Technical Services Monthly Report

May 2003

DIVISION-WIDE ACTIVITIES:

The Cataloging Workflow Task Force began compiling a survey about other libraries’ processing practices to be sent to the heads of their cataloging units. Pete Wilson composed the questionnaire, with input from TF members and Zora Breeding. Bryan Kurowski compiled a list of comparable libraries that have good potential as candidates for the cataloging survey.

Roberta Winjum and Zora Breeding attended the May Circulation Advisory Group meeting to discuss the INeed proposal. We are hoping to have everything in place to implement INeed by at least the beginning of the new fiscal year.

PERSONNEL ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS:

Mary Ellen Wilson and Susan Bell have been appointed to the Service Quality Improvement Team and attended its first meetings. Along with Roberta Winjum, they attended the LMC retreat that focused on the topic of Service Quality.

Ann Ercelawn taught two SCCTP workshops at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina to 33 registrants from the Southeast.

Denise Chavez was active with Mulberry training activities in her new role as the TS/GLB Training Coordinator.

We bade farewell to our longtime friend and colleague, Sue Caldwell Richardson. Her 10 hr/wk position in CAT was one of those eliminated in the recent budget cuts. Her work with the authorities unit will be sorely missed.

Don Jones attended the Mid-Term Reporting Breakfast for the Faculty-Staff Campaign.

Ann Ercelawn served as a volunteer staffer at the Vanderbilt Graduation ceremony. Denise Chavez and Yuh-Fen Benda helped with the Health Plus Employee day and participated in the Health plus wellness promotion. Denise and Roberta Winjum also participated in the Susan Gray School Story Time by reading to the children. Most staff members attended a Mulberry introduction session and signed up for an e-password.

CATALOGING AND AUTHORITIES:

Thankfully, the flow of new materials was more leisurely during May. Jeff Taylor received and processed a large batch of new VU theses. Susan Bell began a reclass project at Peabody and has thus far finished assigning LC call numbers to videos in the Youth collection. Becky Atack worked on another box of Pia dups. Becky and Ann Ercelawn worked on some travel guides to conform with LC’s new rule of treating all travel guides as serials. Working from an authorities report run against the last batch, Ann made many enhancements to CONSER records to improve the next batch of Serials Solutions records. Yuh-Fen Benda returned from her extended vacation to begin cataloging several large Japanese book sets ordered Rush by Prof. Igarashi. Zora Breeding and Pete Wilson finished their portions of the electronic resources clean-up project. Zora cataloged some titles that had been added to the History Universe electronic database. Linda Davis began a project for Peabody to remove or amend retention notes saying "Latest Edition in Ready Reference” and has also been busy with a withdrawal project begun by Management. Jean Wright completed conversion of an analyzed State Department series with 105 numbers. Zora and Mary Charles Lasater devoted some time to testing the new Unicorn software and reporting their findings to LITS.

Ann Ercelawn devoted most of the month to Serials Solutions follow up, convening one general meeting of the SS Working Group and a second meeting with Dale Poulter and Rick Stringer-Hye to improve the error reporting form. The group constructed an error database and has also created a Serials Solutions Information page that is linked to the Staffweb.

Mary Charles Lasater attended a meeting of the Acorn Virtual Catalog Task Force to discuss settings for hyperlinks. On behalf of CAAG, she successfully argued the need to change conference name hyperlinks to allow the hyperlink to retrieve all conferences of the same name, regardless of the year or venue.

Mary Charles reports that Michael Scott is now an independent NACO contributor for personal names.

Zora Breeding:

It was a rather routine month for me. I had one meeting each of CAT, TechForce

and the Item Types Task Force. CAAG did not meet in May. I submitted the

INeed proposal to the Circulation Advisory Group for review before Roberta and

I attended their May meeting to discuss the proposal. Although some reservations

were voiced, the group seemed willing to try this new expedited process. We are

hoping to have everything in place to implement INeed by at least the beginning of

the new fiscal year.

I made some changes to the non-book tables for Peabody. I cataloged my regular

materials and helped out with materials in Philosophy, History and French

literature. I finished my share of the Central electronic database cleanup project

and cataloged some additional analytics for the History Universe electronic

database. I attended a Mulberry session and registered for an e-password. I

took 4 days off during the first week of the month.

