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Prepared by Roxanne Sellberg
Assistant University Librarian for Technical Services
December 12, 2003
Introduction/Executive Summary
The FY03 fiscal year was marked by the processing of a great many monographs, some of which had been waiting in backlogs for significant periods of time. The AULTS is extremely proud to declare that the crisis in monographs processing, which began about the time we implemented Voyager, is finally over. In the mean time, a great many other good things were accomplished by a skillful and determined division staff. As the more traditional work of the technical services departments continues, the division must also make time in FY04 to examine and plan for the collections becoming more electronic-a process which is already having significant impacts in the Serials Department and which will extend its influence more on monographs collection-building and maintenance in the future.
Report on FY02 Objectives
Increasing production in targeted areas
The Serials department focused its production efforts on increasing CONSER activity in FY03. The objective was 320 CONSER transactions. The serials cataloging staff exceeded that goal, reporting 485 CONSER transactions. This level of activity meant that Northwestern met CONSER's full membership production threshold for the first time since joining the program. Congratulations to the serials catalogers for reaching this important goal.
The MARC Department focused its production efforts on improving the ratio of titles copy cataloged to titles received, going from 1 to 2 in FY02 to 1 to 1.2 in FY03. This was possible, in part, because MARC turnover was low and they had some temporary help in addition to regular staff. Other factors included a reduction in some kinds of acquisitions work and the continuing training and development (and thus, increasing productivity) of the permanent staff. MARC staff copy cataloged over 32,000 titles.
It seems unlikely we will see a number like that again any time soon, both because staffing levels will not be as high and because materials remaining in the cataloging backlog will tend to require more time per title to process. However, the positive effects of FY03's accomplishments-faster processing of new materials, smaller backlogs, and a well trained, stable staff--will be felt directly in the MARC department's ability to keep up with new receipts and to achieve other goals, and indirectly in the Catalog Department's ability to turn more catalog management staff attention away from copy cataloging of new materials and toward other projects.
Reducing backlogs
Three specific backlogs were targeted for reduction in FY03. The Serials Department achieved its goal of reducing the serials cataloging backlog by 10%. The MARC Department achieved its goal of eliminating a backlog of out-of-print orders. In the mean time, the plan to begin a three-year monographs cataloging backlog reduction project was turned upside down. The position of original cataloger/manager for the project was cut before it could be filled. In addition, the very high copy cataloging production by MARC and Catalog Departments in FY03 reduced the size of both the general and the Africana backlogs significantly. If significant additional progress can be made in the next few years by regular staff, outsourcing plans will probably be scaled back or abandoned altogether.
Not to disparage the achievement in any way, it should be noted that much of the backlog reduction in FY03 was accomplished by copy cataloging-making the remaining monographs cataloging backlog smaller but harder and more expensive to process. We have a lot of original cataloging ahead of us on the way to further significant reductions. In order to help meet that challenge, the Catalog Department will be recruiting for another librarian in FY04, about half of whose time will be spent in original cataloging. Some of the materials in the backlog are quite old and appear to be brittle, so the impact of cataloging them in significant numbers will be felt in Preservation.
Solving workflow problems
We did what we needed to do with regard to resolving workflow issues
that caused significant problems during the year. For instance, a report
from the Art Library about erroneous spine labels led to a group of changes
in Catalog and Preservation that improved the accuracy of spine labels,
most notably for books that are commercially bound. Selected staff of
the MARC and Catalog departments met regularly during the year to keep
their workflows and policies in good harmony. This regular exchange proved
quite valuable and will continue.
The prediction (by the AULTS) that resolution of interdepartmental workflow
issues would be a significant theme in FY03, however, was wrong. A number
of workflow problems remained unresolved, including the question of how
best to process government publications titles. Michael Babinec produced
a report on this topic, but it will not be acted on until some time in
FY04. There are also several sore places where preservation activities
rub together with acquisitions and cataloging activities that have been
identified, but will have to remain on the agenda for future positive
attention.
Moving forward on digitization
Good progress was made on the Curtis text project during the FY03 fiscal year. The digitization was completed and the internal metadata was prepared. As this report is being written, however, the project Web site is not yet available to the public. We had to ask the funding agency for no-cost extension to complete the project some time in the winter of 2004.
The Digital Library Committee continued to struggle with issues of how to prioritize, organize, and accomplish digitization projects. Preservation Head Tyra Grant, along with two other key library staff members, formed a project management group to support the DLC's work and manage approved projects. However, there is still no clear agenda for the Library's digitization activity in the near future. Technical Services will choose to look on this situation as an opportunity, providing a break in what has been a full digitization project schedule for the past few years. After the Curtis text project is complete the digital management unit of the Preservation Department, in cooperation with other staff, will work on enhancing existing digital resources (such as expanding the collection of Africana posters available on the Web) and on incorporating digitization activities into the library's ongoing program of materials preservation.
