Resource Services
Monthly Highlights

October 2000

Four social events during October livened up the normal routine--the Library Service Awards, the University Staff Awards program, Marice Wolfe's retirement reception, and the Joint Halloween/Community Giving Campaign Celebration. The Cataloging/Authorities Team is now the two- year champion in the Halloween Bash Best Group Costume category, for its entry, Cataloging the Universe. In addition, Ann Barnette won for best costume as the Asteroid Belt, and Jeff Taylor for most out of character, as a Black Hole.

Honorees at the Service Awards included:
5 years: Susan Banks, Keith Curd, Anne Laws, Charlotte Lew, Suellen Stringer-Hye, Paul Van Cotthem
10 years: Judy Carter, Machelle Keen.
20 years: Linda Davis, Mary Charles Lasater, Jo Nell Owens
25 years: Mary Ellen Wilson
A highlight of the ceremony was a Lifetime Achievement Award, given to our own Jean Wright.

Congratulations to all of our award recipients, and a very special
congratulations and our appreciation to Jean!

Order Services welcomed back Paul Van Cotthem and Mary Ellen Wilson, who are both back in the pink. Anne Laws returned from maternity leave.

Yan Xia Zhong was selected for Order Services’ LA III Verifier position. By the end of the month, OS was approved to fill the new vacancy in Serials Receiving.

A new student assistant, Marla Jasko, began work in the Annex on
October 3rd. Preservation hired a student, Rael Ellis, to assist with
book repair work.

TRAINING, DEVELOPMENT AND SERVICE

Suellen Stringer-Hye worked on the coordination of the Library's contribution to the Community Giving Campaign.

Machelle Keen and Joe Collins participated in the TLA-sponsored
workshop at the Brentwood Public Library on October 27th.

Yuh Fen Benda, Zora Breeding, Sue Davis, and Ann Ercelawn attended a Dreamweaver 3 class.

Several staff members attended a training session conducted by Flo Wilson on the use of Corporate Time software.

Many Tech Services staff attended a presentation by Marshall Breeding on the library’s web resource database.

DIVISION-WIDE ACTIVITIES

We have received confirmation that the PromptCat profiles are set up for the UK approval books. We expect to begin receiving these files within the next couple of weeks. Becky Atack continues to train Charlotte Lew in preparation for evaluating the Prompcat records for these books.

It was discovered this month that the recent change in how records are sent to Marcive contained an error and some records were not being sent for authorities processing. The problem has now been corrected, but the expected benefit to local authorities work has not yet been fully realized.

Order Services’ backlog of Collection Manager books was mostly cleared, and Yuh-Fen Benda continued to help process them. We expect that she should be finished early in November.

Flo Wilson reported on the Cost Study to the ARL Committee on Statistics and Measurement as a model for possible adoption/endorsement by ARL. A proposal for support will be developed for the spring 2001 ARL meeting.

A project proposal was prepared for eliminating the Book Fund Accounting System. Roberta Winjum will lead the project; participants will include Mary Ellen Wilson, Pat Johnson, Dale Poulter, Bill Hook, Julia Strickland, Bill Walker. Participation will also be solicited from the Provost's Office, Internal Audit, Management Information Systems, and Accounting.

LIBRARY TECHNOLOGY

Over 200 problems were resolved in October. See the Problem Tracking System report generator for more detail:
http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/libtech/pts-report.html

Some of the projects underway include:

Managed Acorn service interruption and related repairs.
Developed recommendations to further enhance Acorn system reliability and availabilty.
Began redesign and update of LTT web pages.
Began work with Yvonne Boyer on web project to display items from Baudelaire and Sigaux Collections.
Work on automating EBSCO invoices.
Began beta-test of Unicorn 2000.
Implemented changes to Walker/OGSM EZProxy configuration.
Implemented changes to ASERL test site.
Created new locations and circ maps.
Replaced 3 Public Workstations in Music Library, 2 staff workstation.
Configured and deployed 2 ultra-lite notebook computers and 3 laptops.
Installed public workstation for use with color laser printer and network print queues in Walker Management Library.
Updated index image and cloned 11 Walker Library public workstations.
Configured and delivered notebook for use at Science and Engineering Library classroom.
Began project to document server and networking components for current Heard Library technology environment.
Cloned 9 workstations for deployment as Divinity Public workstations.
Updated policy descriptions, completed adding User Profile descriptions to Acorn.
Installed 4 new cdrom-based database products.
Upgraded 22 existing cdrom-based products.
Worked to develop weekly downloads of SilverLinker and PsycINFO.
Communicated with SIRSI concerning the "current location" issue.