Denise Chavez:

(Submitted in her absence by Mary Charles). Denise was active with Mulberry

training activities. She completed the unauthorized headings list for April

cataloging. She kept records of the source of the records and the needed activity

since we are attempting to streamline this process. We will be able to compare this

list with next month's to see if we are making any progress in that effort.

She deleted a number of already identified authority records (withdrawal activity is

still on hold awaiting a Sirsi solution). She made some progress on eliminating old

split files of names.

'Extracurricular activities" included helping with the Health Plus Employee day,

participating in the Health plus wellness promotion, and reading each week to

children as part of the Susan Gray School Story Time.

Linda Davis:

May was a month filled with the usual maintenance work of handling transfers,

reinstates, correcting typos, editing volume holdings, as requested by libraries, and

withdrawals. Mngt. engaged into a withdrawal project. Deborah supplied me with

over 200 items, to withdraw. In May, I began working on a list of titles from

Educ., to remove or amend retention notes saying, "Latest Edition in Ready

Reference." I also continued to work on the list of Acorn records, needing to have

call numbers added to volume holdings. I attended a Mulberry session. I was also

away a week, during May, due to my father's health and his passing.

Ann Ercelawn:

This month I worked mostly on a large no. of travel guides ordered by Central.

LC is now treating almost all travel guides as serials. Thanks to Becky for doing

some record searching and overlay for me on this collection while I was in South

Carolina.

I showed Linda how to create and use Keyboard Express macros and worked

with Nancy on getting her statistics automated.

Most of the month I devoted to Serials Solutions follow up, convening one general

meeting of the SS Working Group and a second meeting with Dale and Rick to

improve the error reporting form and have constructed an error database. Our

group has also created a Serials Solutions Information page which is linked to the

Staffweb. I have been working through an authorities error report run by Mary

Charles after the load of Serials Solutions records and making many corrections

on OCLC to CONSER records (120 to date, most of which won't be reported in

my own statistics for the month). We have to correct the "master" records in order

for the errors not to show up repeatedly in Acorn with each bimonthly record

load. It has also come to light that the version of the CONSER database that SS

has been working with is incomplete/out of date; Peter McCracken of SS is

investigating. We have identified and sent him a list of "priority" databases that we

hope to have additional records for with our next load in June; also I persuaded

Peter to supply records for MetaPress titles although they do not have the official

metadata from MetaPress yet; thanks to Rick and to Kitty Porter for extracting the

titles and supplying holdings.

May 20-2nd I taught two SCCTP workshops at Winthrop University in Rock

Hill, South Carolina to 33 registrants from the Southeast.

Meetings attended included the Web Task Force, Webspiders, and Mulberry

demo.

I worked at Vanderbilt Commencement on the 9th, along with several other library

staffers who braved the heat in Memorial Gym.

Don Jones:

Early in the month I attended an introductory session to Mulberry mail. Along with

Mary Beth Blalock and MAT Trotter, I attended the Mid-Term Reporting

Breakfast for the Faculty-Staff Campaign. We gave a brief report of the library's

progress in the campaign. I continued to review and revise some input cataloging,

some vendor enhanced cataloging, and some PCC cataloging for a few colleagues.

Early in the month I spent a week cataloging mainly Baudelaire materials (which

had been piling up) and managed to work through about 80 percent of this

material. Later in the month I concentrated on cataloging Science materials. I also

took 4 vacation days during May.

Bryan Kurowski:

May was a busy month trying to keep head above water with Yu-Fen being gone,

and we are very pleased that she is back and working hard as always. Thanks to

Jeff, Susan, Zora, and other team members who helped out with the copy

cataloging while we were short-staffed. This month I attended a Cataloging

Workflows Task Force meeting, and in the last couple of weeks I spent quite a

significant amount of time working on compiling a list of comparable libraries who

have good potential as candidates for our cataloging survey. In total, 14 libraries

were selected based on the following criteria based on ARL statistics for the year

2001: 1) the number of professional staff, 2) the number of paraprofessional staff,

3) the ratio of paraprofessional staff to professional staff, 4) the number of new

monographs added to the collection, 5) the number of gross volumes added to the

collection, and 6) the ratio of gross-volumes-added to the total number of

professional and paraprofessional staff combined. I then composed a preliminary

report about these 14 selected academic libraries, including e-mail addresses for

the head(s) of each cataloging unit to be contacted, as well as a basic profile of all

the professional and paraprofessional cataloging staff with regard to job

classifications and job responsibilities. Also included in the report was a summary

of each academic library system, including a brief description of the number and

types of library branches in the system and a discussion of which branches had at

least some cataloging staff who work independently from the main cataloging unit.

