Minutes of November 17, 2005 meeting

Present:

I. Bogus; P. Cabelli; S. Cardinale; R. Martinez (Chair) ; M. Tomascewicz ; Y. Ling. Guest : Y. Denda.

Absent:

A. Martinez

Agenda

1. FAQ/Staff Resources Website - Guest: Yasu Denda
2. Dress in the Department
3. Mutual Expectations for Working with Branches
4. Dana Glossary - terms, expectations and possible form to fill out
5. Incorporating Camden and Newark in Focus Groups - how to manage our agendas to best fit our needs, scheduling, etc.
6. Information Sharing

Staff Resource Website

• Yasu presented his findings thus far for improved access to the Staff Resource pages. The charge to evaluate this was given by Technical Services Council to TSCWG. Since Yasu manages the Collection Services site on the NBL pages, he was asked to lead the investigation and then work with Systems for improvement.

• Yasu had met with the team leaders to determine how they use the pages and what they felt needed improvement.

• Yasu, Au and Gracemary met to discuss the role of WAC regarding the staff pages. Au explained that WAC would be able to load pages, or overlays to the existing resources. WAC does not determine the design, their goal is to improve the content such as providing missing minutes and reports from different Councils. It was agreed that developing pathways to specific information might be the best way to provide easy access.

• asu is also going to work with the Selector’s Toolkit Task Force to determine the information needed to perform processes that move from one department or individual to another for completion. Rebecca Martinez will be on the Task Force and will be working with Yasu so that some of the Toolkit development will help to improve the pages.

• It was agreed that Yasu should attend the next TSCWG meeting where members of Database Mgt; Cataloging; Acquisitions and Systems are available to discuss the issues.

• Team Leaders were asked to evaluate what they bookmark on the pages so that a collective commonality of interests can be established.

Dress in the department

The hiring of two new staff for LSM provoked a discussion of a dress code for the department. The Team discussed the issues that would arise from establishing a dress code now. It was agreed that a formal dress code was not needed but that certain articles were not appropriate for the office environment. Staff had been surveyed for what they believed important in office attire.

Their response was:

• Staff should be neat and clean
• Hats, unless worn for religious observance, should not be worn indoors
• Shoes were required.
• No “T” shirts with inappropriate slang.

Staff members should be aware that they represent RUL to faculty, staff and the public and should dress accordingly. This statement can be made to new hires to encourage appropriate attire.

Processing standardization

Ian Bogus presented some suggestions for standardization made by the Processing staff.

The intent is to reduce errors. After discussion with the Team Leaders the following issues and suggestions for improvement were agreed upon:

• All processing be performed in two locations in NB. Alex Collection Services and LSM Collection Services
• There is an acceptable amount of error in the transfer of information from the receiving staff and other functional groups to the processing staff.
• The amount is currently exceeding acceptability at LSM.
• It is recommended that a random read of the processing form be performed three days a month to check for accuracy. This is similar to the receiving record read
• Government Documents processing should continue as is and not be totally incorporated into the Processing workflow.
• Currently DBM sends notification of re-labeling for titles at the units to Collection Services. Collection Services staff ask the units to send the books for that re-labeling. This should be the practice throughout NB. No unit should be doing their own re-labeling.

Other questions arose about Videos as accompanying material. Prior to the Accompanying Material policy videos were automatically sent to the Media Library. Should that still be the case? This will be investigated by GS.

Dana Operations

A generic glossary should be established for the Dana staff. A glossary will help them to understand the terminology used for the many processes performed and help them to communicate better with our staff.

It was suggested that a checklist be created per process – such as one for receiving questions, one for holdings etc. The intent is that the staff knows what their responsibilities are with each transaction. The checklist will establish timeliness and require acknowledgement of the request.

It was also suggest that the Dana staff copy the email request and include it with the material that is being sent to the hub when fulfilling that request.

Some examples of appropriate response time are:

• Check holdings for MARC, Receiving and Claims – 2 days
• Title Change/Publisher etc. – 3 days
• Invoice request – 2 days

Round Robin

Melody reported that serials inventory is being done at LSM. Discussions were being held as to whether Bib/Cat and Holdings Record Management Teams should work through one focus group and one focus group chair?

Progress in incorporating focus groups into the system wide operation waas reviewed. It was suggested that these meetings be every other month.

Gracemary asked for suggestions for Train the Trainer attendees

Next meeting is: December 15th at 1:30 at LSM.

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