Minutes of October 14, 2004 meeting

Present:

Rebecca Martinez [chair], Ian Bogus, Paul Cabelli [recorder], Salvatore Cardinale, Yuhwei Ling, Melody Tomaszewicz, Gracemary Smulewitz

Absent:

Andy Martinez

Agenda

1. Voucher employees
2. Webpage - Approach to updates, following up on content, etc.
3. Use of T: drives - follow up from last meeting
4. Staff Changes
5. Temperature Check - how are things going in each section?
6. Interview Exercise - bring your notes from our recent interview seminar

1. Voucher employees

• The current state of our voucher and work study assistance was discussed. We identified specific needs for (1) special projects, such as the MARC Holdings/Inventory Project and the LSM Weeding project, and for (2) ongoing ‘must-have’ work. Most of our voucher and work study needs are being met at this time.
• We developed a list of those areas deemed most important to maintain, the criteria being patron access to holdings. The highest priority areas (in no particular order) were: Receiving, Processing, Bindery, and maintaining the Public Service desks. Under short term emergency situations, staff and student help would be used from other parts of the department to help maintain these critical areas.
• Melody suggests some ways the Serials Inventory Project processing could be speeded up, included adding staff/students help. This led to a discussion of how the LSM weeding project workflow could be accelerated. With Neera now at LSM, and weeding procedures being recently revised, it was deemed to early to make changes in current project staffing and workflows.
• Gracemary asked the team members to create a short skill set for each type of work study job in each area of the department (eventually we would expand this to include voucher assistance). She requested that we send her the information within two weeks. We would eventually want to place this list of job types and skill sets needed on the T-drive for all dept. members to use. GS suggested that each student should be closely monitored by a single staff member, and also that pay scales should be uniform for similar-type work.

2. Webpage - Approach to updates, following up on content, etc.

• Everyone agreed that the new version of the NBL CSD web site was cleaner and neater than the old page. A number of teams have already been updating their web pages on the new site. It was strongly recommended that the focus groups, at their regular meetings, review their web site documentation for accuracy and completeness. Any documents that are used routinely by team members should be added or linked to the appropriate web page.
• Members have started to use the meeting minutes template from the web page. Because of complications arising from creating and saving minutes templates in both Word and HTML formats, it was suggested that Andrew, the web site manager, be asked to create instructions for using this template. Andrew will also be asked to clarify the usage of both PDF and HTML formats for documents stored on the web page, and also to create a site index if possible.
• Rebecca mentioned that the ‘Help Us Help You’ section from the old web page was quite useful and perhaps should be updated and added to the new page. Andrew will send Rebecca this section, and Rebecca will distribute it to the team members for revision.

3. Use of T: drives - follow up from last meeting

• It was recommended that the Collection Services folders on the T-drives be used to store documents containing editable data, such as statistics sheets, while the CSD web site should maintain pages that were non-editable, such as procedures and checklists.
• It was noted that the LSM and Alex T-Drive Collection Services folders contain different files and documents from the Alex one. It is desirable that both folders contain identical information. Ian mentioned a way that this might be done. He suggested that we load all pertinent documents on one of the T-drives, and create a short cut on the other T-drive that links to the first. It was decided that Rebecca and Ian would develop a prototype for the group to view at the next team leader’s meeting.

4. Staff changes

• A short discussion ensued regarding the transfer of duties between various staff members, and the vacancies currently in the department.

5. Temperature Check - how are things going in each section?

• In these times of continuing change, everyone is stressed to some degree, but all are managing to cope and work is flowing relatively smoothly through the department.

6. Interview Exercise - bring your notes from our recent interview seminar

• The team leaders recently attended a recent Interview Training session held at the UHR center. All agreed that it was a useful and productive session. We discussed some behavioral, interpersonal, and managerial questions handed out at the session.

Decisions

• All documents routinely used by team members should be posted to the web page

Assignments

• Everyone – develop short skill set for work study jobs in each area, and send to GS by Oct.28

• AR – will create instructions for using the meeting minutes template
• AR – will send RM the ‘Help Us Help You section from the old NBL CSD web page, and RM will distribute it to team members for their review.
• Everyone – review web site documentation with relevant focus groups
• AR – create a site index for the NBL CSD web page
• RM, IB – develop a prototype T-drive system for viewing identical documents in both Alex and LSM Coll Services folders.

Pending

• discussion of single barcode multi-piece processing
• discussion of PDF and HTML document format postings on the web site

Next meeting: 11/11/04: ALEX
Time: 1:30

Next recorder: Melody Tomaszewicz
Back up recorder: Salvatore Cardinale