Minutes of February 12, 2004 meeting

Agenda

1. Update on U2003 bugs
2. Feedback on new U2003 options
3. Preparing for Patron Purge
4. Questions/comments on item comment conversion
5. Term Loans for Undergraduates, discussion
6. Scheduled Withdrawal of Missing Books from IRIS
7. Update on RDS web document delivery and Billing working group
8. Misc. Updates and Information Sharing.

ASC wished Mary Gadek a happy retirement; we will miss her.

1) Update on U2003 bugs

Display of reserve brief records in Webcat was reported to various Sirsi listservs, which resulted in supportive responses from peer institutions, and to the president of Sirsi in a letter from M. Gaunt. Chris has been in communication with the academic reserve module product developer. Sirsi now has a fix that will make this feature optional for customers. Chris has agreed to test it next week. When implemented, we will see holding statements on temporary brief reserve records in the Reserve Desk module.

Other reported bugs:

• the title glossary is still garbled when there is more than 1 item on a record, it's happening only for in-transits and a patch to fix it will be in the next release.
• the default sort for finished reports is by an internal file name.
• the limit field doesn't work with Smartport.
• new item note fields can't be printed in reports.
• various request wizards issues (Bob is taking the lead on reporting these): loss of a full request screen display, long call numbers and barcodes are truncated, can't update the Reply date to anything other than today's date.
• a blocked user status cannot be changed to OK with the operator override (so that patron can renew and staff don't have to override each checkout); blocked statuses only change overnight.
• upon scanning a barcode with an extra 0 for discharge and acknowledging the message 'item not found in catalog,' the barcode disappears and needs to be retyped instead of leaving the number for correction.
• when approving holds, intransit messages do not display the library where the item is going in-transit. Upon discharge, the transit message doesn't indicate the item is for a hold (H).

misc. observations:

• staff reported odd sounds from some PCs, audio may have been enabled.
• it's difficult to get a reference book in-transit.
• can't remove old reserves if there's a transaction, must get rid of the embedded charge.
• user alt ID displays on printed copies of Requests, which are used as cover sheets with Ariel, and we will work on removing it.

2) Feedback on new U2003 options

ASC recommended we not implement the new displays of user status header and user transaction lists available in U2003. We will retain display of the alt ID.

3) Preparing for Patron Purge

We will revise the patron purge criteria this year, and Chris will look at proxy logs, to avoid purging records of patrons who only use the library for remote access. We will also investigate sending email courtesy notices to borrowers one month prior to 6/30 and 12/31 expiry dates, informing them their privileges are about to expire and what they need to do to re- qualify. Messages could be customized by user profile.

4) Questions/comments on item comment conversion

All item comments converted to notes in U2003 are shadowed. They need to be evaluated-- some may be deleted, other displayed in Webcat.

5) Term Loans for Undergraduates, discussion

PSC is reviewing services to undergraduates and asked ASC to discuss the pros and cons of extending term loans to undergraduates. In general, ASC does not favor extending term loans to undergraduates. Discussion centered on the following issues:

28-day loans are working OK for undergraduates:

• The option to self-renewal, our 40-day barring schedule, and academic holds on registration, are working well with undergraduates. The vast majority has no problem renewing 28-day loans and/or returning items on time.
• Access services staff have not received complaints from undergraduates that the loan period is unfair or that they need more time (renewals are always an option).
• We are overriding and giving term loans to UGRAD scholars.

Undergraduates will lose track of their books:

• Term loans would give undergraduates more time (into the following semester) to lose track of their books before we could put them on academic hold.
• Undergraduates will never need to return books on term loan, and lose them before we could ask them to account for them with a diploma hold at the end of 4-5 years.
• Term loan due dates would need to be changed to fall before the end of the semester, otherwise overdue notices would go out after undergraduates have left campus.
• Concern about undergraduates forgetting about their checkouts. If undergraduates are not renewing it's because they forget. 28-day loans and overdue notices serve as an immediate reminder to renew.

It's important to stay in touch with undergraduates about their library record:

• If undergraduates don't renew, the 40-day barring schedule serves as a reminder and give us an opportunity to track them down.
• The longer time that elapses before we can have a discussion with students about their overdue books, the more likely they are to claim they've already returned them.
• We would be more likely to lose track of undergraduates address-wise. We have more opportunities to monitor and correct addresses with 28-day loan periods.
• We especially need frequent notices and reminders for Rowan CC students who are transitory, and because we can't place them on academic hold.

