back from Guatemala.
Mary
Charles Lasater and Denise Chavez continued trying to figure out the CatME
software and were finally successful in getting records to export. They, along with Yuh Fen Benda and Jeff
Taylor, are using the software to work on the Education theses recon project,
which is progressing well.
A
CAT web page committee (Zora Breeding, Denise Chavez and Becky Atack) was
formed to look at cataloging procedures and make suggestions to the TS Web
Pages TF.
Zora,
Ann and Mary Charles attended the regular CAAG meeting. Zora prepared a list of item types that are
being considered for deletion.
Mary
Charles Lasater completed the NACO review of Penn State and they became
independent. In other authorities work, she has been looking over Acorn
frequent typographic errors and some old geographic headings lists to see how
best to undertake cleanup work for headings in these categories.
ORDER
SERVICES:
Verifiers
continue to work diligently on purchase requests as they are received; most
requests awaiting processing are less than 10 days old; a number of funds have
already been fully encumbered. The last
day for libraries to submit routine orders is quickly approaching (May 20).
Serial receiving is current (no backlogs); firm order receiving has no more
than a 2-3 week backlog.
From
Chris Waldrop: "In April, the serial receivers were given a very thorough
tour of the Education Library by Bill Dwyer. So far the serial receivers have
visited Music, Divinity, and Education. These tours have been enjoyable and
informative, and have given all of us a better chance to put faces with
names." Future tours of the
remaining libraries are planned.
The
main Harrassowitz renewal invoice has been manually posted, but is not yet
"paid" (amounts still appear as "invoiced" in fund /
invoice records); we await additional electronic invoices to pay remaining
invoices.
The
OS Web Task Force is making progress.
They are working on documenting a number of procedures, as well as
identifying which current procedures are the most used so that they may be
placed on the RS documentation page for immediate access.
Chris
Waldrop, Mary Ellen Wilson, and Roberta Winjum met with Faxon rep Michael
Walmsley on April 23rd. The entire team enjoyed our monthly luncheon
on the last Thursday of the month.
OS Statistics:
2342
new orders created (1131 of these were on CM/Gobi)
1007
approvals processed
90
gift titles added
4209
serials/periodical issues received
1522
firm/continuations received (approx)
PRESERVATION:
April
provided a bit of breathing space before the summer crunch truly begins and
gave the staff time to catch up on backlogs and other waiting projects.
Binding:
1,888
volumes sent including
1,113
monographs
56
rebinds
152
serials and
567
periodicals
Backlogs
of monographs are now whittled down to currently received items. Our newest
team member, Patti Skipper, has been instrumental in reducing the monograph
backlog. Serials and periodicals
continue to be without backlogs. There are pockets of problem materials waiting
for final resolution, but generally we can report for the first time in many
months that we are caught up with all backlogs--just in time for the summer
binding rush. Machelle has been able to keep current with rebarcoding items as
well. In April she rebarcoded 381
volumes.
As
of the end of April, Machelle Keen resumed updating Acorn records from
binding. Sheranda Lee and Machelle
updated a total of 272 records. The
team would like to thank Linda Davis for all her valuable help the last few
months
922
new Central paperback monographs sorted
386
(42%) sent directly to the bindery
Machelle
reports that receipt of new Central paperback monographs slowed down
considerably this month.
Machelle
announces that she completed updating our profiles with Heckman Bindery and has
sent them to the bindery for further fine-tuning. Congratulations to Machelle for wrapping up a long, tedious
job.
According
to its latest newsletter, Heckman Bindery has instituted a new streamlining
business plan. We have discovered that
this new plan has had a detrimental effect on longstanding policies
incorporated into our profiles. We are
working to resolve these issues, which include reduced customer service. Just by happenstance, I was contacted by a
competitor's bindery representative and met with him early in the month.
Machelle
trained Science library staff on LARS.
Machelle
and Karen Pillow are processing invoices dating from the Mar 22 binding
shipment.
Marking:
3,798
regular items labeled
190
RUSH
191
unbound serials
59
microfilm reels
The
oldest items waiting for marking arrived April 17. Without student assistant help, Ann Mallette single-handedly does
almost all the labeling and deserves kudos for hanging in there so splendidly.
Repair:
210
volumes repaired with 287 treatments.
Included
in the count were 121 wrapper boxes custom ordered from CMI. The two major
customers continue to be Central and Special Collections, but the staff also
did work for the Baudelaire Center, Divinity, Education, Law, Music, and
Science.
A
highlight of the month was when a class of 18 pre-schoolers from the VU Child
Care Center visited the book repair lab on April 10. Charlotte Lew taught the
class what makes books happy and what makes them sad. With help from the
grownups each child made a bookmark with stickers. Charlotte had prepared a goodie bag for each child containing a
handsewn booklet, more stickers and a pen, so they could take their lesson home
with them. Based upon feedback, the
kids had a great time. A drawing
illustrating the happy and sad books still remains on the lab's chalkboard if
anyone wants a lesson.
Other:
Sue
Davis consulted with Special Collections about the condition of recently
donated Women's Center archives material stored in a dirt basement. The
material is of questionable physical condition, and has been sequestered in
thick poly bags in a 2nd floor Annex storage room.
Sue
also was called to help identify droppings found in the Special Collections
vault. The diagnosis was American
cockroach.