Stack
Maintenance
Students continued working on sorting, shelving and finishing up shelf reading
projects. Have been busy with plenty of work since coming back from the October
Break. It seems there have been more books to sort and shelve since then.
6 carts were sent to the Annex
Jim Toplon and Jo put together a Dessert/Info session for the Vanderbilt Community Giving Campaign on October 18th. Jo created the little slide show that was sent out in the email inviting people and she had a lot of fun doing that. OUL supplied cookies for dessert and VCGC sent over a representative to answer questions etc. Jo spearheaded the organizing of the annual Halloween Bash. It was really tough getting a response/feedback out of people, and the event was almost cancelled but it turned out pretty well. Thanks to Sharon for helping get some of the prizes donated.
Now we are gearing up for November and getting ready for the onslaught of books.
Reserve
For the month of October, reserves continued to trickle in. As for E-Reserve,
2 more professors decided to give it a try and a few articles and exams have
been scanned. LaRentina is now beginning the process of sending out the letters
requesting Spring 2003 reserves.
Periodicals
214 titles were sent to bindery this month. The task of checking periodical
call labels on the bound journals & reapplying new labels to worn /unreadable
labels in the 6th floor stacks has been completed. This task was done primarily
by students. Sharon helped Jo this year, as in the past, orchestrate the Halloween
party. Sharon & Jo went to neighboring establishments for "prize"
donations for the party. Sharon has been collecting Spanish newspapers and journals
to donate to Professor Chastain from Kentucky who is in the process of writing
a book. A circulation procedure was developed for circulating unbound journals
should a request be submitted which cannot be accommodated in house. The Yale
Literary Magazine was approved for annex transfer and was sent this month.
Circulation
Circulation activity is beginning to peak. October is traditionally a busy month
in Circulation. The fall break in October proved easy for Yolanda to staff with
student help. Several students stayed on campus and wanted to work so that was
extremely helpful. Yolanda is now preparing the fall break and Christmas break
work schedules. Overall we are quite pleased with our new crop of student workers.
October 3 was the Heard Library Awards Reception. Daisy and Yolanda were honored
with 15 and 10 years respectively of Library service. On Oct. 8, Robert and
Daisy attended the monthly Technology Support meeting. On Oct. 9, Janet met
with Roberta Winjum, Zora Breeding and Anne Martin to discuss the proliferation
of item types and to organize a plan to reduce the number and make them more
meaningful to users when trying to do keyword searches. A Task Force has been
selected from within CAG and CAAG to look into this. On Oct. 10, Daisy and Janet
attended a CAG meeting. Janet continues to chair this group for this academic
year. Daisy agreed to write up procedures for transmitting student accounts
and these have been posted on the CAG website for all Heard Library Circulation
staff. Additionally, the vendacard tax tables she prepared have also been posted
to the CAG website.
A circulation staff meeting was held on Oct. 15. Debra Stephens again volunteered her time to supervise the circulation desk while we were meeting.
Janet participated in the interviews for the Circulation Supervisor position in the Management Library over several days this month. On Oct. 17, Janet demonstrated Sirsi to Circulation staff from Belmont University who are in the process of selecting a new Library Software System.
On Oct. 22, Janet attended another cooperative use meeting with VU and Fisk at VU this time. The meeting was held in the Goldberg Room and we further defined the arrangements that needed to be made to begin borrowing.
Janet, Daisy and Yolanda attended the Central Staff Forum on Thursday, Oct. 24.
On Oct. 29, Daisy met with Elaine Goleski and Debra Stephens to develop a student worker recognition program.
On Oct. 30, Robert met with the newly formed task force to look at our current web request forms and to explore what's out there that could improve functionality and user friendliness. Suellen Stringer-Hye is chairing that subcommittee.
