BTECH minutes - 2/5/03

[Judith Weeks <jweeks@library.berkeley.edu>]

BERKELEY TECHNICAL SERVICES DISCUSSION GROUP MEETING MINUTES

Wednesday, February 5, 2003
9:00am to 11:00am
303 Doe Library
Guests: Armanda Barone, Rebecca Green, Sheila Wekselbaum, Susan Wong
Recorder: Jessica Lemieux

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

-Judith Weeks announced that the group working on the Gladis 
Maintenance/Circulation account request forms is making progress.  The 
process of revising the form has brought up the question of the training 
required for the various levels of authorization.  They wonder who is 
making sure new account holders and staff with upgrades to authorization 
are receiving proper training for using the accounts.  Please think about 
the training needed to use the various features of Gladis 
Maintenance/AutoCirc. Charis suggested that it might be an issue for a 
higher body to take up and that standards should be written.    Ginny Moon 
gave the example of approving accounts with the ability to transfer to 
NRLF; she calls around to the department to try to ensure training will 
take place before approving the account.

-Judith Weeks thanked everyone for their responses to her email requesting 
ideas for training and said to keep them coming.

Agenda:


1. Technical Services Workflow & Priorities / Armanda Barone, Rebecca 
Green, Sheila Wekselbaum

Armanda, Sheila and Rebecca having been doing rounds of the councils in 
order to gather information and a sense of priorities in light of the 
present budget crunch and staff fluctuations. Rebecca spoke first about the 
GA budget. She explained that the Technical Services Division had been 
inadvertently overspending their GA budget for approximately one year, 
because of the transition between MIPS and BAIRS reporting and the 
unavailability of detail data during that time. During this period, the 
Department hired more students to help with the workflow and clear the 
backlog, which compounded the problem. After receiving the appropriate 
training in BAIRS reporting, the overspending became clear, resulting in 
the reestablishment of the Tech Services GA budget committee. Each division 
now has a sub-allocation of the budget. The end result is that there are a 
lot fewer students to get the work done. The Department is constantly 
monitoring the situation, has received some one-time funding from various 
sources, and is trying to cross-train their employees among the divisions.

Sheila began by observing that support services had to cut the number of 
its student workers from 55 to 12, when they had already taken on the 
Gladis call number check. Since they no longer had the students to do this, 
the task was transferred to the career staff, who alternated responsibility 
for the check on a weekly basis. The positive results of the Gladis check 
were that it brought the error rate down and highlighted the types of 
errors that were being made. It also raised awareness of the poor quality 
of some of the PromptCat records. The Gladis check has now been stopped for 
main and branch libraries, but will be done once every 3 months in the 
future. Technical Services has scheduled a meeting with Circulation to 
discuss a partnership on the Gladis check project. Sheila requested that 
any errors detected by the branch are sent back for correction, but if the 
branches notice a big increase in the number of errors please let her know. 
Fortunately, Joe and Charis gave Tech Services a program to capture call 
numbers directly from Gladis, so there will less chance that the label and 
call number will not match. PromptCat also lost many of its student 
workers, and their duties had to be shifted to career staff. They have 
since been able to get more students to work on PromptCat materials, 
because the meetings with the various councils made it clear that PromptCat 
was a priority for everyone.

