Statistics
Access:
35,400
total entrances
22,505 undergraduates
9,008 graduate students
1,795 faculty/staff
1,128 alumni,faculty/staff/student family members
964 Fisk, Sewanee, library use cards
Circulation:
12,924 charges/renewals at circulation desk
13,002 online renewals
464 laptop charges
362 reserves charges/renewals
18,471 books discharged
20,587
books shelved
1,567 bound periodicals shelved
992 unbound periodicals shelved
368 newspapers shelved
Reference:
1,385 questions
1,128 (81%) at Reference desk
144 (11%) by e-mail
113 (8%) by telephone
Microform
Media Center:
329
items charged
110
reference questions
Government
Information:
175 reference questions
Book Sale:
Central's second annual book sale was a big success thanks to Bryan Kurowski, who organized and planned the sale; the bibliographers, who pushed to review additional gift titles; and the numerous volunteers who assisted. In addition to clearing our backlog of gift books not added to the collection, we made almost $3,000. Staff from all Central units worked at the sale, which we held on the library lawn plaza.
Exams:
As usual, we reserved the electronic classroom for study before and during final
exams. And we once again offered free soft drinks, a gesture much appreciated
by our patrons.
Circulation:
We had the highest number of checkouts for the academic year (see above) and
a 9% increase from April of 2004. Other statistics:
42 bills generated for non-returned or damaged items.
220 items processed rush
8 items delivered to faculty.
468 items searched: 61 found, 26 declared lost, 106 withdrawn.
235 Annex items requested for delivery to Central
Signage:
The signage committee, chaired by Sue Erickson, began mounting new directional
signs in stairwells of the 1969 building. They will soon place revised directional
signs in the 1941 building stairwells
Circulation (Janet Thomason)
Periodicals:
Rachel Gray sent 236 periodicals to the bindery and finished shifting in the
Periodicals Reading Room. She also continued weeding duplicates.
Meetings:
Janet attended a meeting with Mary Ann Dicks from the Card office. The office
was not prepared for the purchase of departmental copy cards and has asked the
library to resume selling and encoding vendacards until they can come up with
a plan. Many libraries had already quit selling vendacards, and most dispensers
have been removed from the libraries. Therefore we hope the card office comes
up with a solution to this problem soon.
Janet and Daisy Whitten attended a CAG meeting.
Robert Wright attended a
Technology Support Coordinators Meeting.
Reserves:
Faculty submitted only four new print reserve lists, which brought the semester
total to 78 lists received. No new ereserve requests were submitted, but materials
were added to existing courses. In late April we emailed revised letters to
A&S faculty requesting reserve lists for fall semester. Two longtime reserve
students are graduating. LaRentina Gray will sorely miss Patrice Jackson and
Hui Yang (Lindsey).
Stacks
Maintenance:
At the beginning of
April, we processed books turned in before spring break, and all our student
workers were away. At the end of April we began reshelving the many books returned
at the end of the semester. Annex shipments were suspended the week of Apr.18,
which worked out just as well since we didn't have time to pull and process
books for the Annex. Prior to Apr. 18 we sent 14 trucks to the Annex.
Collection Development (Mary Beth Blalock)
Electronic
Resources:
The Electronic Resources Committee met on Apr. 27. We approved a trial of an
Oxford Digital Reference Shelf title as well as a subscription to International
Bibliography of the Social Sciences and the conversion of our subscription
to Book Review Index Online to Book
Review Index Online Plus (full text). We discussed the James Madison
Papers collection, a part of the American Memory Project. Access
to these papers as well as information relating to other presidents can be found
on the Articles & Databases page under an American
Memory - Presidents link. We did not approve a trial of netLibrary Audio
Books or subscriptions to NewspaperDirect Press Display or PsycEXTRA..
The GLBTLife database will remain on our "wish list".
Outreach:
Susan Widmer organized and scheduled an EIU training/Q&A session for Economics
faculty members as well as a luncheon (courtesy of EIU) for the faculty members
before the session. Professors James Foster (Director of the GPED) program),
Ana Regina Andrade, and Kathryn Anderson attended the session along with several
bibliographers.