Electronic Resources:
The Electronic Resource Committee met on October 9th and 23th. The committee
approved the acquisition of four new databases including African American
Newspapers: The 19th Century, American Bibliography of Slavic and East
European Studies, SYBWorld, and the Tennessean (Gale). Associations
Unlimited was also recommended for purchase. Since this database has wide-campus
appeal, it is being funded by the Heard Library Shared Electronic fund. Due
to the content cost ($46,000) and lack of strong faculty support, the purchase
of Digitale Bibliothek Deutscher Klasseker was not approved. Tennessee
Encyclopedia of History and Culture, a free database, was approved for inclusion
as one of our Research Databases. A trial of Gale's Literature Resource Center
including MLA was approved. The Committee felt that Kiplinger Finance
& Forecasts database was more in scope for the Management Library and
did not approve a trial for Central.
Central purchased the content of the Witchcraft database some time ago. When the vendor decided not to support the database, we gained the data but not the search interface. Dale Poulter and Michael Martin have been working to create a search interface and met with Peter Brush, Melinda Brown, David Carpenter, Ann Womack, and Mary Beth Blalock to discuss the first "trial" interface and to identify enhancements. Creating the interface has been very problematic for various reasons but Dale and Michael are continue their efforts to create an effective interface.
Sue Erickson, who is now responsible for data services, ordered the Current Population Studies Utilities CD-ROM from Unicon. This product facilitates time series analysis of these large data sets.
Special Acquisitions
Proposals:
Janice Adlington, Peter Brush, Paula Covington, and Sue Erickson submitted titles
to be included in the Heard Library's proposal for special funding from VLEF
or Friends of the Library.
Blackwell Approval
Plan:
On October 30, Mary Beth Blalock met with John Laraway (Blackwell Representative),
Mary Ellen Wilson, and Monica Sanchez to discuss approval profile issues relating
to Economics and Psychology as well as the "treatment" of award winning
titles within our subject areas.
Instruction:
Dale Manning and Larry Romans conducted a bibliographic instruction session
for Prof. Lynn Clarke's Communication Studies class. (Prof. Clarke is a new
faculty member).
Paula continued teaching
the LAS 290 Research Methods class. She also taught a session on primary sources
for a class in Latin American Colonial History (Dean Landers).
Outreach:
Dale Manning met with two new faculty members-Brad Vivian (Communication Studies)
and Jonathan Lamb (English)--to orient them to the Library, Acorn and other
electronic resources as well as his role as it relates to their research and
curricular activities.
Paula Covington wrote the
library component for the Center for Latin American Studies grant proposal to
the Department of Education in support of fellowships (3 years).
Departmental Meeting:
The monthly Bibliographers' meeting was held on October 16th in the Goldberg
Room. Larry Romans gave a brief overview of the activities of GODART (TLA's
Government Documents Round Table) and the results of the October meeting held
here at Vanderbilt. Next, discussion focused on the renewal options for journals
published by Blackwell and Central's decision to renew online access and to
cancel the print subscription. As a follow-up to the discussion at the September
meeting relating to the first phase of the Reduction Inventory Project, lists
based on subject area responsibilities were distributed to bibliographers for
review and cataloging decisions.
Transfer Project:
Janice Adlington met with Carter Philips of the Classics Department to discuss
the Annex Transfer Project. Faculty expressed an interest in being actively
involved in the selection of titles when the project was first announced and
want to review the lists of potential transfers. Selection for the PA call number
range is well underway.
Reduction Inventory
Project:
Most of the bibliographers have made cataloging decisions for the titles assigned
to their subject areas. Decisions for 547 titles have been forwarded to Peggy
Earheart, Library Annex. Approximately 40 titles will be pulled each week and
sent to the Cataloging Team for processing. Once this first phase (cataloging
of titles that now have LC records) is completed, we will be exploring options
for phases two and three.
Gifts:
Julie received 200 titles this month and sent 64 titles to Resource Services
for processing for the collection.
Committee and Other
Activities:
Paula Covington attended several Residential College Committee meetings, the
Library Staff Forum, and Central Library Staff Forum.
Sue Erickson met with David Carpenter and Pete Wilson to discuss procedures and priorities for the codebooks collection.
Julie Loder attended a Technical Support Coordinators meeting, Library Staff Forum, Central Library Staff Forum, and the Library Service Awards Reception.
Dale Manning attended the Library Staff Forum on Digitization, Library Service Awards Reception, and numerous sessions of the Southern Festival of Books.
