Monthly Report
September 2007

News

An Outstanding Month for Library Instruction!

Central librarians taught a truly impressive number of instruction sessions in September—a total of 43 sessions serving 749 participants.  These sessions were each tailored to offer recommended library resources and research strategies for an interesting mix of courses (including ANTH 115–Religion in Cross-Cultural Encounters, EAS 115–Self and Cyborg in Japanese Animation, LAW 919–Legal History of Race in the United States, and perennial core courses such as ECON 226–Economic History of the United States).  In addition, Central librarians and other staff either taught or assisted at 14 of the 20 Vanderbilt Visions sessions offered this same month.   

 

Commodore Award Nominee

Congratulations to Paula Covington for being a nominee for the 2007 Commodore Award.  We all know just how much Paula contributes to the library and the university as a whole, and hope she will be reconsidered for this award in the near future. 

 

Donation of Central Classroom Desks

With the arrival of our comfortable new classroom desks for the Central Classroom—with tops compatible with laptop use—we needed to find a home for the still quite serviceable old desks, as we did not want them to just be discarded.  Robyn Harris found a new home for them with the Nashville Alliance for Public Education (NAPE).  We received a nice thank you letter from the executive director or NAPE, expressing the organization’s appreciation for the classroom desks.  Thanks to Robyn for making this arrangement, and arranging for NAPE to pick up the desks from the library. 

 

Display Case Loaned

Paula Covington worked with Vanderbilt’s Center for Latin American Studies students, faculty, and staff to create an exhibit for the 60th anniversary of the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies (CLAIS), and the upcoming visit of the former President of Brazil.  David Carpenter agreed to approve the special loan one of Central Library’s very large display cases to the CLAIS for this event, and later agreed that the Center could keep the case for an addition two weeks to be used for a FIPSE conference (a conference of all the administrators at colleges and universities of the Brazilian exchange programs from US and Brazil (headed by Prof. Jane Landers).  Kathy Smith loaned two smaller display cases from Special Collections for these same events, and agreed to remove an exhibit from one of Central’s display cases to get it ready for its loan to CLAIS. 

 

Changes Preparing for New Use of 612B

David Carpenter helped to coordinate the dispersal of furniture and other items from GLB 612B, the former office for the Microform Media Center, so that the space could become Sue Erickson’s new office, as Director of System-wide Public Services.  The Management Library and Music Library each took two of the large video storage cabinets from 612B for use in those two libraries.  Wooden shelves holding a collection of government documents on offer to other libraries were moved down to the Blue Room.  Grateful thanks to Sue Davis and Roberta Winjum for allowing Central to use a space at the back of their bindery Blue Room space for the relocation of these shelves.  We appreciate the Government Information and Media Services staff’s willingness to agree to this relocation of these shelves.  A second set of shelves were relocated to the Central Library Blue Room space.  Thanks to Dewey James and Glenn Waters for disassembling the wooden shelves and reassembling them in their new locations.

 

Annex Storage Needs for Central Library

Responding to a request from Peg Earheart, David Carpenter collected information on the predicted storage needs for items to be transferred from Central Library to the Annex by the end of this fiscal year.  He worked with Janet Thomason, Mary Beth Blalock, and other colleagues to determine what volume of Annex transfers were most important and how many volumes could wait until additional storage becomes available later in 2008. 

 

Update on Searches for to Fill Central Library Positions

David Carpenter selected the remaining search committee member for the Bibliographer/Reference Library for Psychology and Sociology, with Prof. Gary Jensen (Chair of the Department of Sociology) agreeing to serve on this committee.  The initial deadline for submission of applications for the Head of Collection Development position is October 5th, with review of applications to begin the following week.

