Minutes for March 27, 2007 Meeting

Present:

Judy Gardner, Elizabeth Leister, Andy Martinez (guest), Gracemary Smulewitz, Christopher Sterback (recorder, chair)

1. Status report on batch withdrawals.

Here's a summary of the activity since the last meeting.

2. Change to schedule for batch removal of LOST-ASSUM/LONGOVRDUE

The schedule for batch removing long overdue items was adjusted. The current schedule did not include enough time between the distribution of the 30-day delinquent account letters to patrons and the actual removal of the items from Unicorn. Although patrons received a minimum of three overdue and billing notices, patrons have been responding to the 30-day letters and returning the long overdue items. This led to a "surge" in materials being returned with no record in Unicorn. The schedule has now been adjusted so that patrons have approximately two months to respond to the 30-day letters before the items are batch removed.

3. Inventory updates

a. Updated software to GL3.1 - The Unicorn upgrade to GL3.1 included an update to the PocketCirc software. This update added the need to enter a software key to insure that it was appropriately licensed. Chris asked New Brunswick and Newark for their devices and updated the software.

b. Art Progress - Andy reported that the inventory of the Folio collection was complete and that he would issue a formal report to ISAWG. In the meantime he reported these highlights:

• 14,885 are in the Art Folio collection - per Director's Station.
• 13,852 items were in Unicorn and on the shelf.
• 274 items were checked out at time of inventory.
• 595 items were not inventoried but later found in the Art Library.
• 106 items were found without barcodes. These were flagged and left on shelf.
• 85 items that were scanned were not found in IRIS.
• 88 items with auto generated barcodes were not found and charged to missing.
• 289 items with real barcodes were not found and charged to missing

c. Andy's queries

(1) Changing criteria for damaged books - Andy asked ISAWG to consider changing the criteria used to identify damaged items. Initially there were two conditions:
Bad
Irreparable

If any item was considered in Bad or Irreparable condition the first letter of the code was added to a "Condition" field in the item extended information record as part of the inventory process. After Andy met with Preservation the following codes were proposed:

• Boxing (item has brittle pages)
• Repair (item has 10 or less loose pages and has torn spine or loose text block)
• Rebind (item has more than 10 loose pages, a torn spine and loose text block, and loose book boards.)

At first ISAWG believed two conditions was granular enough and anything beyond this would be difficult for a voucher to identify while performing inventory. As it turns out, Andy trained a voucher employee on the three conditions model and believes that they appropriately identified the category of items needing repair. Based on this feedback ISAWG agreed with the three conditions model and will now use these codes to record an item's condition in the item extended information fields.

(2) Status of items that should cause additional action when encountered during inventory - Andy asked whether items with holds, items that are LOST-ASSUM, or items that have a home location of TECHSR or IN-PROCESS should precipitate further action if found during inventory. ISAWG team members responded yes, and that there are probably others that should necessitate actions as well. Chris will draft a list of potential current locations and statuses that fall into this category and will bring it to the next ISAWG meeting for review.

(3) Custom report to identify items inventoried not at their owning library - Andy tested a hypothesis that items owned by a library other than the one being inventoried were not identified in the delivered inventory reports. As long as these items are scanned in correct call number order, Andy found that these items are not identified as problems and asked whether a report could be customized to report on this condition. Chris responded that, yes this is important and he would approach this by either customizing one of the delivered inventory reports or by creating a separate report.

(4) Hungarian Missing items - Andy inquired why items charged to the Hungarian missing patron have not been batch removed along with the RUL collections. Chris responded that no one has contacted Hungarian regarding whether they wish to join this process, nor has anyone confirmed whether they perform periodic searches once they are charged to MISSING. Chris agreed to contact Margaret Papai to seek their interest.

4. Planning for system-wide inventory meeting

The need for a system-wide inventory meeting has been identified and initially ISAWG was planning to host this meeting; however, upon further review, this inventory meeting will be scheduled through TSCWG, as most of the players are already part of that group.

5. Metrics for transient collections

GS inquiry from NBCG - Gracemary reported that she has been approached by NBCG to assist in providing data on the health of our transient collections, and specifically how quickly items move from order to the shelf through Technical Services. She responded that this is still one of the charges of ISAWG and she will ask for an NBCG representative to attend the next ISAWG meeting to determine how we'll proceed. Gracemary also suggested that we peruse library literature to determine how other libraries have gathered and assessed these metrics.

6. Next meeting

The next ISAWG meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 22 at 10:00 a.m. in the TSB conference room.