Paula Covington attended selected sessions of the Southeastern Conference of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS), which was held at Vanderbilt as well as a presentation on Afro-Hispanic Review, which will be edited at Vanderbilt.
Yvonne Boyer attended the French Department's "end of the semester" party and worked on the Pascal Pia web exhibit.
Gifts:
We obtained two large gift collections. Bryan and Peter reviewed and acquired
the Howard Boorman Collection, approximately 3,600 titles relating mainly to
areas of China and East Asia as well as World War II. Paula reviewed and received
Dean Russell Hamilton's library of Portuguese and Brazilian literature and culture.
The collection of 859 books and 70 journal issues is now housed at the Annex.
In addition, she arranged for materials to be sent to Cuba on exchange. We received
18 other gift titles.
Committee
and Other Activities:
Paula attended the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials
(SALALM) conference and a pre-conference on the ARL Global Resources Project
(LARRP), both at the University of Florida, Gainesville. While at the conference
she reviewed approval plans with vendors and presented a paper written by the
scheduled presenter, who was unable to attend the conference. She also reviewed
our contributions and identified new ones for the LAPTOC
database.
Susan Widmer and Mary Beth Blalock attended the ACRL Conference held in Minneapolis on Apr. 7-10.
Dale Manning met with Mike Poynter, sales representative for Recorded Books, to discuss books and audio books for our Leisure Reading collection. Dale and Larry Romans worked together to select titles for two large orders.
Bryan attended a Technical Support Coordinators meeting and a demonstration of Verde, the ExLibris Electronic Resource Management product.
Susan met with the East View (our Russian and Slavic Studies approval plan vendor) representative, Jeff Strandberg, to discuss their materials and services.
Several bibliographers attended
the open access discussion as well as the Google Scholar session presented by
Janice and Melinda.
Government Information (Amy Stewart-Mailhiot)
Amy represented the Central Library at the Government Documents program at Nashville Public Library. The program featured faculty speakers from Fisk University, Vanderbilt Law School, and Representative Jim Cooper. The program was co-sponsored by all 5th Congressional District depositories, and Vanderbilt loaned items for inclusion in the promotional display for the program.
Amy attended the Spring Depository Library Council Meeting in Albuquerque, NM. The meeting focused on upcoming changes to the Federal Depository Library program. While in Albuquerque, Amy also attended a training session on the Economic Census conducted by representatives from the Census Bureau. Amy also took part in a meeting of the 5th Congressional District depository librarians, where she reported on the events at the Spring DLC.
Amy attended the NACO authority control training conducted by Mary Charles Lasater, product demonstrations of both Gale and EIU, and a GIS Task Force meeting.
Amy met with members of Technical Services (Mary Charles Lasater, Zora Breeding, Ann Ercelawn, and Jean Wright) to discuss current and future projects related to cataloging government publications.
Larry Romans and Amy met with Rick Stringer-Hye to discuss changes to the way government publications at the Science and Engineering Library are cataloged. We will now use Marcive records for these items rather than sending the pieces to Technical Services.
Amy completed two solo shifts on the reference desk. She cleaned up 264 records in the monthly Marcive load. She cataloged 94 other items.
Nancy Dolinger worked on
checking in incoming GPO and UN documents. She also worked on gathering lost
UN items for binding. Nancy assisted with reference questions and the Ingram
order. She continues to work in the Microform Media Department.
Microform and Media Center (Peter Brush)
The Spring semester went
out with a bang. Over 300 patrons visited us during the month to watch videos,
including personal videos, course reserves, and other videos from our collection.
We are clearing Spring semester course reserves from our shelves and gearing
up for the Maymester. The Media Center's hours for the Maymester are Monday-Friday
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and Saturday 2:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Because many of our student
workers are graduating or leaving for the summer, we have had to hire a new
student to help us out during the next few months. Many of you may already know
Monique Hyacinthe, one of the student workers in Interlibrary Loan. We are excited
to welcome her to the Media Center, where she will be working Wednesday and
Thursday afternoons as well as some Saturdays.