Susan Widmer attended a demonstration of Country Analysis, a new LexisNexis database as well as the Central Library Staff Forum on Oct. 24. She also toured the Law Library.
Mary Beth Blalock met Peter
Brush and David Carpenter in late October to discuss the final revision of CD-ROM
Procedures for Central. She also met with Larry Romans and Nancy Boggess-Korekach
on Oct. 3 to discuss the creation of two new CD-ROM holding codes for Government
Information. Other activities included an online demonstration of two new LexisNexis
databases, SDCC meeting, Library Staff Forum on Digitization, Library Service
Awards Reception, and other standing meetings.
Government Information (Larry Romans)
On October 4, Government Information Services sponsored the annual meeting of the Tennessee Government Documents Round Table (GODORT). Twenty people from Kingsport to Memphis attended. The group discussed its shared regional responsibilities, in which five libraries have agreed to be responsible for collecting publications from particular government agencies. Vanderbilt Central and Law Libraries agreed to add responsibility for Js (Dept. of Justice) and JUs (the Judiciary).
After a buffet lunch at Richland Place (arranged by Jean Wright), the group discussed discard lists and which classification system each depository used. After that, we toured the Annex to observe how the documents that the other depositories send to Vanderbilt are processed and housed.
This month we completed a list of congressional committee hearings we are requesting from the Memphis Shelby County Public Library. They will become part of our shared regional holdings. These hearings, primarily from 1950 through 1990, will fill gaps and duplicate microprint copies in our collection.
Gretchen Dodge attended the Library Information Technology Support Coordinators meeting on October 8. She recorded the minutes of the October Central Staff Forum meeting.
Nancy Dolinger checked in materials coming from the Government Printing Office, worked on finding missing issues for binding, and helped Chris Benda and Jean Wright correct item records.
Larry Romans gave a library session with Dale Manning – CMST115W – Rhetoric and Reason in Sex Controversies (14 undergrads). He created a new webpage on Sex Controversies, which can be accessed through the Public Policy webpage. He also completely reworked the Elections page (in time for the Nov. elections).
Kay Pothisiri set-up a database for Government Information web sites and created a form for individual records to add to the database. It has continued to evolve as we enter data and fine-tune the form. Over 500 records for individual web sites have been added to the database, which we expect to go live by the end of the semester.
We have worked with VIPPS on Census projects, most notably updating the Census webpage and adding new tables for Davidson County. David Royal and Peter Humke are working on revising the web page and on finding a way for users to create the tables themselves.
Two of our students, Nathan Alderson and Alex Dorisca, have already quit to pursue their studies. We have hired David Royal, a grad student,and Mark Kirkland, an undergraduate, both of whom have considerable computer skills.
The Media Center had a fairly busy month. We saw heavy usage of reserve slides and a continued increase in the number of patrons asking reference questions. The computer room also continues to demand more attention from Media Center staff (as well as from NETFIX). The Media Center received 29 new videos in October.
Carrie Sprouse has finished relabeling a number of damaged microfilm boxes. She is now in the process of replacing the old handwritten labels on the microfilm cabinets with more legible and accurate printed labels.
The Media Center's classroom has had several improvements. The room's computer terminal is now located in a new podium, which will allow teachers and presenters to control computer presentations from a more convenient location than in the past.
In October the printers in the computer room made 37,144 copies, using about 74 reams of paper. This is just over 3 times the 24 reams used in October of last year. Use of paper by the Media Center printers remained constant at 5 reams in October of this year and 5 last year.
Tour of Law Library
In response to David Carpenter's request, Martin Cerjan offered a tour of the
Law Library for some Central Library reference librarians on October 10th. This
was one of the last remaining activities to support Susan Widmer's orientation
to the Heard Library divisional libraries. David and Janice Adlington also took
advantage of this opportunity to learn more about the Law Library. Martin provided
a very interesting and informative tour of not only the Law Library, but also
parts of the Law School as well. We learned a great deal about both--especially
the collections of the Law Library. We appreciate Martin taking time from his
very busy schedule to provide the tour for us. (Thanks again, Martin!)
