Annual report of the Acquisitions Unit, University Library, University of Rhode Island for fiscal year 1996-1997. Covers staffing, technology, acquisitions of monographs and serials, binding and processing.
For monographs, includes monthly statistics on requests searched, duplicates returned, titles ordered, titles claimed, volumes added by acquisition type, approvals returned, microforms added, media added, and invoices processed.
For serials and processing, includes monthly statistics on volumes withdrawn, titles added, volumes added, volumes bound, volumes processed, volumes mended, microforms added, and dead serials added

Kellogg, Martha

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University of Rhode IslandDigitalCommons@URITechnical Services Reports and Statistics Technical Services1997Acquisitions Unit Annual Report 1996-1997Martha KelloggUniversity of Rhode IslandFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/ts_rptsPart of the Library and Information Science CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Technical Services at DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion inTechnical Services Reports and Statistics by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contactdigitalcommons@etal.uri.edu.Recommended CitationKellogg, Martha, "Acquisitions Unit Annual Report 1996-1997" (1997). Technical Services Reports and Statistics. Paper 73.http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/ts_rpts/73ACQUISITIONS UNIT Annual Report 1996/97 MarthaKellogg Head, Acquisitions Unit August 12, 1997 ACQUISITIONS UNIT ANNUAL REPORT 1996/97 For the first time in many years the Acquisitions Unit completed an entire fiscal year with nine staff members: one professional librarian and eight support staff. Still down from a high of thirteen staff in 1992/93, the unit functioned more rationally with a second order clerk (now Word Processing Typist) in Monographs and a trained Library Technician handling Serials order/invoicing for the entire year. The decision to physically move several library units, including relocating part of the Microforms Area into the Monograph section, had a major effect on the Acquisitions Unit this year. In August 1996, the Monograph section (including two order technicians, their workstations and accompanying equipment and supplies) was moved into what had previously been the OCLC Room. The Gift Books area was moved from Acquisitions and relocated to the Mail Receiving area. When the old Monograph section proved too small to hold Microforms, the Serials Order Technician and Acquisitions Librarian were also relocated to the previous OCLC Room. Remaining in the former Acquisitions area along the north wall are the Serials Classified Librarian; Newspapers/Microforms clerk; the Binding and Processing areas; the Checklist, and the Acquisitions Unit system printer and photocopier. Eventually a wall was erected between the Microforms area and the Acquisitions area for security. Climate control in the old Acquisitions area--always inadequate--deteriorated badly; with no air circulation for heating and cooling. The climate control problems in this area remain to be addressed. The move to the OCLC room proved to be more successful, in terms of space and climate, although splitting Acquisitions into two areas is less efficient for staff communication. MONOGRAPHS The hiring of a Word Processing Typist in JUl1e 1996 provided much needed support in Monograph ordering/receiving this year. The 1996 serial cancellation project freed more funds for monograph purchases. With the new staff member and additional funds, the Monograph section was able to increase monograph purchases over the previous fiscal year in most categories, particularly firm orders. In addition, the previously sole staff member in Monographs, a Senior Clerkffypist, finally received an upgrade (following a desk audit over a year ago) to Senior Word Processing Typist. Gaining experience with new electronic ordering procedures in III, combined with the elimination of paper files (such as discarding the old ''Tip File") allowed two staff members, plus one student assistant to perform efficiently all basic ordering and receiving functions and to undertake new projects and learn new procedures. Ordering procedures on III changed during the year with arrival of a new Dell Windows 95 PC with Passport software for ordering over the Internet, and the discontinuance of the direct data line to OCLC. Staff learned to use the ne\\' Passport software which allows downloading Bib and attached order records from OCLC to IlIon the same personal computer. The old "dumb terminal" and "thermal printer" were abandoned, with the "passport" data displayed on the Dell computer screen instead. Internet ordering was not without difficulties, however. Staff were hampered by delays and down time, mostly in telecommunications with ever-increasing Internet traffic. Delays in downloading also resulted in uncertainty as to whether orders were actually transmitted and/or received and cut down on ordering efficiency. These problems eased somewtlat during the course of the year and are expected to improve as telecommunication capacity to the Internet is expanded locally and nationally. I Other innovations in monograph acquisitions and collection development included: 1. Began downloading a full MARC record at the time of order (rather than a brief bib record) and displaying the order records of all HELIN Libraries in patron as well as staff mode. The new display of all HELIN order records (in addition to cataloging records) has implications for collection development for members of the HELIN consortium. The change also resulted in some unforeseen idiosyncrasies in information displayed to patrons. Acquisitions and Cataloging Units developed a procedure to add "Cat Date" to the order records in batch mode to eliminate incorrect "In Process" status in tIle public display. 2. Subscribed to Choice Reviews on Cards to order undergraduate materials, freeing subject selectors from reviewing monthly Choice magazines. Experimented with NOT ordering Choice books if held by another HELIN Library. It appears that Acquisitions staff will be faced with more responsibility in evaluating records at the point of order as we gain more experience with III in the consortium setting. 