Library Office Notes

Administrative Council Minutes

November 3, 1997

Those in attendance at the November 3 admin council meeting were the following: Frances O'Brien (chair), Alvin Bregman, Joan Hood, Sharon Clark, Al Dries, Susan Searing, Bob Burger, Betsy Kruger, Bill Brockman, Mary Beth Allen, Rebecca Graham, Tina Chrzastowski, Karen Schmidt, Bart Clark, Rick Surles, Joyce Wright, Nancy O'Brien, Dee Shonkwiler.

A. Among the announcements made at the beginning of the meeting was:

1. A reminder to people planning to give away parts of the collection, equipment, etc., that they are to check with Bart or Deloris concerning correct procedures for recycling or disposing of state property.

2. There will be a staffed printing center in UGX opening, hopefully, the week before Thanksgiving. It will be set up on a trial basis. The space provided is on the main level of UGX. The project will try to network all printers there to this center. No debit cards will be needed. One will go to the printing center, pick up their printed piece and pay for it. If this is successful, hopes are to go into other areas, such as Grainger. Change will be available and the Center will be open the same hours as UGX.

3. A message concerning Central Circulation's responsibilities in opening libraries was discussed. Divisions will be asked to revisit units that are responsible for opening other units.

4. An idea was brought to the Council from a staff member about documenting who has taken certain training courses or seminars (windows, ovid, word, etc.). She stressed more communication to staff from their unit heads about the importance of education as we head into a new online system.

5. The omission of dissertations from the binding priorities guidelines came up for discussion by Nancy O'Brien. Discussion was set for a future meeting with the possibility of Lisa German attending.

B. Bob Burger spoke on changes that are needing to be made concerning "dummy" analytics for pre-DRA conversion. A printout from the Technical Transition Team of DRA was passed out to the Committee.

The recommendation was that "since most online catalog users search in FBR and no longer search by command mode in LCS and we know that these "dummy" records will not move over into DRA, creation is no longer necessary.

There will be roughly 5,000-6,000 entries affected in the next 5-6 months.

A recommendation to word signage was made by Frances O'Brien. The signs would direct the patrons to request assistance if they're having difficulty in locating a series piece by series call or author/title. Nancy O'Brien, Sharon Clark, and Joan Hood will work on the wording.

C. Betsy Kruger spoke on the Circulation Threshold Document recently presented at the DRA Stuff Session.

Thresholds were defined as the number of times that a patron does a certain circulation function. This was initiated by the DRA Circulation/ILL/Patron Initiated Borrowing Team.

Among the possible options in DRA are thresholds on:

1. The maximum number of active loans a patron may have.

2. The maximum number of active loans by location a patron may have.

3. The number of outstanding overdues a patron may have.

4. The maximum number of times a patron may renew an item.

5. The maximum number of books a patron may report as lost.

6. The maximum number of overdue recalls a patron may accrue.

7. The number of "claim returns" a patron may accrue.

8. The maximum amount of fines a patron may accrue.

9. The maximum amount of fees (lost book billings) a patron may accrue.

Recommendations from the Committee by patron type for implementation of the DRA "renew-all" function and certain thresholds were described by matrix.

1. Recommendation to allow all patron types access to self-renewal.

2. Recommendation to allow a "renew-all" policy to all patron types.

3,4. Recommendation to allow all patron types to renew from the request date and not from the due date.

5. Recommendation to allow all patron types to renew overdue items.

6. Recommendation to set 50 as the number of active loans to courtesy card patrons with no limit to all other patron types.

7. Recommendation to set 50 as the number of active loans by location to courtesy card patrons with no limit to all other patron types.

8. Recommendation to set no limit on the maximum number of overdues for all patron types (not including overdue recalls).

9. Recommendation to set renewal as the time limit for courtesy card patrons the equivalent of one semester for undergrad students and the equivalent of two years for all other patron types before an in-person renewal is required.

10. Recommendation to set two as the maximum number of "reported lost" items for courtesy card patrons. Five "reported losts" may be accrued by all other patron types.

11. Recommendation to allow one overdue recall for all patron types.

12. Recommendation to allow a maximum of two "claimed returned" items for courtesy card holders. Five "claim return" items may be accrued by all other patron types.

13. Recommendation to put "no limit" on the maximum amount of fines for all patron types.

14. Recommendation of $200 as the maximum amount of fees (lost book billings) for courtesy and holders with "no limit" for all other patron types.

In FY97, the library issued 15,000 bills totaling over $1.2 million. Nine-five percent were later canceled when the billed item was returned.

Implementation issues will need to be discussed with other partners such as ISICC, general library faculty and staff, Senate Library Committee and certain focus groups.

Plans are to work with Campus Accounting on the prospect of a non-refundable $10 processing fee.

This Committee recommends extending grad student loan periods from 4 to 16 weeks and staff borrowing privileges to the same as faculty/academic.

Discussion of all the recommendations of the report should be held in Divisions and feedback ready to be discussed at the first December Administrative Council meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

Dee Shonkwiler