Statistics
Circulation:
8,205 charges
10,581 online renewals
311 laptop charges
245 reserves charges
17,981 books discharged
20,617
books shelved
877 bound periodicals shelved
940 unbound periodicals shelved
427 newspapers shelved
Web:
202,206 hits; 30,139 visitor sessions
Reference:
816 questions
639 (78%) at Reference desk
124 (15%) by e-mail
53 (7%) by telephone
Microform
Media Center:
210
charges
92
reference questions
Government Information:
100 reference questions
General
Renovation:
Paul Gherman and John Haar met with Arts & Science Dean Richard McCarty and Associate Dean George Sweeney to present architects' plans for the renovation of the Central lobby, Circulation office, and reference room. We also toured the areas proposed for renovation.
OAK:
John invited humanities and social sciences faculty to contact bibliographers for assistance in embedding links to library resources in their OAK courses. Bibilographers will follow up with further encouragement when spring semester classes begin.
Circulation (Janet Thomason)
Stacks
Maintenance:
Our primary activity was sorting and shelving, and all the hard work paid off.
By the end of December we had everything sorted and were working on shelving.
We thus worked through the end-of-semester rush at a faster rate than in previous
years. We hired three students to work in shelving during the break.
Thanks to everyone who worked so hard. We
are looking forward to the new semester, picking up the annex transfer project,
and getting shifting projects underway once again.
We sent 14 trucks to the Annex. Janet pulled most of the books for transfer, while the students and maintenance staff concentrated on sorting and shelving.
Circulation:
As usual circulation activity increased tremendously as the end of the semester
approached. Greg Weldy sorted the books from the Carmichael book return in the
mailroom and brought Central books to us for discharge rather than delivering
all books to Science & Engineering for sorting. Greg did a great job in
accurately sorting the material, and Science was spared the task of sorting
and discharging Central books.
While working on Annex transfers, Janet found a large set of Voltaire's works with mold on the bindings. Some volumes had mold on the inside as well. There seems to be no explanation for this breakout since the materials had never circulated. Sue Davis and Charlotte Lew came to the rescue and treated the volumes that could be cleaned and restored.
During the week of final exams, Circulation, Maintenance and Reserve Room staff brought in snacks for the student workers. It served as a morale booster for staff as well since we were all working so hard with the incoming materials.
Jo Bilyeu suggested that Circulation staff pick angels from the Salvation Army angel tree and give presents to the angels this year in lieu of present exchange with each other. Everyone thought this was a great idea. Rachel Gray brought in several "forgotten" angels that were sponsored through her husband's work. The staff in Circulation, staff from Janet's husband's company, and several other library employees and student workers adopted 18 forgotten angels, and we provided them with 96 gifts! What a great outpouring of care and concern by the library staff for those less fortunate.
Lots of staff took time off during the Christmas break period. Several additional staff were out on Dec. 23 due to weather problems. With the impending ice storm, Janet spent the night in the Hampton Inn so that she could be here to open the Library. It was definitely run by a skeleton crew on that day.
Meetings and other events: Central Unit Heads, Central Renovation Team (Janet); CAG (Daisy Whitten); Central Staff Forum and Library Holiday Party (many staff members). Janet attended a CAG circulation training meeting on Dec. 20. She serves on the committee charged with planning training for all circulation staff. The upcoming training in January will be a reports training segment.
Reserves:
LaRentina Gray received
several lists for spring semester and begin processing them immediately after
Thanksgiving. A couple of courses included extremely large requests for ereserves
and took many days of processing and linking. One professor's syllabus was over
20 pages full of citations for readings to be linked or scanned. In total, we
received 30 requests for ereserves and 21 requests for manual reserves by Dec.
31. It is still early, though past the deadline date set for spring semester,
so we are sure many more lists will trickle in.
Several problems developed in trying to dismantle manual reserves electronically. The hand-held scanner provided by LITS had a virus and did not work. Central borrowed Divinity's scanner and, with their help, was finally able to complete the dismantling successfully. LaRentina received training in the Microform Media Center so that she could train her students to provide backup service.
