Technical Services Monthly Report

Dec. 2006

DIVISION-WIDE ACTIVITIES:

Sorry to say, but overall the transition to the Acorn Workflows Java Client has involved frustration and a sense of loss for some staff, particularly on the CAT Team. According to one of the team members: “December was the cruelest month this year, as we were forced to start working only in Java. It is seriously impeding my ability to catalog effectively and it is causing me assorted physical problems.” And from another: “My main objections to the Java client were: the awkwardness of anything involving call numbers or shelflisting; the midday slowdown of the system; the tininess of some of the windows (such as the one in which authority records are displayed); and the simple overall discomfort of the change. I am not as disgusted, overall, as I feared I might be.” One can only hope that the acceptance of the product and its performance will improve over time.

PERSONNEL ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS:

Don Jones and Zora Breeding concluded their work on two library search committees with the successful hiring of candidates Ramona Romero (Central bibliographer) and Steve Nordstrom (Music cataloger). Many staff attended the Music cataloger and Central bibliographer candidate presentations. Zora gave both Music candidates a tour of the Cataloging work area and the entire team met with the Music cataloger candidates to discuss the extent of their cataloging experience. Don and Zora are now planning how to provide support and some training to Steven when he gets here.

Yuh Fen Benda was invited to attend a lecture given by Professor Rogaski, "The Search for Mount Changbai: Creating Knowledge of a Manchu Homeland in Early Modern China." The lecture gave a greater understanding of the relationship between the books she has asked the library to order and the research she is currently doing.

Alla Foliyev filled the last vacancy on the Preservation Team. She began work on Dec. 11th.

Most staff attended at least one library festivity during the holiday season, including the TS party hosted by the Baker staff. Thanks to Yan-Xia Zhong, JoNell Owens, Alice Cunningham, Laci Hunter and Nancy Boggess-Korekach who all worked together to plan the TS party.

Some attended Divinity’s farewell for Amy Limpitlaw and Scott McDermott.

CATALOGING AND AUTHORITIES:

Mary Charles Lasater and Ann Ercelawn continued work on the Primo project, attending meetings, reviewing record extracts and trying to work out problems.

Mary Charles Lasater, with a little help from Zora Breeding, cataloged the 70+ new titles in the Gale Virtual Reference e-resource.

Jeff Taylor reports a steady stream of new theses which were processed. Ann Barnette kept up with the subject analysis of the theses.

Jeff continued to catalog large numbers of new Music materials.

Ann Ercelawn corresponded with the head of CONSER about error detection needed on subject tagging in order to try to find a national solution to ongoing SFX problems.

Gina Berry found time to work on the project to catalog more of the videotapes with only provisional records that are still in the Media Center.

Jeff Taylor worked on the Peabody project to reclass their videos into LC.

Mary Charles Lasater received and checked lots of cards from Baker for Peabody masters theses.

Statistics:

1547 new titles cataloged by TS

1003 new titles cataloged by CAT

166 of which were original contributions or national level enhancements

173 titles recataloged

2 titles reconned

365 items withdrawn

4653 new or modified authority records delivered by Marcive

390 local changes made to names on bib records outside of normal cataloging

194 local changes made to subjects on bib records outside of normal cataloging

92 local changes made to series on bib records outside of normal cataloging

85 authority records deleted

6181 volumes in the TS inventory at the Annex on Jan. 1, 2007

18528 volumes in the TS inventory at its peak in February 1998

E-RESOURCES

Janice Adlington completed the requested white paper on ERM Systems and distributed it to members of the Strategy & Planning Council for discussion in early January.

ORDER SERVICES:

Statistics:

Received and processed:

Serials/Periodicals: 2390

Approvals: 913

Added to Acorn:

SSO's: 78

Gifts: 46

OS placed 1128 new orders, and Speed Cataloged 550 titles, and received 835 new purchase

requests.

Angel Craddock made a few changes to the Order Services web pages at the request of team

members.

Rush requests for in-process items in Baker were low for the month.

Debbie Williams reports that the receipt of periodicals was especially heavy in Dec. due to end year shipping deadlines.

Yan-Xia Zhong reports that many books in Chinese language are coming in.

Mary Ellen Wilson worked with LITS and OS team members to clean up a few problems discovered after the reindexing.

Mary Ellen also met with the OS members of the Rush rotation to discuss the routing of rush materials. A subsequent meeting with Greg Weldy discussed the possibility of a special afternoon run (as needed) to deliver rush books from Baker to library circulation desks.

PRESERVATION:

Binding:

334 monographs

47 rebinds

157 periodicals

18 serials

556 volumes total

238 Acorn records updated as a result of binding.

There was only one binding shipment during December, so the numbers are about half of the usual count.

Several team members met on Dec. 5 with Holling Smith-Borne and Robert Rich from the Music Library to finalize details about binding/repairing/housing music scores.

We continue to report quality control issues to the Mid Atlantic Bookbindery, but old problems persist while new ones seem to develop with each shipment. We have returned some items to the bindery and fixed others locally. We will continue to monitor and report these concerns to the bindery because we don't want the product quality to decline to the level it was at the end of the Heckman contract. Unfortunately Heckman and ICI are now the same bindery.

In late November Eric Fairfield, VP of The HFGroup (our bindery's parent company), sent us a new bookcloth sample and asked for feedback. The new cloth, which is a combination of cotton/polyester, would replace the older heavy 100% cloth known as buckram. The sample is still available for comment from library staff, but Sue sent in two concerns that arose from the local discussion-- 1) the choice of colors for the new cloth will be about half that of the currently used buckram, and 2) the new cloth seems quite thin for oversized and heavy volumes like art books and scientific journals.

Marking:

2658 volumes

230 RUSH items

The regular labeling turnaround time was about two weeks during December. With Alla now on board, we expect to return to a one-week turnaround soon.

Repair:

225 volumes were repaired with 327 treatments.

The bulk of the work involved spine repairs and wrapper boxes. In addition to repair work, lab staff spent several hours sorting and selecting repair candidates from Central's shelving prep area. The end of each semester brings many checked-out items back to the library and it's become a semi-annual tradition for lab staff. Charlotte Lew reports her special project was to encapsulate WWII posters for the exhibit currently on display in Special Collections.