Technical Services Minutes
March 16, 2000

Present: Theresa Byrd, Carol Holliger, Judy Orahood, Kim Strain, Barbara Wiesner

1.Acquisitions Report: Barbara reported that Gale is still sending double shipments on standing orders (has been happening since Jan 1,2000), YBP’s electronic ordering system still has the glitch regarding price information, and the new accounting system for CRC purchase orders is still not operating smoothly. We are supposed to report to Eileen at the end of the fiscal year about how the new purchase order system is working. Theresa said that we would advise her that the system is not working. Barbara also reported that some departments have still not turned in their book orders. Five departments still have over $1,000 unspent. Once ordering has stopped, she will begin channeling purchases into unspent funds. Her focus right now is on ordering, receiving, and paying bills.

2.Historian shipments: Barbara reported that there has been no change in the delivery pattern. We are still receiving huge loads of Historian books on an infrequent basis. Theresa suggested that we may need to take responsibility for picking up the books on a regular basis. Theresa will talk with Dr. Spall about our calling every three weeks to find out if there is a load for us to pick up.

3.Order Card Survey: Barbara reported on her survey regarding the question of returning order cards to requestors. She received no response from one liaison (three departments). One liaison and four departments wanted to get the cards back. Five liaisons representing 21 departments did not want the cards back. With a majority of liaisons and departments not needing to get cards back, we decided to end our procedure of sending them back. Barbara will send out a message announcing that this decision has been made. No more order cards will be returned to requestors. If a liaison so desires, he or she can make photocopies of order cards prior to turning them in.

4.ALAO Support Staff Conference: The conference will be held on April 13th at OSU Mansfield. Theresa told us that we may attend if we wish to do so.

5.Status Reports:

Judy: Reported that we are behind in book processing due to the large influx of Historian books. For 3 days this week, she and Ellen Conrad worked on cataloging oversize government documents. Mary Prophet came to talk about preservation of these materials. Some of them need to be encapsulated, a procedure which can be done anywhere (does not require machinery). Judy reported that 1400 of the CRC titles are now catalogued on CONSORT (approximately half of the collection).

Kim: Reported that between November 1,1999 and March 16,2000 she has catalogued 2,203 books and 2,029 government documents. Her student Ann has catalogued 404 books. She is aware of the current priority to get book orders on the system, and asked for a time frame and system for assisting Barbara to get this done in a timely manner. After a long discussion, it was decided that Kim will make book ordering her top priority from March 21st through April 14th. She will assist Barbara by doing book orders every morning from 9 to 12 unless not needed. (Barbara said that she will not always have orders ready by 9 AM.). Theresa said that the resulting cataloging backlog would be o.k. It was also decided that Judy will take a brief hiatus from CRC cataloging through April 7th in order to do some of Kim’s cataloging of new books and adding item records for government documents. It was decided that Technical Services will not participate in the April 11th filling of Goody Bags since our priority must be getting book orders on the system.

Carol: Reported that the Five Colleges CD group will be meeting on April 10th to determine JSTOR Library of Record assignments. In preparation for this meeting, she has been working on a spreadsheet of our exact holdings of each JSTOR title, the amount of shelf space taken up by each title, missing issues, etc. The other major project she has been working on is the conversion of our microfilm holdings from print bib records to microfilm bib records. She is halfway done with this project and approximately 70 more transfers must be done.

6.Transitional issues

a)Xudong will start work on March 27th. Theresa will spend a great deal of time with him during the first two weeks.

b)Xudong will join the management team meetings in April.

c)Barbara, Judy, Kim and Carol will each work individually with Xudong in late April to give him an intensive introduction to our areas. This procedure will start with Serials around April 15th or so.

d)Xudong will not be scheduled on the reference desk until Fall semester, allowing for training to occur over the summer months. He will meet with individual Public Services staff over the summer as well.

e)Budgeting will now be a 3 tier process. The line of authority will be: T.S. staff to Xudong to Theresa (final word)

f)Xudong will attend the Five Colleges Documents meeting on March 28th with Judy and Joy.

g)Recentering of Head of T.S. job duties:

1.CD responsibilities will be transferred from Paul to Xudong.

2.Liaison responsibilities will be transferred from Paul and Theresa to Xudong. Xudong will be responsible for Politics & Government, International Studies, and Art starting with Fall semester.

3.Book ordering for the Essay and General Literature Index will be transferred from Carol to Xudong.

4. Responsibility for library’s automation system will transfer from Judy to Xudong.

5.Chairing of CD and TS meetings will transfer from Theresa to Xudong. Theresa will chair the April CD meeting, but thereafter Xudong will chair these meetings.

6.Xudong will attend the Five Colleges Gov Docs & CD meetings, as well as the CONSORT Cataloging and Systems meeting. He will attend OhioLINK meetings as needed.

7.Xudong will be our contact with OCLC,III,and Ohionet.

8.Xudong will be responsible for the following:

a)Historians & Gifts
b)Choice Card distribution
c)Catalog distribution
d)Yankee slip distribution
e)CARS work
f)Tracking Ohionet account
g)Replacements/missing items

A decision regarding the next meeting date was not made.

Minutes submitted by
Carol Holliger