 

Statistics

GLB Access (includes Divinity Library)
65,481 entrances at Library Lawn (23% decrease from September 2006)
20,844 entrances at Breezeway
86,325 total entrances to the GLB

Circulation
7,778 total charges at circulation desk (13% decrease from September 2006)
90 renewals at circulation desk
765 charges at express check-out
7,576 online renewals (14% increase from September 2006)
355 laptop charges (14% increase from September 2006)
C0 laptop renewals
740 reserve charges (14% increase from September 2006)
11 reserve renewals
6430 items discharged (10% decrease from September 2006)
17,979 total items charged (3% increase from September 2006)
3,248 items received from other libraries (10% increase from September 2006)
699 holds placed (37% increase from September 2006)
267 searches for missing books (64% increase from September 2006)
35 bills created (3% increase from September 2006
10,886 books shelved (12% increase from September 2006)
697 bound periodicals shelved (37% increase from September 2006)
595 unbound periodicals shelved (1% increase from September 2006)
506 newspapers shelved (64% increase from September 2006)
13,262 total items shelved (19% increase from September 2006)
100 periodical volumes sent to the bindery
208 periodicals volumes returned from the bindery and prepared for shelving
16 boxes of microfilm received from bindery for GIMS
358 rush books processed (250% increase from September 2006)
22 book trucks sent to the Annex from stacks (200% decrease from September 2006)
65.9 hours spent shifting in stacks (64% decrease from September 2006)
0 sets of serials sent to the bindery

Reference
1038 (86%) questions received at Reference desk
98 (8%) by e-mail
68 (6%) by telephone
11 e-mail questions off-desk
6 “search” e-mail questions off-desk
3 phone or in person questions off-desk
4 consultation meetings with students doing in-depth research projects off-desk
1228 total reference transactions

Government Information/Media Services
654 total items charged (24% increase since September 2006)
578 items discharged
366 service activities/reference questions (183 reference questions and 183 video patrons)
250 video reserves processed
4 video reserve purchase requests submitted
 14 items sent to bindery
387 depository items processed
4 non-depository items processed
253 items re-shelved (33% decrease since September 2006)

Instruction
43 sessions for 749 participants!

 

Circulation (Janet Thomason)

Stacks Maintenance
Matt McKee trained 7 new student workers at the beginning of the month.  Kelly Lockaby trained 2 new student workers to handle periodicals duties.  Student workers Ryan Cook, Abhay Karandikar, Shahrul Ramli, and Joe Webster were assigned shifting projects on the fifth floor.  Dan Kuehn and Sunny Majumdar were assigned shifting projects on the eighth floor.  Jessica Bonds, Briannah Green, Stephanie Madden, and Moriah Scarbrough all spent time barcoding and logging periodicals being transferred to the Annex.  Matt, assisted by Bryan Kurowski, made room in the 8th stack grill for book sale items that Collection Development wishes to store.  Janet assisted Matt in preparing shelf reading assignments for the stacks workers as well as future assignments for other staff.  Matt took a couple days vacation at the end of the month.

 

Reserves
Print reserve materials continue to trickle in by adding to a course, so the overall total for Print reserves received is 76.  Nothing new has been added to E-Reserves.  Larentina is going to try emailing the professors to remind them she is still holding their materials they bought in for scanning and ask them to come and pick-up their materials.  Larentina is also working on clearing out wrongly formatted courses in Acorn that do not correspond to the formatting to the course pages on the web.

 

Circulation
September was a busy month as training continued on the 8 new students hired for the circulation desk.  Half are graduate students and half are undergraduates so we have a good mix.  The new self-check machine has been a huge hit!  Each month, the transactions seem to be doubling the previous month.  Reserve activity saw a 37% increase this month in print reserves usage so it is nice that the self-check machine is there to help those users with simple needs who want to get in and get out fast.  Laptop charges also saw a huge 45% increase.  These transactions are quite time consuming.

Janet continued to assist Matt with the shifting project on 8.  Daisy took a couple of day’s vacation this month.

 

Periodicals

248 duplicate issues were searched on the computer to see which ones could be sent to Absolute, and 2 boxes of duplicates were sent to Absolute.