Reference (David Carpenter)
Instruction
Report (Melinda Brown, Instruction Coordinator):
In April, we offered
one course related session with 12 attendees:
ITA 201 - Italian Composition (Barrett), Yvonne Boyer.
Additionally, Janice Adlington provided a basic library orientation for fifteen Montgomery Bell Academy students and their instructor.
Totals for Central's spring semester 2005 course-related instruction: 41 instruction sessions with 727 attendees.
ACRL
Conference:
David Carpenter, Melinda
Brown, and Janice Adlington represented Central Reference at the ACRL 12th National
Conference in Minneapolis. All of us found the conference to be chock full of
interesting and useful presentations addressing many "hot topics"
and issues of current concern for academic libraries. The conference also offered
an opportunity to meet and speak with vendors.
Melinda participated in a preconference, "Information Literacy in the Disciplines: Librarian/Faculty Collaboration for 21st Century Research Skills." She also attended a workshop entitled "Trading Spaces: Balancing Space, Technology, and Learning."
Google
Scholar Presentation:
Melinda and Janice
created and presented a Heard Library brown bag session on Apr. 19 entitled
"Google Scholar: The Good, The Bad, The Fuzzy Unknown." This timely
session was well attended by a variety of library staff, including Melinda and
Janice's Central Reference colleagues. It stimulated some good, lively discussions
about Google Scholar. In January Janice and Melinda gave a version of this presentation
at a Center for Teaching GradSTEP (Graduate Student Teaching Event for Professional
Development) event.
Readex
Archive of Americana ETC (Enhancements, Training, Content) Symposium & Workshop:
Sue Erickson traveled to Chester, Vermont, to attend this event, which focused
on electronic Readex products such as the U.S.
Congressional Serial Set, Early
American Imprints, and Early American Newspapers. Sue found this
to be a wonderful opportunity to learn more about these products and to see
the work behind the scenes to create and index them. Sue has promised to share
what she learned with her Central and Heard Library colleagues at a future brown
bag reference session.
Information
Alliance Collaborative Reference Serial Backfiles Project:
David participated
in a conference call to review and make preliminary decisions on which of the
Information Alliance libraries will serve as the "library of record"
for a number of Central Library reference serial backfiles. The call followed
up on preliminary plans made last October to create an Information Alliance
Collaborative Reference Serial Backfile. David joined with Linda Phillips (Head
of Collection Development and Management, UTK) Rita Smith (Head Reference and
Instructional Services, UTK), and Mary Vass (Reference & Information Services,
UK).
The project's primary goal is to find a way for the libraries to share older volumes of reference serials (for example, Books in Print or Dissertation Abstracts), so that all three do not need to retain the same sets of volumes, which consume considerable shelf space and are infrequently used. Such an agreement would also need to ensure quick delivery of information from the volumes in response to reference inquiries or to support research needs.
David had earlier requested comments and suggestions from his reference colleagues about reference serial backfiles that they felt were important to keep, as library of record or otherwise. David plans to meet with his colleagues again, and with John Haar and Mary Beth Blalock, to discuss the preliminary choices of serials.
Additional Activities, Meetings, Training Opportunities or Accomplishments:
Sue Erickson created and installed two new PowerPoint slide shows for the lobby monitor during April. She also met with members of the Signage Committee about installation of the new directory signs.
Sue and Janice helped to manage the Ask Us reference service during days when David was out of town.
David met with Leslie Boyd on to brief her on the work done by the Learning Commons group while she was on leave.
Other meetings:
Open Access panel discussion - Janice, Sue, Paula
InfoTrac PowerSearching database demonstration - Janice, David, Peter, Sue
Stacy Owens reception - Sue
EIU databases demonstration - Peter, Susan Widmer, Sue Erickson, Paula
MetaLib training - Janice
Central Library Reference Meeting
David and Melinda's monthly Instruction m eeting
David's monthly meeting with John Haar
Electronic Resources Committee - David, Janice
GIS Task Force - Sue
Journal Club at Peabody Library - Janice
MetaLib Implementation Team - Janice
SFX Team -- Janice
Technology Support Coordinators - Janice