Recruiting for key positions
In MARC, the unanticipated departure of long time library staff member David Cipris led to a reorganization of management team duties and the definition of a new LA 3 position that Reinessa Neuhalfen filled by promotion. MARC's management team was further enhanced by Michael Babinec, who accepted a significant new part-time assignment supporting authority control work in MARC after part time LA3 Monique Brada left the department.
Jennifer Young joined the Serials Department as a cataloger, and Tim Hagen re-joined the Serials Department in a new position focusing on electronic serials. As was mentioned earlier, the other new monographic cataloging librarian position anticipated for FY03 was cut before it could be filled. Another attempt will be made to fill a new librarian position in Catalog in FY04. The new position will be funded by reallocating money from two vacant non-exempt positions (the LA2 position in MARC that Reinessa Neuhalfen left when she was promoted and an LA1 position formerly held by Devin Savage in Serials).
Other Highlights
Each of the technical services department annual reports includes a discussion of that department's highlights; the reader is urged to review those reports for a more complete idea of the year in the Technical Services Division.
As the fiscal year ended, the move of materials from the Main Library to the new Library Storage Facility was underway. This is a highly significant accomplishment, especially for John Blosser and the other members of the storage committee who have worked for years on the planning. This move will also trigger a substantial amount of long-anticipated catalog maintenance work for FY04-updating location information records for material moved either to the LSF or within the Main or Deering library buildings.
The Preservation Department participated in the formulation of a CIC microfilming grant application. It is hoped that the project will be funded and will commence during FY04. Also in Preservation, a projected shortfall in the commercial binding budget led to the implementation of a new deferred binding policy in the winter of FY03. Starting last winter, certain newly cataloged paper bound books are marked and sent to the stacks unbound. They are sent for binding after one circulation. Although in theory this kind of policy only postpones binding (and paying for binding), experience in many other libraries suggests that some of those books will never need to be bound.
The Catalog Department is proud of the long-awaited completion of two projects: the implementation of electronic "super-locations" in the public catalog and the mounting of the hidden collections report as part of the library's public web site. Catalog successfully hosted two library school interns in FY03. One of them, Karen Miller, later assumed a term librarian position that will extend through FY04. Karen will be splitting her time between the Catalog and Preservation departments.
The MARC Department, along with some collection management staff, enjoyed a place in the national library limelight in FY03 when Yankee Book Peddler profiled Northwestern's use of their new GOBI-2 system on their Web site. YBP wanted to highlight a workflow that uses GOBI-2 in a way its designers didn't really anticipate, and also to thank the NUL staff for beta testing the new product.
Serials and MARC both completed space redesign efforts in FY03. The MARC Department acquired office landscape partitions to delineate individual staff workstations. The Serials Department reorganized its space to make room for more people and things and freshened its look with new yellow-green paint on the walls.
Statistical Summary, with Five-Year Comparisons
The categories and numbers that have been reported in the Technical Services Division annual reports for the last eight years have served us well, highlighting the most critical trends in production during that period. Reflecting the most important challenges the division has faced, the new materials work flow numbers have been examined almost to the exclusion of anything else.
The division and the environment in which we work are changing, however. Our priorities and managerial concerns are starting to shift. The divisional statistical summary should be adjusted in accordance to the new situation. During the FY04 year, one of the divisional management team's objectives will be to develop a new template for division summary statistics. In contrast to the former template, the new template should reflect the integration of the Preservation Department into the division; acknowledge the contribution the technical services units make toward electronic collection development; and include collection maintenance and enhancement activities as well as new materials processing work.
The FY03 statistical summary in this report represents the beginning of a transition that will likely require a couple of years to complete.
Acquisitions
The number of orders processed by technical services staff in FY03 was down from FY02. In addition to the trend of increased approval plan purchasing, increased use of the GOBI system by collection management staff contributed to this year's decline. Collection management staff members are ordering a substantial number of individual monographs themselves from Yankee Book Peddler, our primary domestic book vendor. This workflow speeds up the order process, reduces duplicate work, and allows MARC staff to spend more time cataloging.
The relatively small increase in the FY03 materials budget may also have had an effect-and this might explain a small decrease in the number of new receipts from FY02 to FY03. It will be interesting to see whether increased spending on electronic materials-often offered in large packages-will have a substantial impact on traditional acquisitions work numbers in the next few years.