 

Shelf reading was done in periodical stacks for call numbers BF21 -- F406.

 

Collection Development (Mary Beth Blalock)

 

Electronic Resources
The Electronic Resources Committee met on September 12th in the Bandy Center.  The purchase of the available back file of the online version of Argumenty i Fakty, a Russian newspaper, was approved as well as an annual subscription to keep the coverage up to date.  Several titles were approved for trials including ARTstor, Bertolt Brechts Werke, Colonial State Papers (1574-1757) and Oxford Language Dictionaries Online

 

Members of the Committee are Yvonne Boyer, David Carpenter, Bill Hook, Susan Widmer, and Mary Beth Blalock, chair.  We meet every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month from 2:00 to 3:00.  We welcome your suggestions of electronic resources you think should be added to our collection.

 

Outreach
Yvonne Boyer provided a new faculty orientation session for Professor Elsa Filsoa as well as an orientation and library tour for new French & Italian graduate students.  She also met with Frist curators for a library orientation session and tour as well as with English Department representatives regarding the Modernism & Global Tech Conference and the use of Bandy Center images.  Yvonne attended a lecture given by Professor Edward Ahearn (Brown University).

 

Peter Brush met with Ling Hom Lam, the new East Asian Studies professor.

 

Paula Covington worked on the exhibit for the 60th anniversary of the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies and the upcoming visit of the former President of Brazil.  She had several meetings with a graduate student who is working on the exhibit and with Special Collections staff to review archives.  She also met with the Center director regarding an upcoming conference and National Resource Center grant.  Paula is serving on the Center’s Steering Committee this year.

 

Deborah Lilton continued her efforts to build relationships with faculty, students, and administrative assistants in the English Department.  She visited the department from time to time and is currently working with administrative assistants Janis May and Sara Corbitt to choose a date for the new faculty orientation which will be held in Benson Hall.  She also attended a poetry reading sponsored by the English Department and the Black Cultural Center.  The event gave her an opportunity to meet faculty she had not been able to reach earlier. 

 

Susan Widmer met with a professor in the German Department to discuss collection development issues.

 

Ramona had a very busy month, with the following outreach meetings or sessions noted in addition to her other instruction related activities:  faculty orientation for Prof. Bronwen Wickkiser (Classics); Fall welcome party (Classics); Graduate orientation(Classics); AIA lecture at Parthenon(Classics); Graduate orientation/Phil 301; Faculty orientation for Prof. Lisa Guenther (Philosophy); Faculty orientation for Prof. Betsy Jelinek (Philosophy); Planning meeting with Prof. Jen Holt for FYWS-Compelling Power of the Undead (Philosophy); Introductory meeting with Prof. Idit Dobbs-Weinstein (Philosophy); and Graduate orientation/PSY 300.  Ramona also arranged for a Scholar's Card for use by the Classics department following meetings with David Carpenter and Yvonne Boyer.

 

Gifts

Bryan Kurowski received 117 gift items in September. 

 

Committee and Other Activities
Yvonne is a member of the Visual Resource Committee organized by the Department of the History of Art. 

 

As chair of the Bibliographer/Reference Librarian (Sociology/Psychology) Search Committee, Peter met with Lisa Shipman to review applications for the position.  He also attended Turning Point clicker training and participated in Vanderbilt Visions presentations.

 

Paula attended meetings of the Communications Committee, Steering Committee for the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies, and weekly meetings with co-teacher to discuss LAS 290.

 

Bryan spent much of his time this month training all of our new student assistants and working on special assignments as time allowed.  He also attended a meeting of the Electronic Resources Management Systems Project Team.

 

Deborah, along with Mary Conn, and Jean Wright, are library representatives for the University Giving Campaign this year.  She also participated in the Visions sessions.

 

Ramona Romero met with Sue Erickson to discuss the Anthropology Approval Profile preparing to assume collection development responsibilities for Anthropology.  She also attended the meeting with our new ProQuest-CSA representative.

