MONTHLY REPORT
APRIL 2004

Statistics

Circulation:
11,978 charges and renewals
12,932 online renewals
471 laptop checkouts
192 microform and media charges
13,879 discharges
4,149 books received from other libraries
1,081 unbound periodicals shelved
416 newspapers shelved

Reserves:
404 charges and renewals

Reference:
1,307 questions
1,105 (84%) at Reference desk
100 (8%) by e-mail
102 (8%) by telephone

Government Information: 152 reference questions

Microform Media Center: 17 directional questions, 101 reference questions

Web: 30,267 visitor sessions, 195,161 hits

Circulation (Janet Thomason)

The month started off with a bang with most of the Circulation staff assisting in the book sale on April 2. Circulation full-time staff handled all credit card transactions, totaling more than $2,000. In addition, all staff assisted outside as scheduled. It was a busy day but an exciting one for everyone involved.

On April 5-9, it was Student Appreciation Week. All staff brought goodies each day to be consumed by the student workers. In addition, the Director's office gave ice cream coupons to the students. Daisy Whitten's brother donated several items from his company which we gave to the students such as mugs, pens, tape recorders. The students seemed very appreciative of their goodies.

Other big news in Circulation was that Daisy's position was reclassed from an LA III to an LA IV. Congratulations, Daisy.

Janet was involved in several meetings as part of the Strategic Planning Committee for Undergraduates. In addition, she is on the Circulation Training and Demand Management Subcommittees of CAG and has had weekly meetings with these groups. She also met with the Item Types Subcommittee. Robert Wright and Daisy attended the Technology Support Coordinators meeting on the 13th, and Daisy attended the biweekly meetings of the Acorn Virtual Task Force.

Several Circulation staff attended the Staff Forum on 4/22. Books started pouring in during the last two weeks of the month as the end of the semester crunch began again.

Stacks Maintenance:
Students continued working on keeping the sorting and shelving up to date as we got ready for the onslaught of the end of the semester. Several Stacks Maintenance workers will be graduating and will be missed. We have lined up several students to work during the summer semester, and we will work on the continuing Annex transfer project as well and shifting, cleanup, and shelf reading in the library. This will basically be a "clean up" summer. We sent 25 trucks of materials to the Annex in April.

Reserve Room:
A shortage of student workers made it a challenge to provide adequate coverage on Tuesdays and Fridays. Many thanks to Patrice Jackson, who subbed a lot for those students who were unable to work their shift. We opened the Electronic Classroom from April 21 through May 5, giving the students access to additional computers during final exams. We submitted letters to faculty requesting fall reserve lists. Janet and LaRentina Gray met twice with staff from LITS to talk about managing course reserves electronically with Blackboard. Many decisions must be made this summer about how we proceed with electronic reserves and if we should abandon ERes or try to support both ERes and Blackboard.

Collection Development (Mary Beth Blalock)

Electronic Resources:
The Electronic Resources Committee met on April 14 and 28. Trials of Asia Intelligence Service, ebrary, and Oral History Online were approved as well as the addition of two free databases--National Image Library and Directory of Open Access Journals-- to the Articles & Databases page. The Committee approved the acquisition of SUR when funds are available and indicated a preference for remaining with the Ovid/SilverPlatter version of PsycINFO. Because of the limited availability of content in Empire On-Line, this resource will be reviewed again in one year. Poiesis and Euromonitor were not approved for purchase. A trial for North American Women's Drama as well as the perpetual access purchases of CQ Researcher and CQ Weekly were discussed, but decisions were deferred until we have more information.

The April 28 meeting was devoted to a discussion of LibraryLit and Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) as staff development tools. Recent interest in these databases arose with the elimination of the per search option for LibraryLit and the work of the Strategic Planning Initiative groups. Database preferences varied among bibliographers mainly because of the particular topics researched. After much discussion of bibliographers' comments, cost, and the fact that Central will be canceling resources this summer, we concluded that most of our research needs could be met through existing resources-ProQuest, ERIC, and IBZ. We will explore the option of searching LibraryLIT via Dialog, but LISA is not currently available via Dialog.

