Minutes of May 9, 2002 meeting

1) Unicorn Updates.

• Chris circulated a list of regularly scheduled Unicorn reports and asked staff to update it with current recipients' email addresses.
• Bob, Tracey, Chris and Judy have been working on system configurations for user "Place Holds." Bob is currently making changes to test Webcat. When ready, Judy will enlist staff to help test and place a variety of sample holds. A new series of reports will be created and tested next. Summer implementation is projected.
• The user database maintenance project is underway and records with expiration dates greater than 12/31/2004 have been updated with a 6/29/02 expiration date. The User Database Maintenance team will begin a duplicate name cleanup project soon.
• The change in how recall fines are assessed was reported to Sirsi. Chris was told that the first $5 recall fine assessed a day late is "how it works now." A local, customized fix will be considered as part of Place Holds implementation.
• U2002 is due for release in the second quarter. Key enhancements include an ILL toolbar, wizards for Requests, an option to enlarge the WorkFlows icons, faster downloading, graduated fines, and a capability for patron photos on library records.
• Chris tested automated "unbarring." The report recommended by the Sirsi consultant looks for an outstanding charge or bill and only sets the status if this condition exists. Since we want the status changed only when there are no charges and bills, the report doesn't meet our needs.
• Dean has proposed a project to clean up old in-library Holds. A report will identify holds placed before 4/17/02 that are not checked out or overdue. Staff will manually expire each hold. Chris will then run a report to change the expired holds to inactive, and then they will be picked up by regular reports and removed. It's anticipated that 1500-1600 old holds will be removed. ASC endorsed the proposal. Thanks to Dean, also for his lists of old available and in-transit holds. We are making progress in removing old holds from the system.

2) Access Services/Systems Calendar.

A revised 2001-2002 and new 2002-2003 Access Services/Systems academic calendar were distributed. Dates for reserve preview lists and the removal of control and brief records are incorporated and based on the reserve expiration dates recommended by NB's Reserve Functional Group. The calendars will be posted to the Staff Resources Web site under Access Services.

3) Ad hoc Committee on Student IDs.

The report of the university's Ad hoc Committee on Student IDs encourages major division and units to undertake a review of forms and practices to identify opportunities to eliminate requests for student identification numbers We will eliminate SSNs from Self Services (view library record, change PIN, renew books), Request This Item and the ILL forms. The change will take place this summer. Users will then logon to Self Services and submit forms with their library barcodes and PINs.

4) Ask a Librarian Access Services Team meeting.

Judy reviewed major recommendations coming out of the access services AAL teams joint meeting: merge the two 6- month teams into one year-round team June 1; continue to answer all access questions during assigned shifts; maintain Sun.-Thurs. half-day shifts; "cc" routine answers (PINS, ILL renewals, notices) to pinreply@www.libraries.rutgers.edu and not ask-liac; update standard answers and make them available on the Web; investigate technical feasibility of online registration and user view of PINs; schedule 1-2 meetings/year.

5) CS-users.

Jeff and Ann S. coordinated a test of CS-LSM and CS-ALEX staff user records in NB with Collection Support staff and TSB staff. The user records are now in production and will be used by access services staff at all NB libraries to charge damaged and other books that are sent to LSM's and Alex's collection support. TS-CAMDN and TS-DANA staff users are in the test system and could be moved to production if there is interest on the part of technical and access services staff at Robeson and Dana.

6) ILL Web Document Delivery

Judy described how ILL articles will be delivered to patrons on the Web using Ariel 3.01 software, scheduled to begin July 1, 2002. The Web Document Delivery Working Group will develop this service for RRS articles next.

7) Announcements, Information Sharing.

• Michele noted that students ask about paying fines and replacement costs with Knight Express cards. Judy will contact Knight Express about acquiring a reader/account for the Libraries.
• Pat Womack is retiring at Dana.
• Jan announced Mediavision, RUTV's cable cast service, is running. Media Center's use is dependent on acquiring cablecast rights for videos. Alexander Library will become a pickup site for videos booked for classroom. The reference librarian position at Music has not been filled after all. The Media Center will not be open evenings at Kilmer this summer.
• Book returns are pouring in at Douglass. Mary reported that staff working on recon met a May target date to complete work in the card catalog; smart porting is going well. Voucher students will be hired for RRS over the summer. Work on D21 is scheduled to begin Jan. 2003.
• It's quieting down at Alcohol Studies; Pat has one student returning for the summer.
• Antoinette noted that diploma holds were placed by the deadline.
• Jeff reported on staffing at Alex: Phyllis' last day is May 17, Kumu has temporarily transferred to LSM, Zorheh is on extended vacation, Eva is working on reserves, Mary is on leave.
• LSM is doing all SERC's reserve scanning now, improving the processing turnaround time. Roger encourages reserve staff to weed their permanent reserve collections once a year, will begin the spring reserve remove process soon.
• The NB RRS Functional Group's manual is almost completed, Bill wants to make it available online. The group has also gathered statistics on high-volume RRS users.
• LSM routinely use Ariel to send RRS articles to Dana and Camden now. Michele described a power outage at LSM and experience evacuating to the golf course. Auxiliary lighting is needed at LSM.
• Chris is working with staff at Camden to integrate a scanner and palm pilot, which will be used on a mini-inventory project to identify items to move to different location in the library.
• The NB Billing group is working on training documentation. Barry announced that Gloria is retiring at Kilmer.

NEXT MEETING: Thursday, June 13, at DANA LIBRARY, Newark.
A van will be reserved in New Brunswick, watch for a sign-up announcement.