 

Susan attended an ERC meeting as well as meetings of the Web Maintenance Team, Traffic & Parking Committee (Vanderbilt’s University Standing Committee), and the Vanderbilt Visions “debriefing meeting.”

 

Mary Beth attended meetings of the Electronic Resources Management Systems Project Team and the Collections Committee.  She also met with four vendor representatives including Barbara Parish (Gale), Matt Hershey (Gale Archive Collections), Erin Luckett (Readex), and Chako Morgan (ProQuest-CSA).

 

Government Information and Media Services (Larry Romans and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot)

Our new graduate and undergraduate student assistants received considerable training this month.  Brian Boling trained them on media circulation and assisting with reserve, as well as introducing them to the operation of microform equipment.  Teri Bante trained them on Sudocs and shelving; also trained some of them on processing depository items and non-depository microfiche.  Larry Romans and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot trained both new students and a couple of returning undergraduates on how to provide basic reference service.  Students had separate legislative and statistical sessions.  They are now answering sample questions from our file.

 

Teri created two Camtasia tutorials for student projects on the Marcive monthly load.  Brian learned how to update the online genre and language lists using Dreamweaver and revised these lists to include titles added in the previous months.  He also revised some of the Supervisor Manual, reported empty records on a Primo test search, and attended a CAC meeting.

 

Amy and Brian worked with the Copyright Clearance Services to obtain permission to place a dubbed videotape copy of "Gunsmoke Editing Film" on reserve for film studies faculty.

 

Teri worked on the student schedules for daytime and nights/weekends.  Teri processed UN items and updated holdings and cleaned up records for office/stacks tax publications.

 

Amy worked with David Carpenter, Sue Davis, and Dewey James to find a solution to storage for our needs and offers items.  With help of our student Graham Black, Teri re-located sixth floor offers to new space in the Blue Room.

 

Amy and Larry both participated in Vanderbilt Visions--in the training, the presentations, and the debriefing sessions.  Both applaud the program and Melinda Brown, but it sure involved a lot of energy.

 

Amy coordinated the printing and stuffing of the FYWS packets.  It was quite an undertaking and involved the great help of our student assistants.

 

Amy and Larry met with Sara Byrd and former student Peter Humke as we continue to improve the new Central web pages.  Sara and Larry have come up with a sample page for the subject guides.

 

Amy took a field trip with Sue Erickson to visit the Sociology faculty at Garland.  She continued receiving collection development training from Sue Erickson

 

Both Amy and Larry attended the Reference & Instruction Forum, Unit Heads, and Reference meetings

 

Amy continued to work with the Annex staff on the final clearing out of the Dewey Not-on-Acorn shelves.

 

Gina Strack, one of Amy's MLIS students from University of Washington, had her final paper for the course selected for inclusion in the student issue of the government documents journal, DttP!

 

Instruction (Melinda Brown)

In September, Central librarians presented a total of 43 course related sessions to 719 students and 26 instructors and Teaching Assistants:

AADS 115 – African American Women (Curwood), Peter Brush, 15 students.

AMER 115 – Food for thought (Kevra), Melinda Brown, 14 students and the professor.

ANTH 115 – Religion in Cross-Cultural Encounters (Wernke), Ramona Romero, 14 students and the professor.

ARTS 290 – Directed Study Senior Show (Rowe), Yvonne Boyer, 10 students.

CMST 100 – Public Speaking (English), Larry Romans and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, 18 students.

CMST 101 – Interpersonal Communication (Kenner), Sue Erickson, 22 students and the professor.

CMST 101 – Interpersonal Communication (Kenner), Sue Erickson 22, students and the professor.

CMST 100 – Public Speaking (Keltner), Larry Romans and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, 21 students and the professor.

CMST 100 – Public Speaking (Beasley), Larry Romans, 23 students and the professor.

CMST 100 – Public Speaking (English), Larry Romans and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, 22 students.

