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Administrative
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Technical Services |
Editor's note: Beginning with this month, Sue Davis is the new editor of the Technical Services monthly report. Please send any corrections, suggestions, or comments to her.
TS STATISTICS
CATALOGING
2215 new titles cataloged by TS
1473 new titles cataloged by CAT
295 of which were original contributions or national level enhancements
312 titles recataloged
52 titles reconned
244 items withdrawn
5633 new or modified authority records delivered by Marcive
447 local changes made to names on bib records outside of normal cataloging
397 local changes made to subjects on bib records outside of normal cataloging
139 local changes made to series on bib records outside of normal cataloging
54 authority records deleted
7674 volumes in the TS inventory at the Annex on Oct. 1, 2007
18528 volumes in the TS inventory at its peak in February 1998
ORDER SERVICES
received and processed:
serials/periodicals: 2705
approvals: 752
Added to Acorn:
SSO's: 85
gifts: 256
new orders placed: 1037
titles speed cataloged: 735
PRESERVATION
Binding:
new monographs: 1,375
rebinds: 73
periodicals: 415
serials: 69
volumes total: 1,932
monographs rebarcoded in preparation for binding: 177
Marking:
volumes total: 4,576
RUSH items: 357 (7.8% of total)
Repair:
volumes repaired: 494
total treatments: 743
DIVISION-WIDE ACTIVITIES
Several members of the Cataloging team, Order Services team, and Sue Davis from
the Preservation team began testing the beta version of Symphony, the next version
of Java WorkFlows. The TS testers also attended related webinars.
Technical Services designated Oct. 19 as the second annual Feng Shui Day. Many staff members took advantage of the day to clean out files, especially email backlogs. Roberta provided special feng shui donuts to improve our "qi".
Yuh Fen Benda found out from librarians at UC San Diego about a service UC and other large Asian studies programs are using which is offered by Chinese vendors to have Chinese paperbacks bound in China for $2.50 per title. Yuh-Fen inquired of our vendors and found out that this option was also available to us, despite our relatively small order sizes. She made Mary Beth Blalock aware of this option, who is investigating our own bindery options with Sue Davis.
Susan Bell won a Purity contest this summer with the prize being a freezer full of Purity ice cream. This freezer was installed in October after much anticipation. Ice cream to fill the freezer was delivered three times during October and we hope that everyone has had the opportunity to enjoy some. Thanks, Susan, for brightening up our workplace.
PERSONNEL ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS
At the library's annual staff service award ceremony, Susan Bell (25 yrs.), Don Jones (30 yrs.), Ann Mallette (15 yrs.), and Pete Wilson (20 yrs.) were honored for their years of service. Mary Charles Lasater was one of the recipients of the Innovation and Creativity Award Awards. Congratulations to all.
Monica Sanchez, Chris Waldrop and Mary Ellen Wilson carefully reviewed the applications for the LAIII position, interviewed applicants, and selected Michelle Nielsen Ott as our new verifier/receiver. Michelle previously worked in the Central Library, and will join the OS team in November.
CATALOGING AND AUTHORITIES
Jeff Taylor reports receiving and processing several VU and Peabody print dissertations as well as cataloging audio CDs for the Music Library.
We began receiving Rush material in a fund we had never seen before. Zora Breeding investigated and discovered that Central has set up a new fund for Jewish Studies (4300). The books were in Yiddish and Hebrew, languages we have no expertise in. With help from a Divinity student working late one afternoon, Zora was able struggle through processing a multivolume set in Hebrew. Eileen Crawford has graciously consented to catalog future Jewish Studies material in Hebrew or Yiddish.
Gina Berry continued working on updating holdings with call numbers (a Notis conversion clean up project).
Zora Breeding revised more Russian and German video cataloging to make sure the directors are listed in English.
Linda Davis began a project to edit volume holdings for Management titles sent to the bindery.
Linda Davis continued the project to correct the locations in the holdings records of 52 titles that could not be automatically flipped to the new oversize location.
Jean Wright continued giving help and support to Government Information by barcoding material previously unbarcoded in the stacks, selecting material for weeding and withdrawing unneeded bibliographic records from Acorn.
Mary Charles Lasater reports doing quite a bit of authority review this month. Steven Nordstrom submitted many records. Team members submitted several subject proposals and even a couple of classification proposals. Tennessee NACO funnel members sent corporate bodies to review.
Denise Chavez and other team members continued working on converting film related
headings to genre headings.
At Mary Beth Blalock's request, Zora Breeding agreed to work on Duke University's
e-book project proposal.
E-RESOURCES
Susan Bell received and completed the editing of the metadata of 3 new Capstone Projects submitted to the VU e-Archive.
Zora Breeding worked on getting the update files for EEBO ordered and then the tapeloads requested.
Mary Charles Lasater worked with the load of ENGnetBase records and spent some time correcting errors.
Zora began investigating whether we need to get update records for NewsBank Evans Digital Editions Early American Imprints.
Ann Ercelawn spent quite a bit of time working on SFX related issues. She went over some SFX reports and worked on the Informaworld target. She, Kitty Porter, and Linda Tesar compiled a list of KnowledgeBase problems at Marshall's request. Ann also spent some time showing Chris how to work in the SFX KnowledgeBase.
