Technical Services Monthly Report

May 2004

DIVISION-WIDE ACTIVITIES:

The Binding and Marking Task Force (Michael Scott, chair, Linda Davis, Machelle Keen, Karen Pillow and Debbie Williams) held several meetings and is coming up with some innovative suggestions for increasing efficiency. The BMTF has also been charged with implementing LINCPlus, binding software developed by S-F Systems and marketed via SIRSI, recently approved for purchase. If LINCPlus lives up to its potential, binding processing will be considerably streamlined.

TechForce reviewed the procedures prepared by the Rush Task Force (Mary Ellen Wilson, chair, Susan Bell, Sheranda Lee and formerly Rita Breen). These will be forwarded to Technical Services in June for review, followed by dissemination to CAG and LMC, and implementation.

Zora Breeding, Mary Ellen Wilson, and Roberta Winjum continued their involvement with the Information Management strategic planning group. Ann Ercelawn continued to meet with the Services to Faculty strategic planning group. Sue Davis met with the Organization strategic planning group, and Chris Waldrop with the Services to Undergraduates group.

PERSONNEL ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS:

Mary Charles Lasater attended a subject cataloging “Train the trainer” session at the Library of Congress on May 5. Upon her return, she generously offered to practice the course by teaching willing teammates. Most of the team and Eileen Crawford attended 4 sessions of Basic Subject Cataloging, which we found very useful.

Pete Wilson attended meetings of the search committee for the Government Information position.

Ann Ercelawn attended meetings of the SFX Implementation group.

Ann Ercelawn, Mary Ellen Wilson, and Roberta Winjum assisted with Senior Class Day activities.

Don Jones attended the Mid-Term Report and Breakfast for the 2004 Faculty Staff Campaign.

Debbie Williams continued to help Preservation to process binding/marking materials as she could find time. Linda Davis is helping them with updating Acorn holding records as needed. Thank you, Debbie and Linda, for all your help.

CATALOGING AND AUTHORITIES:

The flow of new material was steady and manageable this month. Yuh-Fen Benda was away for most of the month and so we were glad not to be overwhelmed. Work continued on several projects: Don Jones and Jeff Taylor continued to work on the Wachs collection, with only a slight pause while a visiting professor was here to look at the collection. We have cataloged 402 titles to date (up by 55 titles from last month). Susan Bell did not work on the TN textbooks much this month due to the renovation going on at Education and the fact that Suzanne Bell has been busy with other duties at OS. Instead, Susan managed to clear off numerous shelves of her material that has been backing up in the workroom, giving Yuh-Fen quite a shock upon her return from Taiwan. Jeff began working on a project to add URL links to Acorn records for AIP conference proceeding volumes. Zora Breeding and Becky Atack devoted many days to the large batch of Russian DVDs (30+) that arrived Rush late in the month. Ann Ercelawn put our new CONSER status to good use, authenticating 12 records for SpringerLink titles. Don cataloged some maps of Davidson County "election districts" for Government Documents.

At the Sirsi Superconference last month, several reports developed at Brigham Young were shared and LITS was able to implement some here at home. Mary Charles Lasater was thus able to run reports of duplicate name and series authority records. The duplicate series report will allow us to clean up our database prior to sending our series records to Marcive in preparation for having them supply matching series authority records. Ann Ercelawn, Pete Wilson, Ann Barnette, Bryan Kurowski and Becky Atack worked on deleting the duplicates. Denise Chavez and Mary Charles worked on deleting duplicate name authority records. Denise deleted 819 duplicate name authority records and Mary Charles deleted over 700.

Changing responsibilities: At the end of the month, Yuh-Fen Benda took over from Becky Atack the handling of the books returned from Marking which do not produce a label.

Statistics:

1432 new titles cataloged, 231 of which were original contributions or national level enhancements to the OCLC database and 765 were modified locally.

187 titles recataloged

60 titles reconned

363 titles and an additional 618 item records withdrawn

Copy Cataloging:

Since the green "Start here" flag sits near materials received on 4/22 we are WELL within our goal processing materials within one month's time; actually less than that. A special thank you for Bryan Kurowski, and all the others who helped out while Yuh-Fen Benda was absent.

ORDER SERVICES:

OS continues to work on placing orders prior to the end of the fiscal year. Verifiers are working closely with their respective bibliographers - maintaining a small balance in each fund (generally about $500) until the last week or so of June. As the month draws to a close, verifiers will work to be sure the balance of the funds is encumbered. Verifiers have been able to keep up with the orders, and they are being placed within just a few days of their receipt in OS (aside from the few they might be holding as a cushion, as mentioned above). The last day for regular orders was May 28, though some "special" orders continue to trickle into OS.

Receiving in all areas (serials, periodicals, firm orders, approvals) is also current, as are invoices. We have recently received refunds from both Swets and Harrassowitz against overpayments made on the Elsevier titles. We hope to have them posted against Acorn funds next week. Linda Hand has begun assisting in order placement in a major way, as she has completed the Procurement Card training, and is placing a number of orders online. Suzanne Bell and Sherry Huffer are also assisting in the placement of orders, and others on the team have also taken on additional tasks as we draw close to the end of the year.

Mary Ellen Wilson, Sharon Weiner, and Lee Ann Lannom met with John Laraway from Blackwells, to review Peabody's approval profile. We are currently working with both YBP and Blackwells to transfer Peabody's approval profile to Blackwells. This change will take place at the end of the fiscal year.

Statistics:

2622 new orders placed this month

96 new gifts added

1026 titles speed cataloged

PRESERVATION:

Various members of the team continue to deal with persistent customer service and product problems at Heckman. A meeting with Heckman representatives is scheduled for June 10. Because of the chronic problems, the team and Roberta Winjum are investigating other bindery options. On May 26 members of the team met with representatives from ICI Mid-Atlantic Bindery. In mid-June we will test an entire shipment of items to Mid-Atlantic. Machelle Keen is coordinating the details of the test. Of course, we're hoping for a significant improvement in quality. For more information about Mid-Atlantic and ICI, go to http://www.icibinding.com.

Sue Davis met with Anne Martin to discuss beta testing Unicorn 2004's new spine labeling features. The new approach appears to have some promise, but it's too early to tell very much.

Sue consulted with Peabody Library about some new display cases being constructed for the Roller Collection. They will be built into the walls of the newly renovated (and very attractive) lower level. She also joined Special Collections in a meeting with a new vendor, Belfor, who can respond to building or collection disasters, large and small. The immediate need is serious mold cleanup on some valuable scrapbooks.

In Charlotte Lew's absence, Sue met with a writer preparing an article for an upcoming issue of the Acorn Chronicle about the Pia Collection. He was pursuing details about the boxes constructed for Pia Collection miniatures.

Binding:

576 monographs

85 rebinds

661 periodicals

186 serials

1,508 volumes total

897 new Central paperbacks sorted and 340 (38%) selected for immediate binding.

80 monographs rebarcoded in preparation for binding

491 Acorn holdings records updated

Marking:

3,567 volumes

209 unbound serials

186 RUSH items

48 reels of microfilm labeled

The marking shelves are quite current with the oldest items being less than a week in the unit.

Repair:

283 volumes were repaired with 370 treatments

Because of two large wrapper orders, the repair numbers for May are quite high even though Charlotte Lew only worked part of the month. In addition to wrapper boxes for Central, Special Collections, and the first 110 volumes of the Wachs Collection, Daphne Walker and Charlotte also completed many spine repairs. Charlotte is expected to return on June 11.