Technical Services Monthly Report

August 2003

DIVISION-WIDE ACTIVITIES:

The TechForce (Roberta, Mary Ellen, Sue and Zora) met twice during August. We met with the Rush Processing TF to clarify their charge. We met with Dale Poulter and Nancy Boggess-Korekach to discuss the implications for TS of the change from Education to Peabody and to discuss issues with the Extended Info fields in Workflows. We continued with plans for the TS Open Houses, scheduled for Oct. 1 and 8. We discussed ways to address the Preservation backlog, materials budget changes and their implications for TS workflow, binding colors for booksets at the Annex, and plans to INVD material from the Inventory as the next phase of RIP.

The Rush Task Force (Susan Bell, Rita Breen, Sheranda Lee, and Mary Ellen Wilson, chair) met several times during the month. They have begun their work of evaluating the rush processing through Technical Services.

The Electronic Resources Task Force met a couple of times at which we saw a demo of the database Mary Beth Blalock uses to manage the selection of new electronic resources and discussed our role with regard to the review and selection of the broadcast searching and reference linking products.

The migration to Unicorn 2003 went fairly smoothly, but brought with it the usual glitches and issues that needed to be dealt with. The biggest change was the new Extended Info fields and the automated generation of spine labels. Material that cannot be labeled is routed to Becky Atack, who was kept busy dealing with the problems that needed to be resolved with this new labeling program. Becky, Zora Breeding, Sue Davis, Chris Waldrop, Sheranda Lee, and Ann Mallette corresponded extensively with Dale Poulter and Nancy Boggess-Korekach to work out the glitches with both the automated label generation program and the problem with the special labels such as Latest in Ref. Currently Order Services and Preservation continue to monitor those serials that need special labeling and it looks like things are working better.

Susan Bell and Suzanne Bell began weekly treks to Peabody to pre-process the TN textbook collection.

To help reduce the backlog in Binding and Marking, two staff members from Order Services and Cataloging and Authorities were asked to serve as “permanent back-ups” for the Preservation Team. This means that in times of work overload in Preservation, they may be called on to spend a portion of their hours helping out. Terrific Linda Davis is assisting with editing holdings and call records for titles sent to the bindery. Exceptional Debbie Williams is assisting in binding as jill-of-all-trades. We greatly appreciate the help of Debbie and Linda! The difference in Preservation is dramatic, and the team is on track to catch up to "normal" by the end of September.

Most Technical Services staff is now fully migrated to Mulberry. We have not yet migrated our group mailboxes (RushAcq, RSOrders), but expect to do that as soon as we can schedule the training. Ann Ercelawn is the only one who continues to experience serious problems which have baffled LITS and ITS thus far.

SPECIAL REQUEST!!! The Preservation Book Repair Lab uses a great deal of scrap paper while gluing repairs. The supply of scrap paper has run very low. If anyone has old reports or printouts that are destined for the recycling bin or trash, please recycle them to the repair lab instead. We will be properly grateful.

PERSONNEL ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS:

Ann Ercelawn conducted a CAAG sponsored workshop developed by SCCTP on Cataloging Integrating Resources (the new terminology for non-static webpages and loose-leafs). Most of the CATs were able to attend. Catherine Gick, Linda Tesar, Eileen Crawford, and Deborah Broadwater also attended, with additional representatives from Divinty and Biomedical. We are all very grateful to Ann for volunteering to set up and conduct this intensive 3 half day workshop.

Most staff attended the Technical Services-wide meeting. Many of us enjoyed the TV New Archive anniversary events. Many attended the Federated Searching and Reference Linking meeting.

Tech Services was again well represented in attendance at the useful and informative Customer Service 101 workshop.

Pete Wilson returned from the University of Virginia where he attended a rare book cataloging course.

Michael Scott began auditing an elementary Arabic course.

Sue Davis attended a retirement planning seminar offered by HR and found the program quite informative even if the actual event is still a few years off.

CATALOGING AND AUTHORITIES:

Some statistics: The team cataloged a total of 1528 new titles, of which 286 were original contributions or national level enhancements to the OCLC database and 941 were modified locally. Additionally, Ann Ercelawn made numerous national level enhancements to serial records that we get through Serials Solutions and do not get counted in our local statistics. We re-cataloged 222 titles, modified 1566 headings on existing bibliographic records in Acorn, deleted 149 authority records, and withdrew 154 titles. Marcive delivered 5508 new or modified authority records. Becky Atack and Yuh-Fen Benda manually brought 279 series authority records into Acorn. Linda Davis edited 228 holdings and 748 call records for materials returned from the bindery.

In addition to cataloging new receipts and processing new theses, we worked on our numerous ongoing projects. The biggest news is that Yuh-Fen Benda finally finished the arduous task of analyzing the 600+ volume set of Chinese classics. Bryan Kurowski finished cataloging the last of the PCC and LC Copycat RIP materials. Becky Atack finished another box of Pia duplicates. Linda Davis continued working on creating “bound-withs” for microform sets. Jeff Taylor continued cataloging the old Peabody and VU theses. Jean Wright worked on problem titles with multiple Marcive records and recataloging requests from Government Information

Jean Wright worked with Susan Timmons, including a trip to the Annex, to familiarize her with the various files and status of various categories of documents, both Dewey and SuDocs classed, and those converted, reclassed or withdrawn, and those awaiting additional work.

ORDER SERVICES:

Received and processed:

Serials/Periodicals: 3328

Approvals: 938

Added to Acorn:

SSO's: 206

Gifts: 126

OS placed 864 new orders, and Speed Cataloged 858 titles.

Visitors:

Margaret Willingham/Ebsco

Peter Bence/ Book House

Receiving is fairly current (as of the first week of September) for serials and monographs. Requests have been light, and are being ordered within 1-2 days of their receipt.

PRESERVATION:

Sue Davis met with Norman Nash on some GLB emergency planning follow up issues. She also met with Mary Beth Blalock to discuss Central's binding plans for the upcoming fiscal year. (Mary Beth announced changes to Central's monograph binding policy shortly thereafter.)

Sue accompanied Paula Covington to Baker to review condition questions about some purchases. She also accompanied Kathy Smith to the Annex to review the condition of items in the first shipment of a big gift collection.

BINDING:

The team sent two large shipments to Heckman Bindery during August including:

1,050 monographs

29 rebinds

1,212 periodicals

42 serials.

The totals were close to a record-setting month.

1,030 new Central paperback monographs were sorted; 367 selected for immediate binding.

537 monograph paperbacks were rebarcoded in preparation for binding.

With Linda Davis's able assistance, the team updated 791 Acorn records as a result of binding.

MARKING:

3,644 volumes

217 RUSH items

163 unbound serials

126 reels of microfilm labeled

As of Sept. 5th, the oldest items in the Marking workflow dated from August 25. The marking backlog has also shrunk significantly over the last few weeks.

REPAIR:

After her return from a trip home to Taiwan, Charlotte Lew jumped right back into repairing books. She repaired 117 volumes with 154 treatments. Special Collections welcomed Charlotte back with a truckload of items needing protective enclosures. Daphne Walker also returned to work after Labor Day.