CMST 100 – Public Speaking (English), Larry Romans and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, 23 students.

DIV 4123 – Analyzing Religious Organizations (Reside), Amy Stewart-Mailhiot and Larry Romans, 8 students and the professor.

ECON 222 – Latin American Economic Development (Andrade), Paula Covington and Sue Widmer, 32 students and the professor.

ECON 222 – Latin American Economic Development (Andrade), Sue Widmer and Paula Covington, 22 students and the professor.

ECON 226 – Economic History of the United States (Atack), Sue Widmer, and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, 5 students.

ECON 226 – Economic History of the United States (Atack), Sue Widmer, and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, 11 students.

ECON 226 – Economic History of the United States (Canaday), Sue Widmer, and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, 22 students.

ECON 226 – Economic History of the United States (Camaday), Sue Widmer, and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, 16 students.

ECON 355 – Seminar on Economic Development (Andrade), Paula Covington, and Larry Romans, 11 students, and the professor.

EAS 115 – Self and Cyborg in Japanese Animation (Figal), Peter Brush, 12 students.

ENGL 115 – African American Literature on Film (Salvant), Deborah Lilton, 11 students.

FREN 115 – French Experience in America (Kevra), Yvonne Boyer, 15 students.

GER 115 – Representing the Holocaust (Figal), Sue Widmer, 13 students and the professor.

HIST 115 – Presidential Politics (Dalhouse), Peter Brush, 15 students.

HIST 295 – Caribbean Since 1945 (Robinson), Paula Covington, 20 students and the professor.

HUM 115 – Americans in Paris (Raycraft), Yvonne Boyer, 16 students.

LAW 919 – Legal History of Race in the United States (Sharfstein), Peter Brush, 11 students.

MLAS 290 – Gilded Age Chicago (Tichi), Deborah Lilton, 18 students and the professor.

PHIL 115 – Green Cities (Bremer), Ramona Romero and Melinda Brown, 15 students and the professor.

PHIL 301 – Teaching and Research Methods (Stuhr), Ramona Romero and Melinda Brown, 5 students and the professor.

PSCI 115 – Terrorism (Carroll), Larry Romans and Sara Byrd, 18 students and the professor.

PSCI 355 – Research Design (Tate), Larry Romans, 8 students, and the professor.

PSY 115 – Human Memory and the Brain (Zbrodoff), Ramona Romero, 10 students.

PSY 208 – Principals of Experimental Design (Palmeri), Ramona Romero, and David Carpenter, 75 students and two TAs.

PSY 300 – Research Seminar (Palmeri & Levin), Ramona Romero, 13 students and two professors.

RLST 115 – God, Sex, and the Earth (Welch), Melinda Brown, 15 students.

SPAN 202 – Spanish for Oral Communication (Olazagasti-Segovia), Paula Covington, 18 students and the professor.

SPAN 202 – Spanish for Oral Communication (Olazagasti-Segovia), Paula Covington, 18 students and the professor.

SOC 115 – Gangs and Gang Behavior (Ezell), Sue Erickson (Amy Stewart-Mailhiot observed), 15 students and the professor.

SOC 115 – The Sixties (Isaac), Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, 15 students.

THTR 115 – Trash or Treasure (Franck), Deborah Lilton and Melinda Brown, 14 students and the professor.

WGS 115 – Tales (Re)Told (Fesmire), Melinda Brown, 14 students and the professor.

WGS 290 – Senior Research Seminar (Casper), Melinda Brown, 4 students.

 

Additional instruction activities include the following:

Central librarians continued to meet with new A&S faculty.  Several also met with new graduate students as part of a graduate level class (listed above). 

Ramona Romero gave a new graduate student orientation for 4 Classics students.

Paula Covington continued to meet with her LAS 290 students.

