Statistics
Access:
25,186
total entrances
14,484 undergraduates
6,733 graduate students
2,044 faculty/staff
1,247 alumni,faculty/staff/student family members
678 Fisk, Sewanee, library use cards
Circulation:
11,714 charges/renewals at circulation desk
11,948 online renewals
288 laptop charges
304 reserves charges/renewals
12,032 books discharged
9,483
books shelved
728 bound periodicals shelved
1,019 unbound periodicals shelved
374 newspapers shelved
Reference:
1,236 questions
965 (78%) at Reference desk
150 (12%) by e-mail
121 (10%) by telephone
Microform
Media Center:
94
reference questions
Government
Information:
129 reference questions
Bandy Center
The Center hosted a reception for Emeritus Professor James Patty to recognize the publication of his latest book, Salvator Rosa in French Literature: From the Bizarre to the Sublime.
Circulation (Janet Thomason)
Circulation:
Janet attended the Unicorn User's Group Feb. 27-Mar. 2. She also provided technical assistance to the Music Library while their circulation supervisor position was vacant. She met with the CAG training subcommittee on Mar. 29. She spent quite a bit of time working on withdrawals of LP recordings and other items. We withdrew 165 LPs.
Daisy Whitten attended the Tech Support Coordinators meeting and the ACTF meetings.
Circulation assisted SGA and InterHall by loaning them laptops on several different occasions over a two week period.
Periodicals:
Rachel Gray sent 242 periodicals to the bindery. She worked on weeding duplicate journals and continued shifting.
Stacks Maintenance:
We continued shifting in the HD's to make space to forward shift the HM's and HN's, relieving crowding in the HQ's. We spent 62.2 hours shifting books. Students worked on getting the sorting and shelving caught up and will then resume shifting.
Reserves:
LaRentina began working on letters to faculty requesting Fall 2005 reserves. She hopes to have letters ready in April. Materials continue to trickle in for print reserves (we have processed a total of 75 print reserve lists). No new electronic reserve courses have been added.
Collection Development (Mary Beth Blalock)
Electronic
Resources:
The Electronic Resources Committee met on Mar. 9 and 23 to discuss new databases
and other electronic resources. We approved trials for PsycEXTRA, International
Bibliography of the Social Sciences (CSA and Ovid), MLA International
(EBSCO and FirstSearch), and North American Theatre Online. We approved
a subscription to Book Review Index and the purchase of the Waterloo
Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals. We also approved adding
two free resources--Index
Translationum and NYPL
Digital Gallary--to the Articles & Databases page. The Committee
also discussed the availability of the Social
Sciences Citation Index backfile but decided that our current coverage
(1990 forward) was sufficient.
Information
Alliance:
John Haar and Mary Beth Blalock joined representatives from UTK and UK on Friday,
Mar. 18 to discuss collaborative collection development possibilities. The group
discussed approval plans and saw a demonstration of OCLC's Collection Analysis
product. We are interested in subscribing to the product to determine overlap
and duplication as well as unique areas in the collections. We also briefly
discussed firm orders and the IA Serial Archive.
Outreach:
Susan Widmer gave a Library tour for a graduate candidate in German Studies.
Peter Brush introduced the library to a History Department faculty candidate.
Dale Manning met with Professor Chris Hassell to discuss his new book, Shakespeare's Religious Language, which will be a part of the Athlone Shakespeare Dictionary Series
Gifts:
Bryan Kurowski and Peter met with Scott Boorman, grandson of former faculty
member Howard Boorman, to discuss the donation of over three thousand books
from his collection, which focused on East Asian history and World War II; Special
Collections will receive Professor Boorman's papers. We will pick up the collection
and papers in April. We received thirty gift books in March.
Committee and Other Activities:
Bryan attended a Technology Support Coordinators meeting as well as a meeting of the Technology Training Coordinators. He also attended the "Teaching, Learning, & Research: Libraries and their Role in the Academic Institution" webcast.