Periodicals:
Rachel sent 112 periodicals to the bindery. She met with David Anderson to receive
further training in the MMC. On Dec. 15 she covered the MMC from 9-12 because
Peter Brush had to work the reference desk in the evening.
Collection Development (Mary Beth Blalock)
Electronic
Resources:
The Electronic Resources Committee met on Dec. 1 and 8 due to the Thanksgiving
and Christmas holidays. The committee approved three databases--Central and
Eastern European Online Library (second trial), Daily Life Online,
and Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals, Series II--
for trials. We also approved the purchase of perpetual access to Historic
Documents Online (CQ Press) and Austen: Works and Letters as
well as a subscription to History
of Science, Technology & Medicine.
Discussion regarding the U. S. Congressional Serial Set continued; we reached a decision to acquire the Readex version when funds are available. Since this is an extensive and thus expensive database, we could not purchase the entire set before the end of December. However, after talking again with the Readex representative about other options, we purchased the Pre-Civil War Years. We approved another expensive database, Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker for purchase when funding is available. This database, along with the Eighteenth Century Collection and the remainder of the U. S. Congressional Serial Set, are "on hold"
The committee did not approve Consulta and Empire On-Line for purchase; we deferred a trial of Defining Gender, 1450-1910 for a year to allow the content to increase before we review. Due to serious concerns from faculty members in the Art and Art History Department about content and lack of interoperability of ARTstor, we deferred a decision. We will review ARTstor again in one year to see if our major concerns have been addressed, and we will explore other image databases that might meet the needs of the Art and Art History faculty and our other users.
Sue Erickson and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot joined us on Dec. 8 for a discussion of the ERSI software since they are active members of the Heard GIS group discussing GIS resources and access to these resources. After reviewing several comments from campus regarding the lack of feasibility for the University to purchase a campus-wide site license and hearing support from Sue and Amy for the Central Library to have access to the software, we approved the purchase of one license. Sue and Amy will explore the software and its usefulness to our users and make a recommendation regarding the need for additional licenses for Central's public workstations.
Outreach:
Dale Manning and Paula Covington gave a library orientation to Professor Vera
Kutzinski, the new Director of the Center
for the Americas. Professor Kutzinski is also a member of the English faculty.
Yvonne Boyer met with Professor Pat Ward, Associate Dean Carolyn Dever, and Professor Charles LaPorte regarding the Bandy Center.
Film order requests were heavy in December. Dale Manning filled requests from Professors Girgus, Akers, and Young as well as subject-related film requests from Professor Hallquist.
Gifts:
Yvonne retrieved the last of the Luigi Monga gift books. She also continued
processing the Morris Wachs Collection.
Projects:
Susan Widmer revised and updated the subject guides for German
Language & Literature and Russian
& Slavic Languages and Literature. She also edited and enhanced the
German page by fixing broken links, adding links to new digital newspapers,
periodicals and texts projects in Germany, and creating a new section called
"Dictionaries,
Encyclopedias, and Other Reference Sources".
Janice Adlington compared the print and online usage statistics for netLibrary psychology titles.
Yvonne continued working on the new W.T. Bandy Center website with LITS. She also met with Dale Poulter to discuss the Gilbert Sigaux revisions.
Committee
and Other Activities:
Susan Widmer attended a CAAG meeting as well as other standing meetings.
Mary Beth, as a member of the CDAG, met with John Haar and Carlin Sappenfield to discuss the outcome and a decision for Scopus. Since the cost of Scopus would mean choosing between the Web of Knowledge and Scopus, there was not enough interest from the Heard Libraries to subscribe to the software.
Mary Beth also attended
four PERC meetings. Recommendations from the group will soon be presented to
LMC.
Microform and Media Center (Peter Brush)
December saw the departure of long-time Microform and Media Center Assistant David Anderson. We wish him well in his new position as Library Director in Crossett, Arkansas (elevation: 160 feet; population: 6,097). Jim Toplon and Peter Brush interviewed candidates for this position. The successful candidate, Rachael Bankes, began work on January 4. Please make her feel welcome. Nancy Dolinger of Government Information will begin staffing our service desk in January.
