Technical Services Monthly Report

March 2005

DIVISION-WIDE ACTIVITIES:

As a result of a recommendation of the Cataloging Workflows Task Force, the TechForce appointed a Cataloging Documentation and Training Task Force. Don Jones and Becky Atack will co-chair. Other members of the task force are Pete Wilson, Denise Chavez, and Alice Cunningham. Ann Barnette will help with the documentation and other work, but will not be an official task force member.

Along with other cataloging staff from the libraries, most of the CAT team and some OS staff attended the daylong Connexion training on March 29. In preparation, the Connexion client was installed on all remaining team members' computers and in the Electronic Classroom in time for the training. A big thank-you to Chuck Owen for his timely work on getting all of this done! Our Solinet trainer, Max Anderson, did a very good job, despite the instability of the Connexion server on the day of the training. The date we must switch over to this unstable product was to be May 1, but we have just learned that OCLC has postponed the final cutoff date until June 5th due to the problems with the new system.

Zora Breeding and CAAG members have begun making preliminary plans for training catalogers for the new Sirsi Java client. Mary Ellen Wilson gave a brief presentation to OS demonstrating some of the Java client features, such as the new toolbars, helpers, and search windows. Chris Waldrop and Mary Ellen continue to beta test the Acquisitions Module of Sirsi's Java client, and are working with Julie Loder to document findings for the Sirsi forum. Sirsi appears to be very responsive to the suggestions of the beta testers.

Several staff participated in a demo by SIRSI of their plans for an Electronic Resource Management system.

Work continues on the annual performance reviews.

PERSONNEL ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS:

The search committee for the LAIII in CAT, Zora, Susan Bell, Yuh-Fen Benda and Jeff Taylor, offered Regina Berry, currently of Order Services, the position and she accepted. She will make the transfer to Cataloging on April 11. Congratulations, Gina!!

We said a sad goodbye to Trent Hanner, Preservation’s temporary staff member, whose last day was March 4. He has moved on to a "real" librarian job in South Carolina.

Permission was granted to fill the Preservation position again with a new temporary person. That person turned out to be Jing Liu, a former volunteer with the team. We will welcome her back to Preservation on April 6. She will float between the repair and binding/marking areas as the needs fluctuate.

Chris Waldrop, Debbie Williams, JoNell Owens, Mary Ellen Wilson and Roberta Winjum hosted a visit by Ebsco’s Ree Sherer, Tina Foster, and Margaret Willingham. Since the weather was perfect that day, Chris took the visitors on a walking tour of the campus.

Ann Ercelawn taught an Advanced Serials Cataloging workshop at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

Mary Charles Lasater conducted three days of NACO training for the University of Memphis.

Mary Charles Lasater attended the Sirsi Superconference.

Susan Bell and Roberta Winjum attended Peabody's Open House celebrating the renovation of the Peabody Library Curriculum Materials Center and Design Studio and enjoyed author Michael Shoulders's most entertaining presentation.

Don Jones attended the reception in the Baudelaire Center for Dr. Jim Patty, Emeritus Professor of French, to celebrate the publication of his new book.

Various TS staff attended the ACRL live webcast with Clifford Lynch and Michael Keller, the surprise party celebrating Paul Gherman's award, and the farewell reception for Mills Bell.

CATALOGING AND AUTHORITIES:

The flow of new material increased in March. In addition: Jeff Taylor processed a small batch of new Peabody theses and a number of new electronic theses. Ann Barnette completed the subject analysis of the electronic theses. Susan Bell continued her weekly trips to Peabody to work on their TN textbooks and cataloging their Big Books. Jeff and Yuh-Fen Benda worked on the Peabody theses project. Pete Wilson cataloged quite a number of materials from the Annex Inventory and five additional manuscript collection records for Special Collections. Linda Davis rebarcoded 170 preservation boxes containing multi-volume sets from the Morris Wachs Collection for Yvonne Boyer. She also assisted Yvonne in preparing a Pia title for the bindery by arranging the years consecutively, weeding out the duplicate volumes and updating holdings. Jeff reports finishing the final two titles from the rare Wachs collection.

Statistics:

TS totals: 2386 new titles cataloged.

CAT totals: 1406 new titles cataloged, 311 of which were original contributions or national level enhancements to the OCLC database and 880 were modified locally.

We recataloged 136 titles and reconned 3 titles.

Withdrew 437 items and transferred 15.

Marcive delivered 6930 new or modified authority records.

881 name, 144 subject and 231 series headings changed on Acorn bibliographic records (not part of new cataloging activity). 53 authority records deleted.

ORDER SERVICES:

One of the projects that the serial receivers undertook in March was the editing of many Peabody periodical order records to change the funds. With slightly under 1000 records to modify, this project continues.

Statistics:

OS saw a big increase in the number of purchase requests submitted, from 955 in February to nearly double that, 1858, for March; 1718 new orders were placed. The number of firm orders received also showed a corresponding increase.

OS also received 1200 new approvals, added 124 SSO's, 296 gifts, and cataloged 979 titles. Serials receivers processed 3244 serials and periodicals.

Verifiers have seen an increase in the number of Latin American approvals received this month, and have also completed the processing of the Cuban materials from Paula Covington's recent trip.

PRESERVATION:

March processing activities resumed some semblance of normalcy with Machelle Keen's return to work on March 2. While she continues to recover from her back injury, she is restricted in her moving and lifting capabilities. The rest of the team has made workflow adjustments and Dennis Sauls has been helping to unbox binding shipments.

Various Pres team members trained Music staff on assorted binding and labeling procedures after the departure of Rodger Coleman. In the training process some procedures were streamlined and clarified.

Binding:

986 monographs

44 rebinds

690 periodicals

85 serials

1805 volumes total

925 new Central paperbacks sorted and 403 selected for immediate binding (44%).

10 monographs rebarcoded in preparation for binding

433 Acorn holdings records updated as a result of binding.

There are no backlogs in the binding area (outgoing or incoming) save for a few problems. It's a good position to be in since the summer rush will start to impact the workflow in the next few weeks.

Marking:

3946 volumes

262 RUSH items

There were also an additional 185 items not picked up by the automated report.

Ann Mallette has been managing the marking workflow pretty much on her own since Trent Hanner's departure on March 4 and doing a good job of it. As of April 5, she was working on labeling materials that had arrived less than a week prior.

Repair:

301 volumes were repaired with 414 treatments. Most were spine repairs or wrapper boxes.

The last large batch of special Wachs Collection books were placed in boxes, but Yyonne Boyer has brought Charlotte Lew a small remaining group that were recently identified as belonging in the rare/special category. Charlotte reports that the Special Collections oversize book-boxing project is nearing completion.