Statistics
GLB
Access (includes Divinity Library):
36,935 entrances at Library Lawn (30%
increase from Central turnstile entrances in Apr. 2006)
12,825 entrances at Breezeway
Circulation:
13,312 charges at circulation desk (1%
decrease from Apr. 2006)
142
renewals at circulation desk
(39% decrease from Apr. 2006)
14,540 online renewals (10%
increase from Apr. 2006)
611 laptop charges
(8% increase
from Apr. 2006)
388 reserve charges (19% decrease
from Apr. 2006)
10 reserve renewals (68% decrease from Apr. 2006)
16,178 items discharged (8% increase from Apr. 2006)
3,494 items received from other libraries (10%
decrease from Apr. 2006)
759 holds placed (9% increase from Apr. 2006)
16,111 books shelved (30% decrease from Apr. 2006)
762 bound periodicals shelved (30% increase from Apr.
2006)
759 unbound periodicals shelved (25% decrease from Apr.
2006)
419 newspapers shelved (18% increase
from Apr. 2006)
Reference:
699 questions at Reference
desk
165 by e-mail
82 by telephone
17 email off-desk questions
4 off-desk phone questions
3 research consultations
Government
Information/Media Services:
657 items charged
271 items discharged
Instruction:
2 sessions for 20 participants
General
Homepage:
The staff decided that it is past time to refresh the Central
Library homepage. John convened a committee to evaluate and redesign the
current page. Members are Amy Stewart-Mailhiot (chair), Melinda Brown,
Peter Brush, Sara Byrd, and Larry Romans.
Circulation (Janet Thomason)
Circulation:
We completed performance evaluations for staff and student employees. Each full-time
staff member evaluated the students they primarily supervise. We were able to
divide the list so that each supervisor, with the exception of Matt McKee,
evaluated four students. Matt evaluated all stacks
workers. Circulation activity was quite brisk with an 8% increase over April
2006 in books returned to the library. There was an 8% increase in laptop circulation
as well with a whopping 675 laptop checkouts.
Stacks
Maintenance:
April marked the last work days of the
semester for most student workers. Students turned their attention almost exclusively
to shelving, with a couple of exceptions. Students Moriah Scarbrough
and Abhay Karandikar continued their shifting projects on the seventh
and eighth floors, respectively, and Ryan Cook shifted periodicals on
the sixth floor. Scott Pierce and Bill Robertson maintained their
periodicals responsibilities and also shelved books on other floors. Kelly
Lockaby completed pulling books from the list of OCLC unique titles for
transfer to the Annex. She also pulled books from Annex transfer lists from
the eighth floor.
Reserves:
We
emailed a new and revised reserve letter to faculty on May 1. The letter combines
and replaces separate reserve letters previously sent by Circulation and Media
Services. LaRentina Gray and Brian Boling coordinated their lists
of faculty to avoid sending duplicate letters.
Periodicals:
239 volumes sent to the bindery.
95 replacement labels made for the Periodical Reading Room, completing this project.
16 boxes of microfilm received from Marking/Binding
218 periodical volumes returned from the bindery and prepared for shelving.
Collection Development (Mary Beth Blalock)
Electronic
Resources:
The Electronic Resources Committee met on Apr.
11 and 25. We approved trials for Biography Resource Center and DemographicsNow.
We approved two free resources, United
States and Brazil
and Official Document System of the
United Nations, for the Articles & Databases page. We approved Blackwell
Reference Online if other libraries agree to participate in the purchase
and bibliographers agree to use their monograph funds. We also approved converting
our EconLit subscription to the full-text version from EBSCO. We added
two expensive databases to our "wish list": The Making of the Modern
World: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature 1450-1850 and
LexisNexis Congressional Hearings Digital Collection, parts A & B.
We will purchase them when funds are available. We also discussed the Springer
Humanities, Social Sciences & Law journal archive. If Peabody moves forward
with the order, Central may contribute a small percentage for the purchase.
Outreach:
Yvonne Boyer provided an overview of the
Bandy Center to visiting scholars preparing for the Nineteenth Century French
Studies Conference at Vanderbilt in 2008.
Peter Brush gave a library tour to a prospective History graduate student.
Paula Covington met with two new Mayan language instructors to discuss curricular materials and review the books and software she purchased for this area while in Guatemala. The resources will be used in classes as teaching aids. She also met with Professor Marshall Eakin to discuss the NRC faculty grant for new LAS courses and to coordinate collection building for these service learning courses. In addition, she consulted with a junior who is preparing for a senior thesis.
Ramona Romero met with Classics graduate students and attended a poster session of undergraduate honors theses on Psychology Day.
Susan
Widmer consulted with two Econ 222 students regarding their research.
Gifts:
Bryan Kurowski received 910 gift items
including the Avery Leiserson Collection of Political and Social Sciences (687
items) and a collection of materials (138 items) from various donors which were
not suitable for Special Collections.
Projects:
Paula prepared for her Peru book purchase trip.
She tested and refined parameters for Peru reports that were then run by Dale
Poulter, met with vendors at the SALALM conference to arrange Peru contracts,
submitted travel plans and trip costs to the Department of Education for approval
(on our National Resource Center grant). Other activities in preparation for
the trip included soliciting thesis/field research information from all anthropology
Andean Studies graduate students and meeting with Professor Tiffany Tung to
plan the trip.