Armanda reiterated how helpful the councils have been in setting priorities 
as they are redefining their workflow, and that the Gladis check had been 
extremely helpful in exposing the types of errors that were being made. As 
PromptCat is a high priority, the first focus was on getting those books 
out quickly and with a minimum of errors. Since the Gladis check showed a 
number of bad records which slowed down the workflow, Tech Services has 
made profile changes for OCLC, so as not to accept all low-level records. 
Bad records are now sent directly to cataloging. Currently the focus is on 
improving the cataloging workflow for multi-volume monographs, with a group 
of 13 people working on the problem. Other projects include working on 
cataloging copy lacking classification numbers, working with the selectors 
on prioritizing material, and a trip to Stanford to compare their workflow 
with ours. At Stanford, priority books get the full treatment, while the 
rest get low level records and are funneled periodically through RLIN's 
Marcadia service which researches titles When the search produces a match, 
it attaches to the original low level record, and the book does not have to 
be recalled for a new label. Armanda also mentioned that Original 
Cataloging is down two people (Slavic and Social Sciences catalogers), and 
that training is a time-consuming problem, since Tech Services is often 
asked to provide training for other units as well as struggling with their 
own. She concluded by acknowledging how frustrating it is to see the 
backlogs building while they try to find a workflow that is manageable, and 
asked that any comments or complaints be brought to the division heads, Lee 
or Armanda. She also commented that Technical Services has been thinking 
about ways to update other library staff on their progress, such as a 
Technical Services webpage with a revised FAQ or Technical Notes for the CU 
News.

2.Training issues, continued / Susan Wong

Susan began by commenting on the need to look at the needs of the library 
as a whole, though Technical Services is in the forefront because it has 
already begun assessing the need for training. Human Resources' role in 
training is that of consulting and coordinating, not necessarily as 
instructors or vendors, so she came to the meeting to give an update on the 
situation in HR and to listen to our suggestions.  HR has also been 
impacted by the library hiring freeze, with 2 positions frozen including 
their office manager position.  Their offices have moved to 110 Doe.  The 
Training Coordinator position is frozen.  The demands on HR associated with 
new staff, academic, and student hires have decreased slightly due to the 
hiring freeze, so there is a possibility that selected HR staff will be 
able to shift their time to help with selected training coordinator tasks 
as work priorities are defined.  In consultation with the Center for 
Organizational Effectiveness, the Library and LHRD are working now on 
several community-wide issues.  One project is current budget reduction 
planning and our organizational effectiveness, and there will be meetings 
with local units in the future on this topic.  Another project is a 
consultation utilizing a Ford Motor Company tool about workflow management 
and workflow efficiency techniques.  A third priority is sexual harassment 
training.  This will be a refresher course, probably at Round Table, for 
anyone in a supervisory position, especially those who supervise student 
employees.

Susan identified several questions, priorities and concerns in the course 
of discussion.  One concern is the need for consensus that whoever's 
assigned to deliver the training can do it, such as designating a 
percentage of their time that can be devoted to training.  She pointed out 
that training can be done by external vendors, as well as internal 
staff.   Other priorities include identifying a larger pool trusted to 
conduct training, mandating training into partnerships, and creating 
documentation so that people who have been trained can consistently train 
others. Another issue is giving training credence and weight; making it a 
priority by writing it into job descriptions and performance 
criteria.  Several issues specific to technical services were then brought 
up by those present.  Sheila emphasized the need for a formalized training 
process, so that Tonette is not constantly responding to requests for 
training from all over the library, and the need for those who have been 
trained to then become responsible for training in their branches.

It was pointed out that there is a feeling that training is supposed to 
come from Technical Services, and suggested that Heads of libraries need to 
be aware that their staff should be involved in training.  It was also 
noted that many of these issues had been addressed six years ago, when a 
training program was developed, though it was never implemented.  The 
importance of ensuring the skill qualifications of those being volunteered 
to train was highlighted.  It was suggested that some sort of training for 
trainers take place, or that an online skills assessment tool might be 
helpful. Charis suggested the use of training videos, which prompted Susan 
to ask if web-based self-learning would be applicable, as it's one of the 
most cost-effective methods of training. The last issue addressed was the 
unique training problem that Gladis represents. Since it was created here 
and not by a vendor, all training on how to use it must necessarily come 
from the Berkeley staff already using it, taking time away from other 
responsibilities.  It was also pointed out that Gladis' dissimilarity to 
other library systems makes it much more difficult to use for staff with 
previous library experience elsewhere.  Charis responded that replacing 
Gladis had been considered, but was unlikely to happen in the near future 
due to the extremely high cost of purchasing a new system, converting the 
records and retraining the staff.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 AM.