Minutes of June 15, 2006 meeting

Present:

Paul Cabelli, Salvatore Cardinale, Yuhwei Ling (recorder), Rebecca Martinez (chair), Gracemary Smulewitz, Melody Tomaszewicz

Excused:

Ian Bogus, Andy Martinez

Agenda

1. Distributed Technical Services
2. Vacation times
3. Internal work flows
4. Project updates/Information Sharing

1. Distributed Technical Services - our "new" roles

• Starting July 1st, the department will be officially known as Distributed Technical Services.
  • All e-mail signatures and phone greetings should reflect the new name.
• It was reminded that for all system-wide meetings:
  • Equipment for teleconferencing be followed up in in regards to setup and availability.
  • One date be set on a regular basis for meetings.
• Rebecca questioned the group on how the teams should be operating in a system-wide capacity
  • It was agreed that we should err on the side of inclusion.
  • It was reminded that everyone should remember the system-wide focus when responding to emails from other branches or units
  • Policies and procedures that are standardized at TSCWG or at the system-wide focus groups must be followed.
  • There will be an announcement at the the July TSCWG meeting to reaffirm its role system-wide
• Working with Camden staff was discussed specifically
  • Meetings will be arranged with Camden staff in July to discuss a more involved approach to system-wide inclusion.

2. Vacation times - coordination of absences

• A reminder was given out to spread out vacation times for all employees throughout the fiscal year.
• Team leaders should be notified if a staff member has scheduled an extended period of time off in order to coordinate backups and continued work flows.
• Gracemary should be consulted if there is difficulty in discussing vacation time coordination with staff members.
• The online calendar should be checked to coordinate absences.
• The daily absence list will be sent out to everyone in the department
  • Reasons will be left out and will be marked just "out".

3. Internal Work flows - extended absences

• The group discussed more specifically about two known extended absences in the department and how to coordinate backups.
  • In Holdings at Alex, there will be a staff member out until mid-July.
    • Melody will coordinate Holdings work in lieu of the absent staff member.
  • In the government documents area at Alex, there will be a staff member out until the middle to the end of August.
    • Gov docs will obviously need help but will work on Alex items only.
    • It was undecided who should be assisting for the time being. Discussions on this will continue at a later date.

4. Project Updates/Information Sharing

• Paul Cabelli
  • Jessica Rhodes is working on the DOCREF Foreign project
  • Working with Neera on Marcive mono introduction.
  • Reports that Neera is doing well in her new role in Bib-Cat at LSM. Elizabeth Leister has also commented positively on Neera's work.
• Salvatore Cardinale
  • Working on documentation on serials control. Will be presented to staff who work with serial control creation
  • Helping with Bib-Cat on titles that don't involve cataloging. About one title a day is being worked on.
  • Along with the department's Public Services group (Bill Bejarano, Natascha Owens, & Linda Zuckerman), met with Gracemary to discuss policies. Will meet with Access Services' student coordinator, Rose Barbalace, and Imaging Services head, Darryl Voorhees, discuss public services. Work will be done on documentation for public services
  • Will setup a online calendar for Dana staff and visit Dana on June 20th.
  • Will evaluate work-study students' funds and manage accordingly.
• Yuhwei Ling
  • Updates to EAL controls to EAL-PER has been completed by Ying Zhang. Inquired about EAL voucher budget in the new fiscal year and work flows for EAL in the coming year. Gracemary will inquire about EAL vouchers.
  • A visit is planned for SMLR on 6/16/06 to evaluate holdings and get a general plan on how clean up should proceed.
• Rebecca Martinez
  • Updated the group on the Request for Proposals (RFP) process currently underway for serial titles
• Melody Tomaszewicz
  • LSM weeding is up to date with what has been pulled and there is no back log.
  • Serial inventory statistics are being received from staff. Percentages will be calculated from the statistics.
  • There is a backlog of items returning to the Annex due to the 8 bin shipping limit.
  • Reports that Linda Zuckerman is now the chair of the Holding Focus group.
• Gracemary Smulewitz
  • Will meet with Chris Sterback about bound-with items and a different method for implementing them.
    • Will also meet with Melody, Paul, Neera, & Elizabeth Leister
  • Nothing has been heard from the selectors regarding duplicate print subscription cancellations yet.
  • Reminded the group that testing of new release of Workflows should be done. All members should have a list of functions to test and evaluate with each new release.

Decisions

• Have a system-wide focus to work more effectively with Camden & Newark.
• A visit will be schedule to Camden in July to discuss integration system-wide.
• Vacation times should be spread out evenly for all staff members.
• Extended absences by staff must be coordinated with team leaders to ensure a continued work flow.
  • Melody will coordinate Holdings work at Alex due to an extended absence.
• Daily absence list will be sent out to all members of the department and marked as "out."

Assignments

• SC: Setup the online calendar for Dana staff, meet with Rose Barbalace and Darryl Voorhees about public services
• YL: Visit SMLR to evaluate its current state and develop a plan for clean up of records and holdings.
• MT: Will calculate percentages from statistics from Serials Inventory project
• GS: Meet with various staff about bound-with items. Inquire about EAL voucher budget.

Pending

• Government documents backup still to be decided.

Next meeting: 7/20/2006 @ LSM
Time: TBA

Next recorder: Rebecca Martinez
Back up recorder: Melody Tomaszewicz