Effect on overall circulation policies and user perceptions:

• Palci and (most) ILLs have 4-week loans. Undergraduates might assume they have longer loan periods for those items if their Rutgers loan period was extended. We continuously educate faculty, staff and graduate students about this distinction.
• As EZBorrow is used for items that might have been recalled in the past, there may be fewer recalls and an effect on patrons' general awareness of and attentiveness to recall due dates.
• Would we consider limiting the # of items loaned if term loans were extended to undergraduates.

Information that might help us continue the discussion:

• # items checked out by ugrads, # items renewed by ugrads, # ugrads with more than 25 items checked out.
• Undergraduate loan periods at peer institutions.

6) Scheduled Withdrawal of Missing Books from IRIS

Chris has automated the withdrawal process for missing items in IRIS, RLIN and OCLC. Currently, after a final stack search, access services staff at each unit send their annual missing book lists to the Database Management Team for manual withdrawal. We can now withdraw all missing items on a regular systemwide schedule. ASC agreed that October 1st would give missing book staff sufficient time to conduct the final stacks search for items on the reports produced in July (items charged to missing before 6/30 of the previous year) before we automatically withdrawn them.

7) Update on RDS web document delivery and Billing working group

The RDS web document delivery working group is reviewing public documentation, testing, and working on staff procedures. The service will probably not be introduced until this summer, allowing plenty of prepublicity lead time for users who may wish to set up deposit accounts and order articles for a fee from their home campus/library. The Billing working group's first meeting is tomorrow.

8) Misc. Updates and Information Sharing

• Recall Hold and nonRecall Hold turnaround statistics will be available monthly beginning Jan. 2004.
• Revised borrower charts were distributed and posted to the staff pages.
• Jeff, Roger, Matthew, Ann W., Yoshiko, and Katie will attend an access services symposium next month at NYU.
• Training on the new AAL staff interface and software begins next week. Sign up for a session by emailing Natalie if you haven't already.
• A new biweekly hold removal process will remove holds placed on single copy items on reserve (hold placed prior to their going on reserve), and send the customized hold cancellation notice. NB reserve group is tracking reserve acquisitions in a local Access database.
• Mike Mansouri has moved to SERC and Chiaki Yamada is now at Douglass.
• RDS staff are writing down call numbers and barcodes when they don't print out in their entirety, and the outstanding requests reports will be run every 3rd rather than 7th day since staff can no longer display a list of in-process requests on the fly. Reports are running to count the number of PALCI items loaned by week and library in NB. Nita Mukherjee will lead the NB RDS functional group and Andy is moving to collection management.
• Roselyn Riley has moved from Alex to Art
• Erika Moore (formerly at Art) is coming to Alex.
• Alex staff heard from a high number of users that they didn't receive their first Recall notice for items due on Jan. 27th.
• SMLR now has 9 public access PCs and networked printing; basement will be renovated and for 6 mos. many SMLR journals will be in storage and inaccessible; working on wireless.
• Alcohol Studies staff are coping with new life sciences building construction next door and lack of parking.
• The NB collection management group is creating brief titles for LSM special collections materials.
• New furniture will be delivered to Douglass Feb. 23rd.
• TSB has a new security system with automatic door unlocking/locking and swipe cards that limit access to the building. In addition to the patron purge and testing the Reserve brief record fix in Webcat, Chris is working on loading bib records for the Evans digital collection and batch loading acquisition records (9xxx ordering).
• LSM is weeding and moving Special Collections materials. Facilities staff are walking through some NB libraries (LSM, Kilmer) noting deterioration and areas in need of repair/replacement. There was a security incident involving the door between UMDNJ and LSM. The NB circulation functional group will be conducting training this month, working on manual and FAQs. Roger will be working ½ days at Douglass.
• Charles Speller has retired; Dana has an opening for 20 hr./week experienced person. Staff are shifting the bound periodicals at Dana.
• Camden received a picture of the new Paul Robeson commemorative stamp and have a display in conjunction with its installation.
• Please put multiple stack search requests in call number order in email if possible.
• The collection at Chang was shifted and inventoried over winter break. Staff are busy with reserves. Imaging Services staff serviced the Chang scanner recently.
• Barred user reports for placing academic holds to block fall registration have been run. The deadline it March 4th, we have lots of time this year. Instructions will go out to all campuses. Reports for cleanup were also run- lists of users to be barred (prior to 40-day automatic barring) and users who should not be barred.
• The NB billing group is revisiting the damaged book document. Knight Express is operational at Alexander but has not yet been used.

Next Meeting: Thursday, March 11, 2004, 9:30-11:30 a.m.