New Cataloging Records
As was discussed in an earlier section of this report, FY03 saw a wonderful spike in new monographic cataloging records production; the number of new books cataloged in FY03 (62,730) represented a 25% increase from the number cataloged the year before. Congratulations to everyone who contributed to this achievement!
Physical Processing
Physical processing numbers were relatively stable this year. In a year of dramatic cataloging production, this requires some explanation. The deferred binding program started mid-way through the year had the express purpose of curtailing growth in the number of items bound to a level the library could afford. In the case of marking and labeling work, effort was concentrated on new materials processing in FY03; less re-labeling and special-project work was done in FY03 than in FY02.
Cataloging Backlogs
Both the serials and monographs cataloging backlogs were reduced in FY03. In serials the modest, but very welcome, reduction reflects a change in priorities and procedures designed to re-balance new and retrospective cataloging work. On the monographs side, the dramatic backlog reduction was due to a dramatic increase in cataloging work accomplished. The AUL is particularly proud that in FY03, for the first time, we are able to report the size of the video-cataloging backlog. Being able to measure it and manage it should lead to being able to reduce it in the years to come.
Rush Cataloging
The small number of rush requests processed in FY03 (529-down from over a thousand in each of the four most recent years) is a function of more timely processing of new materials and reductions in the size of the monographic cataloging backlogs.
PCC Contributions
Both the Serials Department and the Catalog Department should be very proud of the contributions University Library made to the Program for Cooperative Cataloging in FY03. After a two-year ramping up period, we performed enough CONSER transactions to meet the quota for full membership in that program. BIBCO and NACO contributions were both significantly higher than past years. There is a direct link between increased PCC activity and the recruitment and training of some fine new cataloging librarians in the last few years.
Goals for the Year Ahead
A number of expectations and hopes for FY04 have already been mentioned. More are listed in the individual reports of the four technical services departments. Here is a summary of some objectives that have high significance for the whole division. All of them respond to objectives in the Library's current strategic or annual plans.
1. Review the Library's 1986 preservation plan and make recommendations
for its revision. Although other staff will be involved, the Preservation
Department will be responsible for achieving this objective. The Library's
strategic plan calls for it to be completed by September 2004.
2. Reduce backlogs. The backlog of books awaiting cataloging was
reduced dramatically in FY03. This exceeded the 20% reduction called for
in the Library's strategic plan. In FY04 we hope to continue this work,
and also to record significant progress on the video-cataloging backlog.
The Serials Department has not set a backlog reduction goal for FY04,
but it is hoped that some progress can be made there as well.
3. Make hidden collections more accessible. The Library's strategic plan calls on us to develop plans to provide an appropriate level of online bibliographic access to, and establish the cataloging priority level for, the hidden collections identified in a recent survey by the end of FY04. The Catalog Department will organize this effort, but several other departments will also contribute.
4. Accomplish catalog maintenance work necessary because of the movement of many materials to the new Library Storage Facility. The Serials Department will lead this long-anticipated effort, as the majority of material transferred to the LSF will be serial volumes. The Catalog Department also anticipates a significant challenge as monographic collections remaining in the Main Library are shifted around.
Several other of the Library's strategic or annual objectives are of significant concern to the Technical Services Division, but we are not specifically responsible for them: setting policies and procedures for free Web resources appropriate for addition to the Library's collection; assessing the impact of full text electronic resources on library processes and procedures; redesigning the Library's public and staff Web sites; implementing federated searching/open URL link resolution software. As this report is being written, it is not yet clear how these efforts will be organized or what our part will be. We stand ready to contribute and/or lead as appropriate toward their achievement.
Northwestern University Library, Technical Services Division
Statistical Summary, 1998 - 2003
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Activity |
1998/99
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1999/2000
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2000/01
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2001/02
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2002/03
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| Acquisitions | |||||
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18,733
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12,008
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14,380
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13,238
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11,582
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46,973
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48,483
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52,980
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59,410
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70,117
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| New Cataloging Records | |||||
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808
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1,827
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1,615
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1,523
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1,389
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25,548
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39,840
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44,972
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49,983
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62,730
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Physical Processing |
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71,650
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72,286
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73,127
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91,614
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91,758
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15,703
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24,890
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29,635
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32,020
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33,260
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| Cataloging Backlogs | |||||
Serials Cataloging Backlog |
uncounted
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1,038
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1,235
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870
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840
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26,477
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27,510
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35,699
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40,791
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22,631
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uncounted
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uncounted
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uncounted
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uncounted
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1,611
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| Rush Cataloging (Mono) |
1,283
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1,880
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1,498
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1,314
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529
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PCC Contributions |
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N/A
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N/A
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29
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211
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485
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377
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329
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395
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720
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1,528
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1,129
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1,070
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1,552
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1,802
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2,339
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