RSIG meeting minutes, 9/19/2001

All present.

Announcements from Roberta:

• Sue has been made an official member of CAG.
• Roberta will be the LMC liaison to CAAG.
• The Technical Services wide meeting/social event is being planned. Roberta will send an announcement to TS once plans are finalized. The room for the meeting is scheduled for Sept. 25, but RSIG is of the opinion that perhaps it should be postponed because of the recent disaster. A Hawaiian theme is planned.
• A Telecommuting Task Force has been set up by Flo to look at the possibilities and options of working from home. The members are: Roberta (chair), Jody Combs, Chris Waldrop, Mary Charles Lasater and Lisa Shipman. They have not yet met.
• Inventory project update. Rich has been on vacation, at which time he was also seriously ill. He was delayed returning to work and is still recovering. Due to this, his report has been postponed for another week. It is likely that a task force may be formed to study the proposal.
• Roberta gave the group a brief update on the most recent LMC report. Some of the meeting had to deal with the other announcements above. An additional item had to do with Library printing and photocopying (a task force has been formed to study the matter).

Agenda topics:

More NetLibrary records. There has been some interest in the public domain titles available through Netlibrary for which there are no corresponding Acorn records. The Library is looking into the possibility of purchasing records for these. CAT will be given an opportunity to review a sample file to determine the type of cataloging available. There will be about 3000 additional records for these materials.

During the discussion of the above topic, Zora asked about whether records added to the system without a 951 tag were counted in the monthly statistics. Nancy said that they were NOT. The system used the 951 tag in compiling statistics. This raised the question of whether this needed to be studied further. We have not added this tag to the NetLibrary records. We have not planned to add it for the Music materials that have been outsourced. Do we need to reconsider adding this tag to some or all records brought in via batch mode? Only records for physical items (outsourced materials, microfilm/fiche, etc.) and not for electronic access? What does this imply for ARL statistics? Roberta will consult with Flo on this topic.

Leisure book processing. Roberta and Sue have been working with Ingram to outsource the physical processing of the Leisure Reading books. Ingram will now attach the mylar-coated dust jacket to the book, add the barcode just so, strip and place the Leisure Reading sticker on the spine. This brought up discussion on the routing that these books will need to take. They no longer need to be processed by the Preservation team. Can these books be delivered directly to Central Circulation? The problem this presents is that the books are charged for tracking. Is there a need to discharge by VU-Process before they go to Central? We did not know. If Central can discharge, the books may be sent directly to them. If not, a new procedure will need to be worked out. [The next day, Sue experimented with Janet and found that Central Circ. could indeed discharge material with VU-PROCESS charges on it. Roberta later took a newly arrived and pre-processed Leisure Reading book through the cataloging process and then to Circ. Janet was pleased with the process/result. Recommendations to follow]

Copy numbers on replacements. Some patrons have been confused by the copy numbers in the item record when the first copy of a book is withdrawn and shadowed and the remaining copy is numbered something other than 1. Libraries have asked that we change the copy numbers when we withdraw an item. Zora will send a netfix request to find out if the display of the copy information can be suppressed in the OPAC. This information is really not useful and since it is confusing the patron, the best thing would be to keep it from showing. If this is possible, RSIG will make a proposal to ISAG.

TS Workflow Task Force meeting. The first meeting of the Technical Services Workflow Task Force (Roberta, Sue, Mary Ellen, Zora) was held last week. The group basically discussed the charge of the group. Roberta handed out a written document which spells out the charge.

Security stripping periodicals. Sue has suggested that Heckman add the security strips as they bind our periodicals. The cost of this would be an additional 20 cents per volume (14 cents for the actual strip and 6 cents labor), or an additional $540 per year. The savings in staff time would be about 38 hours per year. She and Roberta took the matter to Flo, who thought that the 20 cents per volume needed to be a separate line on the binding invoice. Sue thinks that this would mean extra staff time to process each invoice. Roberta took the proposal to LMC. LMC postponed any decision on the matter until the next meeting. Roberta has prepared a written justification for LMC to view before the next meeting.

Pseudo patron charges. The Preservation Team had a brainstorming meeting to discuss how to simplify their internal tracking process because they have been overwhelmed with the number of materials coming through. The charge to Binding was identified as redundant with the Commercial Bindery charge, so it will be eliminated. This change should increase efficiency and free up staff time for processing additional material. The commercial bindery charge will remain in place.

Announcements from RSIG members:

Peg announced that the Chinese dynasty materials (unprocessed in crates at the Annex for many years) have been offered to the University of Florida at Gainesville. Zora and Yuh-Fen had visited the Annex in April to assess the nature of these gift materials. The library already owns a set of this same content (different format and orthography, though) which is cataloged and in the Central stacks. Based on this information, Coll. Development decided to offer the materials to another library. The U. of Fla. was willing to pay for shipping.

Peg also announced that the Annex is waiting for the imminent arrival of the Sigaux materials which are being sent from the Baudelaire Center. Only Buadelaire materials will remain in the Baudelaire Center. The Music materials that were being stored at the Annex during construction have begun to be shipped back to Music. Annex staff is also still dealing with the Astronomy materials and Education withdrawals.

Sue reported that she and other Binding/Marking staff had attended a very productive meeting at Music. Music is interested in utilizing more mainstream RS processes.

Sue also said that she has been selected to serve on the search committee for a Special Collections archivist.

Mary Ellen said that many of our international vendors have been sending very warm condolences and messages after the disaster.

Zora mentioned that Norma has returned from her summer away. She also reported that Larry had recently told her that at the last Information Alliance meeting (May 30), representatives from the three institutions’ government documents departments had agreed to divide up the cataloging of old collections. VU volunteered to catalog the pre-1976 State Department materials. Larry wanted a representative from Technical Services to attend the Sept. 27 meeting of Info Alliance to report on our progress. Zora is planning to have a meeting with Jean and others in TS to discuss the matter asap.

The next meeting will be Oct. 17 in the Goldberg room.

Minutes submitted by Zora Breeding