Departmental Meeting:
The April Collection Development meeting was held on April 21. Discussion focused on the status of this year's material funds, the cancellation project, renewal of Oxford University Press and LexisNexis electronic resources we acquire via SOLINET, and some preservation issues.

Cancellation Project:
Julie continued to assist bibliographers with their subject lists and answered questions as they arose. All bibliographers were busy working directly with departments to identify titles for cancellation. At the invitation of the Classics faculty, Janice Adlington, John Haar, and Mary Beth Blalock joined the group for lunch and discussion of the cancellation project. So far, the project has focused on capturing A & S faculty input before they leave campus for the summer. We are currently working on web pages to announce the proposed cancellation titles and request comments from all Vanderbilt faculty and libraries.

Outreach:
Yvonne Boyer, with the assistance of Celia Walker, organized a reception for the Shaviro family to honor them for their generous gift of the Morris Wachs Collection. Yvonne also organized a gathering of library and French department people to celebrate the addition of Les Fleurs du Mal (original 1857 ed.) by Charles Baudelaire to the W. T. Bandy Center. She also attended the last Poe/Baudelaire seminar to be held this semester.

Paula Covington continued writing articles for the ACORN Chronicle to highlight various gift collections.

Book Sale:
Central's book sale was a big success thanks to Julie Loder who organized and planned the sale, the bibliographers who pushed to review additional gift titles, and the numerous volunteers who assisted during the sale. In addition to clearing our backlog of unneeded gift books, we made over $4,000. All persons who assisted with the book sale were treated to a pizza lunch sponsored by Paul Gherman.

Gifts:
Paula sold and shipped 12 boxes of gift duplicates.
Julie received 228 gifts.

Vendor Presentations:
Mark Heisterkamp, infoUSA, met with Janice, David Carpenter, Susan Widmer, and Mary Beth to demonstrate ReferenceUSA.
Craig Flansburg (Regional Sales Manager) and Joshua Hill (Account Executive) of the Economist Intelligence Unit met with Janice, Sue, Larry Romans,
Susan, and Mary Beth to discuss Vanderbilt's research needs and EIU's available resources.

Committee and Other Activities:

• Julie attended meetings of the Information Management Strategic Planning Committee and Technology Support and Technology Training Coordinators.
• Paula attended sessions of the Virginia-Carolinas-Georgia Colonialist Group (VACARGA) conference and dinner, Center for Teaching and Learning workshop, "Elements of Course Design", Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies lecture by Matthew Restall, lecture for the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture, and a lecture by Beth Conklin of the Center for LAIS as well as the CLAIS picnic. She also attended meetings of the Strategic Planning Committee for Graduate Services and three meetings regarding the Cuba book purchase trip.
• Dale Manning, as a member of the Strategic Planning Committee for Faculty Service, conducted faculty interviews and wrote transcripts of the interviews.
• Paula also attended meetings of the Strategic Planning Services to Graduate and professional Students Work Group, organized a luncheon for faculty, and attended a coffee hour for graduate students.
  
  

Government Information (Larry Romans)

We celebrated our student assistants' valuable service by taking them out for ice cream treats before sending them off for final exams and summer vacation.

Larry wrote a job description for the new Government Information Services Librarian position with assistance from Gretchen Dodge. Larry participated in another conference call of the ACRL Ad Hoc Task Force on Advocacy, of which he is a member. For the group of library staff who will attend National Library Legislative Day, he prepared a three-page summary sheet for each of Tennessee's nine members of Congress.

Nancy Dolinger has been getting back into the swing of things. She has been working on her normal routines and getting caught up on old projects. Gretchen has been training Nancy on a variety of her office tasks. Nancy is enjoying being back.

Microform and Media Center (Peter Brush)

In April our patron business moved at a brisk pace, especially toward the end of the month. Use of microfilm has been higher this month than at any other time in the academic year. This is largely due to the considerable amounts of microfilm that patrons have been getting through Interlibrary Loan in recent months.
The Computer Room was also very busy.