Central Instruction (Melinda Brown)
October instruction followed the typical fall semester pattern with a decline
in instruction sessions. Overall, 210 students attended library sessions held
for eight classes. Classes included: Principles of Experimental Design, Social
Behavior of Non-Human Primates, Seminar in Latin American History, American
Civilization since 1877, Perspectives of Women in the World, Rhetoric and Reason
in Sex Controversies, and others.
Further Instruction
Notes
Larry Romans and Dale Manning conducted a joint instruction session for a Communication
Studies 115w class on Oct. 1, for Prof. Lynn Clarke, a new member of that dept.
Dale also conducted orientation to the library meetings with two other new faculty
member in October--Prof. Brad Vivian of Communication Studies and Prof. Jonathan
Lamb of the English Department.
Sue Erickson provided bibliographic instruction for Prof. Paula Tomczak's Social Behavior of Non-Human Primates class. She presented the Zoological Record database in addition to Anthropological Literature, Acorn, and other library resources.
Janice Adlington gave instruction on using PsycINFO to a class of 91 undergraduates in Psychology 208, Principles of Experimental Design. As usual, the class was held in Wilson Hall.
Peter Brush taught the American Civilization Since 1877 instruction session. He also taught a library instruction session for the class Women's Experience in America, Colonial times to Civil War. In addition, Peter assisted a student who needed to interview a military veteran for an oral history project in a folklore class.
Usability Testing
of the Heard Library Webpage
Janice Adlington participated in completing the fall round of usability testing
on the Heard Web page. Six undergraduates and two graduate students took part
in the study. The results of this testing have been distributed to the Heard
Web Group and the ISAG Web-based Instructional Support (How Do I?) subcommittee.
The discussion of the implications of this usability testing is just beginning.
Other Activities,
Meetings or Accomplishments
Sue Erickson and David Carpenter each met separately with an undergraduate student
who was working on a project for an anthropology class. He had interviewed freshman
to find out about their perceptions of the library and wanted to interview a
few library staff members to find out what services we felt that we offered
for first year students. Sue asked the student to send her a copy of his final
paper.
On October 15th, Sue Erickson and David Carpenter met with Jane Thomas and another librarian from Belmont University, who are considering SIRSI for their LMS vendor. Sue and David provided information about the Vanderbilt's decision to move to SIRSI iLink, and the development process this entailed.
Melinda Brown sat in on one of the Web Task Force's usability testing sessions. She also attended the first Residential College Academic Services meeting.
Sue Erickson and David Carpenter met with Pete Wilson to discuss procedures and priorities for the ICPSR codebooks collection, as Sue assumes her new "data services" responsibilities. (David formerly had this responsibility.) Also in support of her new data responsibilities, Sue, with approval from Mary Beth, ordered the Current Population Studies Utilities CD-ROM from Unicorn. This product facilitates time series analysis of the large C.P.S. data sets.
David, Peter, Melinda, Janice and Mary Beth Blalock met with Dale Poulter and Michael Martin (LITS) to view progress on, and to suggest enhancements toward, the development of a new search interface for our Witchcraft database. Our library has rights to the content of this database, which we purchased, but the publisher no longer provides a search interface for it.
Sue met with June MacNeil, campus ergonomics specialist, who will be sending her recommendations to us for modifications to the reference desk area. (David had also planned to meet with Ms. MacNeil, but was ill that afternoon and had to leave work early.)
Sue, Janice and other colleagues attended the Library Service Awards Reception on Oct. 3rd.
Janice and Carlin Sappenfield represented the libraries at the Freshman Family Weekend on October 12th.
David, Janice and other colleagues attended the Library Staff Forum on digital initiatives.
On October 30th, David, Peter and Mary Beth Blalock met to discuss the final draft of a set of detailed procedures for the ordering, processing, cataloging and providing of access to CD-ROMs. Mary Beth, Peter and David have met a number of times of the past few months to work on the development of the CD-ROM procedures for Central Library.
David finished his review of books within the AY call number area of the stacks in support of the library's continuing Transfer Project. (Many of the titles in the AY section were at one time housed in the reference collection.)