In addition to the IA meeting, Mary Beth attended several meetings including the Virtual Career Library, SIRSI Electronic Management System, OCLC representatives, and Wiley representative.
Susan Widmer attended a CAAG meeting.
Several bibliographers participated in a web conference relating to Blackwell's Collection Manager for an introduction to new functions designed to assist with collaborative collection development.
Peter attended a Vietnam War Symposium at Texas Tech University, attended two OAK training sessions at ITS, and attended the webcast "Teaching, Learning, & Research: Libraries and Their Role in the Academic Institution."
Government Information (Larry Romans)
Amy Stewart-Mailhiot attended the supervisor evaluation training, GIS Taskforce, CAAG, and the Staff Forum. She also attended the Connexion training, which was about using the OCLC Passport replacement.
With the help of our student assistants, Amy continued work on reorganizing our hearings collections. This has involved pulling some items to send to the Annex, barcoding items, adding new items from other depositories, and checking lists of titles available from other depositories.
Larry worked with student assistants Mark Kirkland and Peter Humke on the Political Science database, which is close to being operational. Jason Battles (LITS) has been very responsive to our suggestions.
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 when she is able.
On a personal note: Nancy thanks everyone for their kindness during the past month. Nancy's mother was diagnosed with cancer, but by the end of the month things were looking more hopeful. Nancy truly appreciates everyone's kindness and compassion. She was reminded what a great group of people she has to work with.
Microform and Media Center (Peter Brush)
Activity was steady in the Media Center during the month of March. Nearly 250 students and faculty utilized our facilities to watch videos, keeping our student employees particularly busy in the afternoons. With final papers and projects soon due, students have also been making good use of the computer lab adjacent to the Media Center. As a result, stocking the computer lab printers with paper and toner has become an increasingly frequent task for Media Center employees.
In late March, Peg Earheart,
Rachael Bankes and Peter Brush met to discuss the logistics of our microfilm
shifting project. We all agreed that the summer would be the best time to undertake
a project of this scale, because activity in the Media Center tends to slow
down after the end of the regular academic year. Peg generously offered the
much-needed assistance of her staff in this shift, which means that we should
be able to complete the project within a relatively short timeframe. We will
be sending the majority of our New York Times, Washington Post,
and Chicago Tribune collections to the Annex. Patrons will still have
access to these titles through the ProQuest Historical Newspapers database,
which many patrons may find more convenient to use than the microfilm copies
once they become familiar with it.
Reference (David Carpenter)
Instruction
Report (Melinda Brown, Instruction Coordinator):
In March, Central
librarians offered 10 course related instruction sessions for 177 students.
These included:
ANTH 115 - Approaches to Migration (Foxen), Sue Erickson
CMST 115W - Reform and Revolution (Demo), Dale Manning and Melinda Brown
CMST 241 - Rhetoric of Mass Communication (Demo), Dale Manning and Melinda Brown
ECON 222 (2 sessions) - Latin American Economic Development (Andrade), Paula Covington, Sue Erickson, Larry Romans, Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, and Susan Widmer
ENGL 105W - Drama: Forms and Techniques (Clement), Dale Manning
HIST 115W - Priests, Proselytizers, and Popular Religion (Wright-Rios), Paula Covington
HIST 200 - History Workshop (Wcislo), Peter Brush
PSCI 228 - International Politics of Latin America (Azpuru), Paula Covington
SOC 212 - Research Practicum (C. Smith), Sue Erickson and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot
Additional
Instruction Related Activities:
Melinda--along with
Jennifer Hackett, Associate Director of the Women's Center, and Carrie Plummer,
Vanderbilt Nursing Practitioner Graduate Student--gave a presentation at the
Women and Power 2005 Conference at Middle Tennessee State University.
Their presentation was entitled "The Big 'O' and Other Kinds of Fun in
Bed: A Model for Constructing a Healthy Sexuality Program for Undergraduates."
