HIGHLIGHTS - January, 2003, MONTHLY REPORT
- BIBCO training -- today and tomorrow, many of the cataloging staff and faculty will be undergoing BIBCO training. This training and certification will allow us to participate in the national cataloging program to provide core records which are guaranteed to be of a certain quality. I believe that we have been doing work of this quality all along but simply have not been part of the program which allows us to designate these records as BIBCO. Participants come from both the Cataloging and Special Collections Cataloging Depts. Other who catalog in the library such as some of the Language and Area Studies librarians are also participating. Magda has done a wonderful job of investigating what would be involved in joining BIBCO, planning training and otherwise moving this initiative forward.
- One time funding -- while the materials budget continues to be very uncertain, we must also plan for spending the remaining central funds which are being held against a possible request to return funds to the University. The deadline for submission of one time funding requests was 1/31/03. CAC will review these requests at its 2/13 meeting. Based on those content decisions, I will be able to move forward with funding the initiatives as more budget information is available.
- There is a statewide meeting on Friday to discuss the idea of issuing an RFP to select a statewide serials vendor. Much as the state approval vendor, participation in this program will be voluntary. Trisha Davis has represented us on the development group. It is likely that we will not make a decision on whether to participate until the RFP responses are available.
- Serials cancellation planning is moving ahead with collection managers asked to submit their initial cuts by 2-28-03. Based on those initial decisions, SER will check each title proposed for cutting to determine the precise amount which can be saved by cancellation (rather than checking all 15,000 paid titles). The collection managers will then have a chance to review their selections as well as those of their colleagues before final decisions are made. Then should a cut be necessary, it can be implemented later this year.
- Marsha is beginning work to tighten some areas of the approval plan to reduce the number of returns. That will begin to prepare us to test the idea of shelf-ready approvals with individual collection managers who have expressed interest in testing the process. Much work still needs to be done with YBP to identify costs and workflow issues.