ORDER SERVICES
Receiving continues to keep pace with the shipments entering the mailroom. Firm ordered materials and Periodicals are being processed within just a few days of their receipt, in all areas, and we're keeping all approval receiving current. There is a small inventory of gift materials waiting to be processed, mainly in Spanish language (in Latin American studies). The receivers are currently increasing the number of gifts processed since firm order receiving has slowed just a bit.
PRESERVATION
BINDING: The team sent 3 shipments to the bindery in October because of the way the biweekly schedule fell on the calendar. The team is pleased to report that bindery quality control problems are back within acceptable limits and that major issues have been resolved.
Note: Plan ahead. There will be only one bindery pickup/delivery in December on Tuesday, Dec. 11.
MARKING: Ann Mallette completed labeling one large set of Chinese materials, and is continuing to work on another large set. The repair lab sent a considerable number of freshly boxed items to the marking shelves as well.
Sue Davis worked with Special Collections, Central, and Management to resolve some outstanding spine labeling problems. Over time some spine label holding codes had been created with too many characters to fit on the labeling tape and needed to be modified.
Note: It is best to limit the number of characters per line to 8. If the code must contain more characters, it can be created with a line break after the comma, which will drop the second half to the next line.
REPAIR: It was Supersize It Month in the repair lab. Not only were the treatment numbers up, but the physical size of several items also was quite large. There were 3 "supersize" projects:
1) 19 large Arts folios received wrapper boxes before their transfer to the
Annex.
2) A single volume, The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, measuring
27.5" x 20" x 3", received the largest wrapper box ever ordered.
This volume is difficult for a single individual to lift, so it took 2 people
to measure for the box and to enclose the item in the box after it arrived.
3) Charlotte Lew rebacked with Japanese tissue paper a fragile and torn foldout
illustration of an ancient Roman theater. The size, approximately 2' x 2.5',
presented a big challenge because working with wet Japanese tissue paper is
like working with a delicate spider web-hard to handle and control. It took
two attempts, but the results brought the illustration back to life and usability.
OTHER: Sue donned a techie trainer hat as she became an early adopter of Outlook on Oct. 16 along with Charlotte and Daphne Walker. The extra couple of weeks lead time allowed her to poke at the software enough to learn the basics. She plans to provide some introductory training to the rest of TSGLB when they migrate in November.
Perhaps the ultimate preservation-related highlight was the Oct. 26 squirrel chase on Level 1 of the GLB. Late lunch diners in the staff lounge all of a sudden noticed a squirrel racing around the room. It then tore out of the room and across the mail room to the Blue Room. We closed the door of the Blue Room and turned out the lights, hoping the poor critter would calm down. Sue called Dewey James and Pest Control for help, who were on the spot quickly. They captured the squirrel in a net as it scampered along the sprinkler pipes overhead. The brave hunters removed the squirrel from the GLB and released it off campus. That disappointed a couple of staff who were contemplating a squirrel-based dinner. But, the bindery shipment was saved.
TS MEETINGS AND PRESENTATIONS
Several TS staff attended both the Donuts and Coffee session
with Paul Gherman. and the listening session sponsored by the Chancellor Search
Advisory Committee.
TechForce completed its meetings with library directors and is synthesizing the results of the discussions.
Zora and Marshall Breeding presented a version of their brown bag on their trip to Asia for Divinity staff.
Roberta Winjum took over as chair of the ERMS Project Team. The Team began documenting questions to ask ERMS vendors to aid in the evaluation and selection process.
Roberta is serving on three search committees currently: Digital Collections Archivist, Central Head of Collections, and E-Resources Librarian (chair).
Roberta and Jody Combs met with the English Dept. faculty on Oct. 17. Roberta demonstrated the VU e-Archive for the group.
Mary Charles Lasater, Zora Breeding and Pete Wilson attended the Metadata Committee meeting where all three were made members of a new subcommittee to deal with Acorn issues.
Molly Dahl attended one meeting of the Web Management Group.
Ann Ercelawn attended meetings of the ERMS group.
Ann Ercelawn attended meetings of the e-resources librarian search committee.
Mary Charles Lasater worked with the search committee for the Central Psychology/Sociology Reference/Bibliographer, which is in the process of checking references.
Ann Ercelawn attended a meeting of the Staff Development Committee.
Ann Ercelawn met with a group working on ARL statistics.
Becky Atack and Sue Davis attended the USAC meeting.
Becky Atack conducted email correspondence for the Hardship Fund committee.
Mary Charles Lasater and Ann Ercelawn attended the Project Management training,
Zora Breeding, Susan Bell and Ann Ercelawn attended the first of the Peabody Director candidate presentations.
Pete Wilson was named chair of a newly formed subcommittee of the Metadata Committee which will deal with issues related to Acorn. Mary Charles Lasater, Zora Breeding and Steven Nordstrom are the other members of the new Acorn Group.
Sue attended an online SOLINET workshop, Introduction to Grants for Preservation, on Oct. 23.
Sue, Mary Ellen, and Roberta attended the monthly Collections Committee meeting.
Sue met with the reconstituted emergency planning committee as well as LDC on the topic of updating the library's disaster response plans.
Sue met with a disaster response vendor, Environcare.
Chris, Monica, and Mary Ellen met with Management Library staff to discuss current Order Services routines and procedures.