With the actual survey, composed by Pete, being in its final draft stages, we now

look forward to sending it out to the libraries, and we will eagerly await to see

what sort of response we are able to get. Though the task force has made good

progress with some of the preliminary procedural adjustments that have been

implemented so far, I think that most, if not all of the task force members feel that

we have only just begun to get the wheels turning to move us in the direction of

reaching our final goal, on which we have slowly but surely been able to set our

sights. However, given the amount of time that will be needed, both to receive the

responses to our survey and later to interpret those responses in a meaningful and

useful manner, the rapid approach of our original deadline at the end of June has us

feeling a bit uneasy and not very confident about being able to meet our charge

within the amount of time first allocated to us.

Mary Charles Lasater:

The good news for May is that Michael Scott is now an independent NACO

contributor for personal names. That means I have much less NACO review

work. The timing was good since the bad news for the month was the loss of Sue

Richardson's position. It was with a great deal of sadness that she cleaned out her

desk. The Authorities Unit is already missing her and her work contributions.

For the last couple of months I have been trying to identify ways to streamline the

review of the unauthorized headings lists, since Sue spent a lot of her time on this

activity. Unfortunately the timing of my efforts and the Serial Solutions record

loads overlapped and I had to run and rerun the unauthorized headings lists. The

end product still had many titles that were not current cataloging to check and

correct. While it is always good to clean up the catalog, our priority is to keep up

with the new cataloging and our tools from Sirsi are limited. With less staff and

more to do, this was a frustrating experience.

I spent some time Testing the new Acorn software. I quickly identified major

problems which limited my ability to test the software any further. I attended a

meeting of the Acorn Virtual Catalog Task Force to explain a problem with the

settings they chose for hyperlinks. I was pleased that they agreed to send the

change to conference name hyperlinks that the CAAG Formats Task Force had

made back through ISAG for reinstatement.

The two education theses projects slowed with the arrival of a new batch of theses

for Jeff to process and with Chris Benda's vacation. As I worked with the

backlogged special collections copies of biomedical theses this month, I identified

more challenges and possible changes for dealing with these new theses.

I made some progress clearing out the titles waiting for cataloging in my area (new

theses in my subject areas need the space). I manually corrected 936 bibliographic

records. As usual there is a real burst of activity from the various ALA

committees prior to the annual meeting and these have taken some of my time.

Michael Scott:

The flow of books slowed considerably this month, and so it was pretty mellow

and quiet. I also took a long vacation to Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, which

provided a much-needed break after the stress of the school semester. I

completed my NACO record review with Mary Charles, and Don is now

reviewing just a portion of my work.

Jeff Taylor:

Received and processed a large batch of new VU theses. Did more than usual

amount of copy-cataloging, and continued with invd processing and RIP books.

Continued with old Peabody & old VU thesis project. Worked on a couple of

error reports. Met with merit awards committee.

Pete Wilson:

I continued to chair the Cataloging Workflows Task Force. In addition to various

other concerns, I spent a lot of my task force time in drawing up a survey on

cataloging workflows to be emailed to cataloging heads at several other libraries.

We hope that some of them will answer this and we can thus get a little

perspective on aspects of our own organization and procedures. I also continued

to serve on ISAG and its Acorn and Virtual Catalog Task Force. The AVCTF

spent much of its time working on implementation questions regarding the new

Sirsi Webcat software. I made some preparations to go to Rare Book School at

the University of Virginia at the end of July. I did a somewhat unusual amount of

work on electronic resources this month, including finishing my portion of the e-

resources clean-up project, and a less unusual but quite large amount of work for

Special Collections. Otherwise my work was fairly routine.