Patron activity was slow at the beginning of the month. Next came lots of activity with the approach of finals and the end of the semester, then a reduction as most students headed home for the holidays. All MMC staff were thrilled that a graph of this activity produced a most winsome bell curve. We celebrated by clearing our reserve shelves.
Reference (David Carpenter)
Instruction
Report (Melinda Brown, Instruction Coordinator):
Melinda met with the
Central Library unit heads to discuss the design for the new Central Library
bookmarks (which are currently available), and also the policy on faculty use
of the electronic classroom. The group discussed what issues might arise with
the e-classroom (access, help, etc.) if the proposed renovations to Central
Library occur. No changes were made to the current policy.
Melinda met with John Haar and Associate Dean Kate Daniels to discuss the new Arts & Science Writing Center, and a possible library/Writing Center collaboration. The possibility of locating the Center in the library was also discussed.
Melinda designed a new Resources for Faculty Using Library Resources in OAK or Course Web-Pages webpage for faculty to help those who might want to incorporate library electronic resources in their OAK and course web pages.
Sue Erickson gave Monica Casper, the new director of Women's Studies, an orientation to library resources for sociology. Sue also provided a faculty research consultation session and met with two Nursing students who wanted help in searching Acorn, Sociological Abstracts and other databases.
As is typical, we offered no group instruction sessions in December, as classes ended early in the month.
Resources
for Alumni & Friends Web Page:
A new Resources
for Alumni & Friends Web page is now available. It lists only the free
databases from our Heard
Library Articles & Databases list. This grouping of database links will
be very helpful in directing Vanderbilt alumni, and some non-Vanderbilt affiliated
individuals, to databases not restricted by subscription contracts to Vanderbilt-affiliated
individuals only.
Thanks to Janice Adlington for her design work on this new webpage, as well as to LITS staff, including Jody and Suellen, who figured out how to make it work--and to Melinda, who proposed such a page in a Reference meeting earlier this fall. John Haar, the Web Task Force and Electronic Resources Committee members also played a role in approving the creation and format for this new webpage.
Additional
Activities, Meetings, Training Opportunities or Accomplishments:
David met with Amy
Stewart-Mailhiot to continue her reference training.
Dale Manning, Sue Erickson and David Carpenter (Central Reference members of the Central Library Renovation Group), met on Dec. 17 with the other members of this group to review the cost estimate for the proposed renovation and to make sure the master plan developed by the architects was consistent with what we wanted and had specified for the project.
David met with Janice Adlington to discuss the status of the Virtual Career Library project.
Sue attended two meetings as a member of the search committee for the Law reference librarian position. Mary Miles Prince provided a tour of the Law Library for Sue.
David and Peter represented the Central Library at a meeting of the Pay-For-Print group (led by Bill Hook).
Sue Erickson attended a student paper presentation based on research for which she had been consulted.
David convened and chaired a meeting of the ISAG Cooperative and Virtual Reference Services Subcommittee. The group is currently re-examining the question of whether or not the Heard Libraries should participate in the collaborative chat reference service named Ask-a-Librarian supported by ASERL.
David participated in a meeting of the Information Commons group at the Center for Teaching. This group is examining the design and services now offered at information commons at a wide range of colleges and universities in order to propose such a facility for the General Library Building. (This would not be the first information commons at Vanderbilt, as the Peabody Library already has one.)
Sue Erickson attended an Electronic Resources Committee meeting to discuss the ESRI GIS and mapping software. She attended a meeting of the newly created Heard GIS group.
David and Sue stuck colorful stickers on all the Reference area workstations to designate which computers provide access to MS Office software and which do not. Sue and David had worked together in November to design the new labels.
We were pleased to get special acquisitions funding to support the purchase of the reference work Encyclopedia of Social Measurement. Thanks to Sue Erickson for submitting a request requesting funding for this important new acquisition for Reference.
Committee
or Other Regularly Scheduled Meetings Attended:
Central Reference
librarians attended various other regular departmental, staff, and task force
meetings during the past month. 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, Information
Commons Working Group, Information Services Advisory Group, Electronic Resources
Committee, ISAG Web-based Instructional Support Subcommittee, Technology Support
Coordinators, Central Library Staff Forum, SFX Implementation Group, ERL Migration
Group and Central Library Unit Heads.