For additional detail see: http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/libtech/reports/2000Oct-MR.html

CATALOGING AND AUTHORITIES

The backlog of new material with good copy is currently at about 4-5 weeks, but as Yuh-Fen's time is freed-up from the Collection Manager books, we are hopeful to get that back down to our goal of a 2 week turnaround.

Oct. cataloging/authorities efforts:
Maps: Don Jones and Jeff Taylor
Curriculum Lab materials: Susan Bell; also compiling documentation
Education CD-ROMs and DVD treatment: Zora Breeding, working with Stacy Owens
E-journals in the MCB Emerald Library: Ann Ercelawn and Jeff Taylor
Special Collections serials: Pete Wilson
Helguera gift collection: Rich Murray predicts should be finished by the end of December, putting us almost two months ahead of schedule.
Pinyin conversion project/impact on authorities: Mary Charles Lasater (She is finding challenges in the way our authorities indexing is interpreting headings)

ORDER SERVICES

The team is beginning to recover from several medical absences.

Monica is training Dan Riggs and Yan-Xia Zhong in order verification. They began their training by working mainly on Collection Manager orders, and have recently begun to work on more routine, traditional orders. Ibtisam Latif has been working on processing approvals and, along with Dan, has been receiving books sent against Collection Manager orders (since these require slightly different processing at the receipt end from routine orders, as well.)

Serial receiving has seen a surge in periodicals and unbound serials. The oldest periodicals are currently four days old. The oldest unbound serials are one week old.

A note about Rand materials - we have recently been asked to modify the processing of Rand materials so that all rather than just selected issues, will be analyzed. Since we will no longer have to hold these materials pending the decision of which to analyze, we expect that they can be processed more quickly.

Vendor visits:
Blackwell (John Laraway)
YBP (Ann-Marie Breaux and Michael T. Zoeoli)
Michael will be taking over for Ann-Marie, who will be working
more closely with system vendors.

PRESERVATION

Sue and Karen Pillow helped Bob Howard pack the first shipment of
books for the SOLINET microfilming project.

Statistics for Binding Sent:
350 new monographs
527 periodicals (an increase came from Science)
82 serials

Records Updated: 583

Book Repair:
146 volumes were treated with 227 treatments during the month. In addition to spine repairs, the unit also focused on Special Collections and Divinity enclosure projects.

Marking:
4039 regular items
190 RUSH
241 unbound serials
178 microfiche envelopes stamped

ANNEX

The Kadar Holocaust Collection (exhibit A - which consists of 7 crates) was shipped to the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Central Florida, in Maitland.

Law faculty increased their storage space at the Annex.

Circulation: 787 items
This included materials owned by Central, Divinity, Education,
Government Information, Law, Management, Music, Science, Special Collections, and University Archives.

Patron Web requests: 228*
* A record number of Web requests were received!

ILL photocopies: 453 pages for 38 people
Unfilled requests **: 20 from Vanderbilt users. 39 from Inter-Library
loan users **requests that we could not send because of a poor
citation, item not held in the Annex, or fragile condition.

We contact patrons directly whose citations can’t be filled 'as written'. This month, there were 20 such requests we could not fill. Usually it is because the Annex does not own the requested item. For Web requests that are indeed sent to campus, we forward an email to our Circulation liaisons. Thus, they will know who to expect; and when the books are being sent.

Transfers: 173 linear feet of materials were transferred from the Central, Law, Management, Music, and Science Libraries. New PColls and VColls arrived from Special Collections. One patron needed a book that was in transit --between the campus and the Annex, but the book was found easily. A project of transferring selected Education Youth volumes to the Central Annex was initiated October 12th. Mary Beth Blalock, Dale Manning, David Carpenter, LeeAnn Lannon, Clint Grantham, and Linda Davis worked on various aspects of this transfer.

61 volumes were sent from RS Inventory to Cataloging.

RS Maintenance:
2784 Acorn records edited
175 withdrawals
2 reinstatements
175 intra-library transfers
2 titles reconned
2 titles recataloged

Visitors:
61 scholars, tenants, and visitors from:
Alabama and New York
and Vanderbilt representatives from:
Arts and Sciences
Blair School of Music
Music Library
Office of Student Accounts
Office of the University Librarian
Owen Management faculty
Resource Services
Science and Engineering faculty
our favorite retired Science Librarian
Special Collections
Theatre Department

Building & Equipment:
3 site visits by Central Business Group, 2 of which were for
emergency repairs to our electronic shelving
1 repair to newest air-conditioner/heat pump by Work
Management Dept.
Flood in 1st floor equipment room, repaired/cleaned up by
plumbers, a/c service reps, and Housekeeping staff
1 visit by roof repair persons planning to patch 27 leaks