Jean Wright:

I have just completed conversion of an analyzed State Department series with 105

numbers. This was a refresher in "bound with" and series within another series, or,

actually several other series.

ORDER SERVICES:

Typical for this time of year, OS has been very busy overall. May 20th was the last day for bibliographers to submit routine requests to be ordered in this fiscal year, so we enjoyed visits from several bibliographers delivering their last minute requests. OS staff are now busy adding records, creating orders, and carefully monitoring funds. Our goal is to have all orders created and encumbered by June 20th so that libraries may see where their funds stand in case any last minute adjustments are needed. Many funds are already fully encumbered.

Received and processed:

Serials and periodicals: 3818

Firm Orders: 1371

Approvals: 1047

Added to Acorn:

SSO's: 190

Gifts: 87

New orders placed: 2954

Titles speed cataloged in OS: 1057

The Harrassowitz renewal invoice has (finally) been "paid" in Acorn - now all prepaid invoices have been reconciled against the University's accounts.

Other highlights:

OS team members attended the Mulberry demonstrations. Monica, Mary Ellen, and Roberta met with John Laraway from Blackwells.

We also participated in a conference call with Lisa Mason Witteman (Sirsi) to discuss the Acquisitions beta testing. Rita and Monica conspired to obtain a copy of "Chancellors, commodores, and coeds: a history of Vanderbilt University / by Bill Carey." As a result of their hard work, we were able to obtain Vanderbilt's copy of this quite literally "hot off the

press", even before they were shipped out to bookstores.

PRESERVATION:

The merry month of May is a misnomer. It should be the manic month

of May. Our team statistics show our busy season is upon us. And,

there is more yet to come during the summer months.

PERSONNEL: We had a few extra days of help in early May from our senior before she graduated. At the end of the month Zora's son, Gavin, joined the working masses by assisting in Marking. We don't know what he tells his mom about his exciting job of stamping books, attaching date due slips, and inserting security strips, but we are grateful for his assistance. Unfortunately, Daphne is now on summer leave until September. The team already misses its usual summer support hours.

BINDING: Fairly large shipments went to the bindery in May. The team processed 859 monographs, 923 periodicals, 41 serials, and 99 rebind monographs. There is still a substantial backlog of items awaiting rebarcoding prior to binding processing even though Machelle rebarcoded 335 volumes over the course of the month.

As a result of binding, the team updated 582 Acorn holdings records.

Machelle sorted 1086 new Central paperback books and selected 355 (33%) for immediate binding.

MARKING: The team labeled 4,560 regular items, 165 RUSH items, 166 unbound serials, and 47 microfilm reels. Materials did slow down briefly earlier in the month, but the flow has picked up again. The team is currently (as of June 4) labeling items which arrived May 30, which means we are back within our one week labeling turnaround goal. Even if it is temporary, it feels good.

REPAIR: Charlotte and Daphne repaired 161 volumes with 424 treatments. The large discrepancy between number of volumes treated and the number of treatments is because of the way we had to account for all the work done on the Biderman Poster Collection. Most of the month focused on routine spine repairs for Central, but items for Divinity, Peabody, Management, Science, and Spec. Coll. were also treated.

Lab staff were pleased to order and receive a large supply of bookcloth. Some new colors and bookcloth types expand our repair options.

OTHER: Sue attended the OCLC Digital and Preservation Resources participants meeting in Dublin, Ohio on May 6-7.

Peabody Library gave a lovely party as a thank you to the PUP team. Each of the group (Kathy Smith, Stacy Owens, Charlotte and Sue) who worked on the project received a cute l'il stuffed puppy as reminder of all the fun we had.

Sue met with Norman Nash and Dewey James to follow up on improving book transport around the library system, especially in inclement weather. As a result of the discussion, Sue updated a previous How-to Pack/Ship Books document.

For the new and improved version, see:

http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/rs/techserv/Preservation/Public

/packingbox.html

Norman also requested Sue to gather specific data about items damaged during internal library transport. Dewey noted that the messengers have improved a cover for use on the large canvas hampers in the rainy season.

Sue continued work on the TS portion of the library's new emergency response plan.