3. Started planning and profiling for outsourcing of monograph cataloging with OCLC's PromptCat and Yankee Book Peddler (YBP). The project will have a profound effect on both the Acquisitions and Cataloging units. SERIALS While most Monograph statistics rose during the year, most categories of Serial statistics went down following the serial cancellation project for 1996. Clean up following the serial cancellations continued during the year; updating and closing out records for cancelled titles was mostly completed by the end of the fiscal year. Several major drop/add projects in Business, Chemistry, and Nursing also resulted in additional work in ordering, cancelling and maintenance of serial issues and records. New projects undertaken in Serials during the year included: 1. Began a project in January 1997 to create Checkin records in the HELIN database for non-current serial records. The two CPR technicians used the Serials List to enter location, call number, and holdings data for most of tIle estimated 15,000 serial titles not received currently by the Library (excluding serials in Government Pubs, Pell, and CCE, and the Dewey collection.) Over 5,000 titles were added by June 1997. 2. Began data entry of EBSCO "subscriber numbers" tllat will allow electronic claiming of serials from EBSCO. This labor intensive project involves EBSCO's producing bar codes with the needed data for every title supplied by EBSCO (upwards of 4,000 titles). EBSCO staff came to the Library for two weeks in June 1997 with a scanner to wand the subscriber numbers into the Checkin records. Titles which could not be found were snags which required staff time to investigate. The "snag" titles often proved to be title changes or unknowns received as part of combination subscriptions. Consequently the project aided in clearing up some problems in our serial subscription list. The project was near to completion by the end of summer 1997. It is hoped electronic claiming will increase the speed and accuracy of claim responses. 3. With the assistance of the Catalog Unit, the Library started experimenting with online access to journals over the Internet. Recommendations made by a committee which studied this issue showed that Collection Management, Acquisitions, Cataloging, Reference, and Systems are all involved in making Internet access to journals a reality. The loss of the Systems Librarian hindered the implementation of the committee's recommendations, but a beginning was made and experience gained by all inv()lved. ~ BINDING AND PROCESSING Binding. Once again the Binding budget of $35,000.00 proved inadequate to cover the fiscal year. An additional $5,000.00 was found to transfer to Binding, so periodicals were covered to the end of the year. Funds were insufficient for Govt. Pubs to send out all the binding they wanted and monographs in need of rebinding were also held back. Although the total number of bound volumes was down, increasing binding costs over the three-year contract cut the number of volumes we could bind. As the fiscal year drew to a close, it was tIle final year of the state binding contract with Ridley's Book Bindery, our binding contractor for the last fifteen years. Instead of renewing the contract, the State of Rhode Island chose to rebid the contract for the next three years. It appears now that Ridley's will be replaced by a new contractor, Bridgeport Bindery. The bid process had a number of problems, however, and it was uncertain which contractor will be handling the Library's binding beginning July 1997. Processing. With Cataloging technicians continuing to produce labels for new books, there was less labor intensive Se-Lin label production in Processing this year. All books still had to be handled in Processing, however, since tattle tape, property stamps, and label covers must be added to each volume. Govt. Pubs began Marcive cataloging of their materials with Marcive labels in January 1997, but found that these volumes also needed tattle tape, property stamps, and label protectors. Processing agreed to have our student processors complete the Govt. Pubs processing after Govt. Pubs staff had affixed the Marcive labels. Mending section lost a very capable student worker this year, and an eqlJivalent replacement has not yet been found. Some students have been trained in basic mending techniques, and we continue to mend as many monographs as possible, since we have been unable to send many tattered volumes to the bindery due to lack of funds. (Periodical binding remains our first priority.) The Processing supervisor is looking for another talented student to continue our mending program as we begin the fall semester. ~ ACQUISITIONS UNIT MONOGRAPH STATISTICS - 1996/97 JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN YTD Orders searched 152 565 265 225 188 681 660 844 814 873 176 516 5959 -Duplicates returned 3 11 15 7 13 48 93 20 20 46 13 148 437 Titles ordered 149 554 250 218 175 633 567 824 794 827 163 368 5522 Titles claimed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Volumes received 645 639 793 874 878 662 698 870 943 1102 1272 1268 10644 -Firm orders rec'd 110 182 263 313 167 207 209 512 498 781 621 431 4294 -5.0. vols rec'd 59 29 13 39 10 23 39 22 17 49 45 18 363 -Gifts rec'd 283 148 244 253 424 157 178 64 160 0 324 550 2785 -Approvals rec'd 193 280 273 269 277 275 272 272 268 272 282 269 3202 Approvals returned 17 25 18 13 23 10 19 24 20 17 30 16 232 Mforms received 0 0 19 0 17 17 0 0 17 0 0 17 87 Media received 0 15 7 47 2 1 4 3 26 5 5 2 117 Invoices processed 57 120 68 143 84 81 81 64 71 89 82 82 1022 '* ACQUISITIONS UNIT SERIAL STATISTICS ­ 1996/97 JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JON YTD Volumes withdrawn 8 7 3 17 3 1 9 16 11 27 8 25 135 Titles added 55 97 19 118 30 23 64 72 59 47 32 32 648 Volumes added 517 723 614 697 491 625 · 844 811 731 905 518 407 7883 -T0 checklist 149 155 141 189 151 147 295 141 126 190 205 126 2015 -By binding 368 568 473 508 340 478 549 670 605 715 313 281 5868 Total volumes bound 368 568 473 508 340 478 549 670 605 715 313 282 5869 Volumes processed 1894 1724 1455 1805 1150 1410 1852 2223 2307 2401 1429 1982 21632 Volumes temp bound 82 12 56 14 25 0 82 68 41 50 2 0 432 Volumes mended 394 134 118 79 122 0 0 86 253 317 3 0 1506 Mform pieces added 1721 2054 1607 1809 1608 240 1897 1797 1883 1802 1590 1825 19833 -Mfilm 142 124 ~1 44 37 63 69 38 76 88 42 44 818 -Mfiche 1579 1930 1556 1765 1571 177 1828 1759 1807 1714 1548 1781 19015 Dead serials added 765 885 943 1171 732 788 5284 ~ :~ 

Acquisitions Unit Annual Report 1996-1997

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Acquisitions Unit Annual Report 1996-1997

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