A new microform scanner arrived at the Media Center this month. It enables patrons to print using a laser printer, or to save images to diskette or to VU Space. Saved images can be emailed. Print quality is very high. We have been working with Mills Bell from Library Technology to explore the new machine's capabilities and to develop the best procedures for use with it.

Lastly, the Media Center received a collection of about 120 anime videos (animated Japanese cartoons) from a student club. Some are dubbed in English and some are subtitled. They will be cataloged this spring and summer and placed on permanent reserve in the Reserve Room.

Reference (David Carpenter)

Instruction Report:
Melinda Brown and Dale Manning provided an orientation session for twelve students and their teacher from Montgomery Bell Academy on April 21.

Statistical Databases Demonstration:
Sue Erickson, Susan Widmer and Larry Romans demonstrated and described the use of three important economics statistical databases (EIU CountryData, World Development Indicators and International Financial Statistics) at our Reference meeting on April 16. We appreciated this refresher on the content and searching characteristics of these databases. Thanks to Larry, Sue and Susan for providing the session.

Strategic Planning 2004 Initiative:
To gather information for the Digital Library Projects Working Group, of which he is a member, David Carpenter interviewed: Jane Landers, Associate Dean, School of Arts & Science and Associate Professor of History; Gregory Barz, Assistant Professor of Musicology; and Bill Corbin, Director of Information Technologies and Director of the Peabody Technology Support Center for Peabody College. Notes from these interviews can be found here.

Sue Erickson met with Dean Francille Bergquist on April 1 and attended a luncheon with some of the Directors of Undergraduate Studies on April 13 in support of her Services to Undergraduates Working Group's collection of information.

David and Sue also attended regular meetings of their respective Strategic Planning 2004 working groups.

Other Activities, Meetings, Training Opportunities or Accomplishments:
Melinda Brown attended planning meetings for OAK. She also contributed a section of the OAK training outline. Her involvement with OAK implementation and training activities is likely to intensify after Spring Semester ends.

Janice attended the April 7 meeting of the Information Services Advisory Group (ISAG) so that she could present her task group's recommendation that the library move its SilverPlatter databases to Web access via the latest version of SilverPlatter's WebSPIRS search interface. This followed a period of requesting and collecting feedback from library staff regarding this proposed change, following local trials of SilverPlatter databases using Web access with the newer software. ISAG supported and approved this recommendation and thanked Janice for her work on this task.

• Most Central Reference staff members were very involved in preparing for and otherwise supporting the Central Library's very successful book sale on April 2. We appreciated Paul Gherman's pizza lunch on April 27th to recognize the efforts of book sale volunteers.
  
• David, Peter Brush and Janice attended the Spring Staff Event on April 27, enjoying the opportunity to socialize with fellow Heard Library staff members despite the chilly weather.
• David and Sue attended a brown bag presentation on the Vanderbilt Residential Colleges proposal on April 22.
• Sue provided three data consultations for students (on April 9, 14 and 27).
• Sue Erickson created and loaded a PowerPoint slideshow in the lobby to announce the E-classroom hours for student use.
• Janice Adlington attended three meetings of the SFX Implementation Group.
• David and Janice attended a database demonstration of ReferenceUSA on April 27th. Janice also attended a demonstration by an EIU vendor.
• Sue conducted benchmarking research on behalf of the ACRL Membership Dues Task Force.
• David attended the reception on April 20th honoring Frieda and Sol Shaviro for their gift of the Morris Wachs Collection.

Committee or Other Regularly Scheduled Meetings Attended:
Central Reference librarians attended various other regular departmental, staff, and task force meetings during September. These included meetings of the following groups: Central Library Reference, Central Library Bibliographers, Heard Web Group, Heard Staffweb Focus Group, Acorn and Virtual Catalog Task Force (and its Tabs Working Group), Information Services Advisory Group, Central Library Instruction, Electronic Resources Committee, ISAG Web-based Instructional Support Subcommittee, Technology Support Coordinators, Central Library Staff Forum, SFX Implementation Group and Central Library Unit Heads.