Melinda met with Mark Dalhouse (Director of the Office of Active Citizenship and Service) to discuss instruction for the Global Citizenship freshman seminar cluster courses he is coordinating.
Paula Covington met with three potential graduate students in Spanish and anthropology as part of their campus visits.
Sue Erickson and Paula met with two candidates for a position in the Department of Anthropology.
Sue Erickson also offered research consultation for an anthropology undergraduate; data consultation (via email and in person) for Patty Lee (Eskind Biomedical Library) for searching ICPSR and downloading datasets for use in SPSS; and data consultation for a Department of Sociology graduate student.
David responded to a request for assistance from Martin Cerjan on Mar. 18 by preparing notes on potential reference resources of interest for a professor. The topic was a legal case involving slave ownership and the legal status of slaves in Virginia following stipulations in wills. David later referred the professor to Peter Brush, our specialist in history and African-American studies, for additional research advice.
Sue Erickson updated the Using World Development Indicators Database (WDI) guide. David then linked it as an instructional guide from the WDI's Heard Library Research Databases menu entry.
Additional Activities, Meetings,
Training Opportunities or Accomplishments:
Sue Erickson created and
installed a PowerPoint slideshow on the large monitor in the Central Library
Lobby to announce the upcoming library booksale and also added information about
the booksale to the What's New section of the Central Library website. She also
coordinated the creation of new directional signage for the stairwells.
Janice Adlington and David attended an ARL webcast on Mar. 1 entitled "Teaching, Learning, & Research: Libraries and Their Role in the Academic Institution. "
On Mar. 3 David attended a Performance Evaluation Training session for supervisors offered by Lisa Shipman.
David, Sue Erickson and Janice attended a live webcast on Mar. 10 featuring a real-time conversation between Clifford A. Lynch (Executive Director, Coalition for Networked Information) and Michael A. Keller (University Librarian, Director of Academic Information Resources, Publisher of HighWire Press, and Publisher of the Stanford University Press at Stanford University). Lynch and Keller discussed issues including: googlization, digital repositories, distance education, and privacy.
Sue Erickson, David and Janice attended a "Library as Place" webcast on Mar. 18.
David joined John Haar and Mary Beth Blalock to meet with two OCLC representatives on Mar. 23. In addition to learning about new OCLC products and initiatives, David welcomed the opportunity to pass along our concerns about, and suggestions for improvement to, the netLibrary interface.
Sue Erickson demonstrated the World Development Indicators database and the new ICPSR website at the Central Reference meeting on Mar. 22. Her colleagues found these two database demonstrations to be quite helpful.
On Mar. 28, David met with Mary Beth Blalock and Janet Thomason to discuss the possibility of generating a regular "multiple recalls" Acorn report displaying titles with multiple holds. Mary Beth, David and Janet agreed that such a report would be useful, and that in situations with multiple holds for a particular book, we should consider ordering an additional copy or copies to meet demand and improve service to patrons. Mary Beth will pursue the details of setting up the Acorn report and working out related procedures.
Sue and Janice attended an ExLibris "webinar" on metasearching on Mar. 29.
David attended a meeting of the Learning Commons/Shared Services Group on Mar. 31 along with Jonathan Blake (Office of Innovation Through Technology and Center for Teaching) and Jeff Johnston (Center for Teaching). The group decided to complete in April its report/preliminary proposal for a learning commons with shared services in the Central Library. The report will be presented to Paul Gherman, John Haar, Alison Pingree and Andy Stricker.
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 the meetings of the following groups:
Central Library Collection Development meeting
Central Library Reference meeting
Central Library Staff Forum - David and Janice
David and Melinda's monthly instruction meeting
Electronic Resources Committee (two meetings) - David and Janice
Heard Web Task Force - Janice
Journal Club - Janice
MetaLib Implementation Group (two meetings) - Janice
Technology Support Coordinators - Janice
Virtual Career Library Group - Janice