 

September was extremely busy as Central staff also assisted with the development of the Vanderbilt Visions program and with presenting and/or assisting at 14 of the 20 Vanderbilt Visions sessions.  Along with our colleagues at ILL, OUL, Peabody, Management, Music, and Science & Engineering, the following Central staff contributed to the Vanderbilt Visions project: Johnnie Anthony, Teri Bante, Brian Boling, Yvonne Boyer, Melinda Brown, Peter Brush, Sara Byrd, David Carpenter, Paula Covington, Robyn Harris, Bryan Kurowski, Deborah Lilton, Larry Romans, Ramona Romero, Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, and Susan Widmer.

 

Deborah Lilton observed a unique FYWS in preparation for their library orientation this month---Worlds of Wordcraft taught by the Chair of the English Department and the Vice Chancellor of Information Technology.  She notes that Peter was a big help to her in showing Deborah how to prepare for an interdisciplinary graduate course taught by an English professor.

 

Reference (David Carpenter)

Training and Professional Development Activities

With David’s Carpenter approval, Sara Byrd will begin working an average of five hours per week in the Government Information and Media Services Department.  Larry Romans will arrange for Sara’s training and reorientation to government information (Sara worked in Government Information as a student assistant before going to library school at Indiana University.)  Sara was interested in pursuing this professional development opportunity, and it will benefit the Central Library to have her cross-trained to lend assistance in GIMS as needed, as well as sharing information about that department’s resources with her colleagues who staff the Central reference desk. 

 

Special Projects

Sara Byrd continued working with Dale Poulter to finish up the new CenRef blog.  Sara completed her work on the new CenRef homepage and made it "live."  It will now be the default homepage on our reference desk workstations.  (This is not a public webpage, but is designed for sharing information amongst the CenRef librarians.)  Sara also devoted time to attending several meetings with the Central Web Page group, to work toward the completion of newly revised webpages for Central Library.

 

Additional Meetings, Conferences, and Training Activities

Digital Library Steering Committee (09/04, 09/11, & 09/18) – David Carpenter

Meeting with A. Williams Co. Customer Representatives Regarding Changes to New Reference Desk (11/04) – David Carpenter

Central Library Unit Heads (09/04) – David Carpenter, Janet Thomason, Larry Romans, Mary Beth Blalock, and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot

Sirsi/Dynix web presentation: "How to Understand Your Library Users" (09/04) – Sara Byrd

SOLINET Sponsored Web presentation: "Librarian's Guide to eBooks" (09/05) – David Carpenter and Sara Byrd

Electronic Resources Committee (09/12) – Sue Widmer, Mary Beth Blalock, and David Carpenter

Meeting with OCLC Representatives About QuestionPoint (09/12) – David Carpenter

Web presentation: "Intro to Kurzweil 3000" (09/13) – Sara Byrd

Brown Bag: “Ghana Travelogue" (09/17) – Sara Byrd and David Carpenter

Library Directors’ Council (09/19) – David Carpenter

Going Away Party for Janice Adlington (09/20) – David Carpenter, Janet Thomason,

Meeting with ProQuest/CSA representative Chako Morgan" (09/20) – Sara Byrd, David Carpenter, and other staff.

Kurzweil workstation meeting with Judy Carter (09/25) – Sara Byrd

Brown Bag: Marketing Plan (09/25) – Sara Byrd

Central Reference Meeting (09/26) – Most CenRef librarians

Reference & Instruction Meeting (09/26) – Ramona Romero

Library Directors’ Council Meeting with Frank Wcislo and Michael Martin at the Commons Center (09/26) -- David Carpenter

Rachel Vacek Farewell Party (09/26) – David Carpenter

Staff Development Committee (09/27) – Daisy Whitten

WordPress Training for Mary Beth Blalock (09/27) – Sara Byrd

Vanderbilt Visions Debriefing Session (09/28) – David Carpenter and Susan Widmer

Communications Committee – Paula Covington

Steering Committee for the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies – Paula Covington

Weekly meetings with co-teacher to discuss LAS 290 – Paula Covington

Exhibit for Latin American Studies Center (3 meetings) – Paula Covington