All members present.
The upgrade is scheduled for this weekend. Testing has been going on in various groups and quarters. Zora compiled and disseminated the CAAG notes on what changes to expect with the upgrade. These are also available on the CAAG web page at http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/caag/ . The group found these to be very helpful. Roberta and Mary Ellen mentioned that there are new Fund Wizards that will replace working with funds through commands. Staff in Order Services are prepared for this change.
A question was raised about who is responsible for the upgrade training. The Library Advisory Groups and Workgroups have traditionally taken on this responsibility, even though their charges may not specify that providing documentation and training are specific responsibilities. Because CAAG was specifically mentioned, Zora commented that CAAG has always assumed this responsibility, stated or not. There was discussion about the perception that the various groups often duplicated their efforts since there was no real coordination. The role of coordinating testing efforts that Anne Laws played was very helpful. The group suggested that LITS’ role should be made clearer. After discussion the group agreed that testing had to be widely dispersed and could not be done centrally for the diverse groups. It is the role of each member of a library work group and members of RSIG to ensure that their staff will be able to perform all needed tasks. This can only be accomplished by testing the functions as they are used within a group. It would help, though, if there were some centralized resource that could be accessed to find the information that others had already documented.
Suggestion: a central group should act as a clearinghouse for information relating to future upgrades. A web page where each Advisory and Work group, or individual charged with testing some aspect, could post their findings and documentation. There were two suggestions for who might be able to act as this clearinghouse: LITS or the Training Coordinators group seemed to be the logical choices.
When the current binding procedure was implemented, it was agreed that the procedure should be reviewed in about 6 months to see how it is working. Sue reported that her staff met last week to discuss how things were going and to make suggestions for possible solutions to problems. The Binding/Marking staff feel that there are several problems with the existing procedure. The extensive need for rebarcoding of the materials has been taking up an enormous amount of time. Also, the staff had the perception that they were handling the same materials repeatedly within a very short turn-around. There was also a sense that more materials were going through the custom binding route instead of the cheaper standard routes. Because of all of these factors, the actual costs of the current binding policy may actually be much higher than the budget line suggests. Although Sue had no way to measure whether these perceptions were accurate, the team felt strongly that the procedure needed modification. Several solutions were proposed by the team:
Monday was the last day for submitting orders. As usual, a huge bulk of orders arrived in OS on Tuesday. Most staff are working on processing orders. This has been true for at least the last 3 weeks and will remain true until July 1. Most of the work in OS is being diverted to ordering. Although staff are also concentrating on keeping the Blackwell approvals current, very little work is being directed toward processing other approvals or gifts. Zora mentioned the large numbers of records being loaded into Acorn daily, which is three or more times the normal rate. Mary Ellen said that this was due mainly to ordering activities. The materials being ordered are beginning to arrive in the Baker mailroom and are already piling up. We may need to discuss ways to divert more staff to processing these materials at the next RSIG meeting. Mary Ellen feels confident that the orders will be able to be processed by the July 1 deadline. Because financial information no longer has to be re-keyed into BFAS, the team has gained a couple of days in which they can continue to create orders in Acorn.
Dennis Clark and Peg have reported that materials are not being sent according to the summer procedures. Dennis reports that he has received some books at Music. Peg reports that the Annex is receiving materials that are not addressed to ANNEX MU and that materials are arriving in envelopes and half-empty boxes or even in tubs. Members were asked to remind staff of the summer procedures:
Flourish outsourcing project: The materials that will be outsourced have been sent to Music for inventorying. Denise Chavez, with input from Mary Charles and Jeff Taylor, created spreadsheets that Music staff can fill in to create an inventory. Music staff have already completed inventorying the CDs. Materials should be ready for shipment by the end of the month.
Although RSIG had recommended that the corrected bibliographic records not be processed, after further consultation Roberta reports that the decision was made in Administration to go ahead and process the corrected records and incur the additional Marcive charge. The bibliographic records were missing vital information, including added authors, subject headings and series. Because the natural inclination for cataloging and authorities staff would be to add the missing information when it was identified, the costs of this work would soon add up to the cost of re-processing the corrected bibs. The existing NetLibrary records will be deleted from Acorn (the original load, not the more recent additional load). Then the new corrected records will be sent to Marcive, edited by Nancy and reloaded into Acorn.
Robert reported on the following known upcoming events and absences:
Info Alliance meeting on Wed. May 30th. Roberta and Sue will be attending.
TennShare workshop held here on June 8th. Roberta is hosting and Zora will be one of the presenters.
LMC retreat on June 12th. Roberta and Peg are attending.
ALA Annual Conference on June14-19. Roberta, Sue, Susan, Peg and Zora are attending.
Roberta asked for summer vacation plans as members make them.
Zora reported that Norma will start her regular summer absence June 1. The regular summer routing of her materials will go into effect at that time. She will send out a reminder. Yuh-Fen, Jeff and Ann B. have been working on analyzing the Publications of the Scottish Historical Society. They report that the last three boxes (of 14 vols/box) have been sent from the Annex and they should finish the project very soon. Peg interjected that Professor Todd has already made requests for some of the analyzed volumes.
Nancy has been working on the NetLibrary records (loading the latest updates and preparing for re-processing the original load), retrieving MeSH authority records which Annette is now loading into Acorn, and the CAAG request to take Reserve records out of the Browse index. She also gave a brief summary of the Adutext problem that LITS had been trying to resolve this week. The problem had to do with space allocation in the system which Dale is working with Sirsi to rectify.
Mary Ellen refers everyone to the end of year activities mentioned above. This has occupied her team fully.
Peg reported that the Sigaux duplicate project is almost finished. They have already filled 30 shelves with the true duplicates. They have also identified several items that were different editions or pieces of booksets and serials. Peg also reported that they have had a budget change in personnel: Leonor will transfer from the Maintenance to the Annex budget as of June 1. This change will not have any ramifications for workflow issues. Annex has hired another student Kevin Zeman. Eugene Berger is a returning student worker.
Susan reported that the Cox Curriculum Lab grant is now spent out.
Sue reported that her team is experiencing backlogs everywhere. Having this much of a backlog is a new experience for them and is causing some stress. However, she has hired several students for the summer. Flo lent Sue a student hired for imputing cost study information. Her term with Binding/Marking just finished. Sue hired Lesley Grantham for part-time summer work. Lesley will start next Tuesday. She has also hired Anna Searfoss-Kammerer for the summer. Anna will be able to devote some time to helping with wrap-up of the holdings cleanup project that she originally worked on two years ago. Sue has also hired the student Yong Chen to work in book repair part time.
Roberta reported that MIS will be throwing a party to celebrate the completion of the BFAS project -- which will be held at Baker and organized by Pat Johnson.