ANNUAL REPORT 2001/2002 

Introduction

 This was our first full year under our reorganization, whereby we began new projects, completed others, continued to develop new procedures to respond to the changing electronic environment, said goodbye to long-term staff [unfortunately we were unable to welcome any new staff members], muddled along in some areas and were delightfully successful in others—in other words, we continue to, if not conquer, survive.

 Personnel Changes

 Marjorie Jackson, our supervisor in the Serials/Processing Unit, went onto half-time status, as of July 1, 2001.

Lisa Greenwell, in MACC, was reclassified from Word Processing Typist to Library Technician, July 15, 2001.

 Scott Briggs, a library technician in MACC, transferred to the Library’s reserve Unit, in June 2002.

 Joseph Lawler Nicoteri, a classified librarian in the Catalog Unit, resigned after 20 years service at URI, to accept a job as a cataloger at the Government Printing Office in Washington, DC in Aug. 2002.

 As of this date, there are no promises to replace any of these positions.

 Monographic Acquisitions/Copy Cataloguing Unit [MACC]

 Cross training of staff continued for the full integration of the copy cataloging and acquisition functions. In addition to preparing for the implementation of Innovative’s Millennium Acquisitions software, MACC has also had to prepare for OCLC’s Passport replacement software. While all of the above has been going on, MACC began the Inventory Project in Oct. 2001 to great success. By year’s end, MACC had a 11% increase in purchased volumes [7518 up from 6762 volume in 2000-2001], a 38% increase in approval plan receipts, and no backlogs in the copy cataloging of current receipts as of June 2002. The Inventory Project had covered A through DA, covering almost 50,000 records. Staff identified 14,443 items misshelved, 1,495 items missing, corrected 2,522 records, and sent countless volumes for remarking. Due to the current vacancy, we don’t expect to make as much progress this year, but will continue to devote some time on Inventory if the volume of current acquisitions declines. By year’s end, the support staff was reduced by 25%.

 Catalog Unit

 Michael Cerbo was the winner of the Pauline Moulson Library Staff Excellence Award for the 2001-2002 year. A well deserved award that had the full support of all of his colleagues in the Technical Services Dept.

 The Catalog Unit completed the “barcoding” project in in the Spring of 2002, with only the final review by the Circulation Unit to “declare missing” the items classed from T through Z. Work now continues to identify all “short” records [created by Circulation in years past in order to allow volumes to circulate without properly locating the correct bibliographic record], locate the proper bibliographic record and create the appropriate item records, and eliminate the short records in HELIN. As the “barcoding” project wound down, the short record project accelerated. Concurrently, the Catalog Unit is systematically cataloging GPO items received prior to 1987. With the resignation of Joe Lawler in Aug. 2002, we expect that the GPO project will be slowed. A 2002-2003 priority will be to handle the record keeping resulting from Inventory/Circulation “declared missings”. By Aug. 2002, support staff was reduced by 33%.

 Electronic Resources

 The Electronic Resources Librarian developed a number of processes, procedures and manual drafts to help control the transition to the electronic environment. Records for all HELIN electronic resources, and fulltext sources such as Project Muse and Science Direct were created during the fall of 2001. We now have in place bibliographic records for each electronic resources, with attached order, item and holdings records for all. The decision, in Winter 2002, by the Library Administration to adopt a policy of acquiring electronic rather than paper versions of serials where cost is not a factor has resulted in the necessity for a full-fledged procedure to allow this to be seamlessly implemented.

 Serials

 The Serials Unit in 2001-2002 had completed its project to create holdings records for all serials in the HELIN OPAC. These records [over 31,000] were transferred to the CRIARL Union List in the Fall of 2001. Current checkin, binding and processing remained current throughout the year, and holdings records were created for a variety of electronic data bases [and individual serials titles which are contained in meta sources such as Project Muse and Science Direct]. Under Marjorie Jackson’s direction an inventory of our Microforms Collections was started. We also experienced a reduction in Serials staff with Marjorie Jackson going from full time to half time.

 Goals and Objectives

 From January through April of 2002, all Technical Services staff helped to develop a series of documents which considered the priorities, short term goals, and overall objectives of each unit and function within Technical Services. In a series of staff meetings these documents were discussed, vetted, modified and improved. With a final meeting in April, an overall statement of priorities, goals and objectives was approved and distributed to the University Library.

 Summary

 For the record, I have attached copies of the Department’s Annual Statistics, and HELIN Item reports that document the continuing devotion and fine work of the staff. The Department is blessed with a cadre of bright, innovative, and hard working individuals. My sincere thanks for a job well done goes out to all you.

William T. O’Malley
Chairman, department of Technical Services

Sept. 18, 2002