David
Carpenter, Sue Erickson, Amy Stewart-Mailhiot and Mary Beth
met to continue work on CD-ROM procedures.
Committee and Other Activities:
All bibliographers and Mary Beth were busy during the month writing self and
supervisor performance evaluations and conducting evaluation discussion meetings.
Yvonne attended the Art Libraries Society of North America meeting in Atlanta. During the meeting, she volunteered to help at the Hospitality Desk, participated as a member of the host conference planning committee, and chaired the ARLIS/SE Chapter meeting. She is also serving on the Central Library Director Search Committee.
Paula interviewed and hired a student assistant to work during the summer while she is on leave and graded papers for special student project.
Ramona continued her collection development training by meeting with John Haar and reviewing Classics approval slips with Janice Adlington.
Susan met with our ISI representative.
Mary
Beth attended a meeting with John Laraway, our Blackwell approval representative,
. She also met with Sara Byrd regarding orders for Film Studies and Theatre.
Government Information/Media Services (Amy Stewart-Mailhiot)
With Eli Moody's help, Amy posted our first Camtasia training tutorial to the GI/MS staff blog.
Instruction (Melinda Brown)
In April, Central librarians presented a total of 2 course related sessions to 18 students and 2 instructors.
ANTH 115 - Human Nature, Human Culture (Gregor), Sue Erickson (Ramona Romero observed), 13 students and the professor.
LAT 206 - Cicero and the Humanistic Tradition (Gaca), Ramona Romero (Melinda Brown observed), 5 students and the professor.
Additional
instruction activities:
Many library staff assisted with proctoring and promoting the administration
of the Project SAILS assessment test to 102 undergraduates: Sara Beutter,
Melinda Brown, Sara Byrd, David Carpenter, Sara Godchaux
(student worker), Larry Romans, Celia Walker, and Flo Wilson.
Melinda and
Sara Beutter met with candidates for English and Philosophy senior lecturer
positions with the Writing Studio.
Reference (David Carpenter)
Special
Projects:
Sara Byrd devoted considerable time to the Seating Sweep Project, designed
to collect information on the availability and use of study spaces in the Heard
libraries. Sara held training sessions for participants; attended a project
group meeting; conducted many of the sweeps; managed the collection of data;
compiled the data into spreadsheets; and presented Julie Blagojevich
with the compilation of data.
Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, Sara, and Sue Erickson met to continue work on a project to improve access to newspapers.
Sara brushed up on her Kurzweil software skills. At the request of John Haar, she met with Corinne Lankford (Disability Services Specialist, Opportunity Development Center) and a student to test a copy of the Kurzweil 1000 software, temporarily installed on a Central Library workstation. The software is designed to make print or electronic text available to blind or visually-impaired individuals. Sara reported to John with an evaluation of the software.
Sara also agreed to take
charge of scheduling the upcoming Primo usability testing sessions in the Reference
Consultation Room. In addition, she ordered easels for the Leisure Reading area
and created new displays for the Leisure Reading books.
Training
and Professional Development Activities:
David continued to schedule
tours of other Vanderbilt libraries for three newer librarians--Ramona Romero,
Cynthia Kutka, and Steven Nordstrom. David offered a tour of Central
on Apr. 6. Thanks to the library staff members who agreed to lead interesting
and informative tours of three additional Heard libraries: Sandi Martin
(Biomedical), Stacy Owens (Peabody), and Deborah Brooks (Management).
Music Library Director Holling Smith-Borne joined the tour of the Biomedical
Library, and Rahn Huber joined the tour of the Peabody Library.
Committee
Meetings and Other Activities:
Writing annual performance evaluations and self-evaluations, followed by meetings
between David and each reference staff member, took a considerable amount of
time.
Sue Erickson met with Tony Brown (Sociology) to locate survey items for the Nashville Survey Research Taskforce and with Mary Dietrich (School of Nursing) regarding data consultation.
David met with John Haar and a furniture designer to discuss selecting a new reference desk.
Meetings, Conferences, Training
Mary Beth Blalock; ERMS Project Team meeting; Verde demo.
Melinda Brown: Central Unit Heads meeting.
Peter Brush: Reference and Instruction Forum; Central Homepage Committee meeting; ISI Web of Knowledge demo; Verde demo.
Sara Byrd: Primo Usability Testing Group meeting; Central Homepage Committee meeting; Coffee and donuts session; Verde demo; Second Life webcast; ISI Web of Knowledge demo; Peepapalooza.
David Carpenter: Digital Library Steering Committee meetings; Primo GetIt! Committee meeting; Primo TestIt meeting; Coffee and donuts session; Central Unit Heads meeting; Second Life webcast; ISI Web of Knowledge demo.
Paula Covington: Reference and Instruction Forum; Forum on Health Care Resources.
Sue Erickson: Reference and Instruction Forum; Primo Normalization Team meeting.
Bryan Kurowski: Primo Usability Testing Group meeting; Technology Support Coordinators meeting; ERMS Project Team meeting; Verde demo.
Matt McKee: Faculty Delivery Project Team meeting.
Ramona Romero: Reference and Instruction Forum.
Amy Stewart-Mailhiot: Central Unit Heads meeting.
Janet Thomason: Central Director Search Committee meeting; Spring Staff Event Planning Committee meetings.
Daisy Whitten: Technology Support Coordinators meeting; Staff Development Committee meetings.
Robert Wright: Technology Support Coordinators meeting.