by Jean Putnam and Jonathan Paul
Jeannie Putnam and Jonathan Paul participated in the 2008 NHCUC Job-shadowing and Leadership Mentoring Program. Jeannie was mentored by Jennifer Taxman, Head of Access Services at Baker-Berry Library (Dartmouth College) and Jonathan shadowed Deng Pan, Head of Technical Services at Mason Library (Keene State College).
UNH is one of 17 member institutions belonging to The New Hampshire College & University Council (NHCUC). The council focuses primarily on educational opportunities for the approximately 70,000 students attending its institutions, but the council also actively encourages professional development for faculty, administrators, and various offices and departments within its community (http://www.nhcuc.org/). The USNH libraries are represented by 5 members on the Library Committee.
JEANNIE:
I participated in the NHCUC mentoring program because I wanted to see how another large college library worked with changing technology, space, and service expectations. Jennifer Taxman, Head of Access Services was my mentor and she suggested I come on a day when the Access Services Round Table met. Jennifer was incredibly organized and arranged the day to give me an overview of Access Services at Dartmouth (the UNH equivalent of all Circulation Depts.) she directed the focus on questions and interests she had asked me about pre-visit.
The day began with their written document stating the Access Services Charge in fulfilling the Dartmouth Libraries mission statement. Our goals and purpose are similar. The tour that followed answered all my questions and more both visually and verbally. They have as a trial, a cell phone activated audio tour of their Library available for the cost of the phone call. Also as a trial, at similar cost, is a phone service that provides directions to a call#’s location. The library has two main entrances/exits with security gates, a 24 hour (student only) room that can operate independently, and a simple café with ample seating. They have location challenges similar to ours with respect to their Information Desk and security gates. At one entrance is the Information Desk, far removed from other service desks so it is staffed separately. It also has been shifted from its former position to allow for a more practical orientation to the security gates. At the other entrance the security gates are near the circulation desk but a flight of stairs drops behind them so it’s difficult to track the person setting off the gates. Also at this entrance is the self checkout machine. Its circulation totals last year from the hours 12:00am to 2:00am were 3,596, 1/3rd their total selfcheck circulation. The Reserves area walls feature a mural “The Epic of American Civilization” by the Mexican artist Jose Clemente Orozco. For distribution they have an informational pamphlet with color photos and the history of the mural. The Jones Media Center houses movie editing machines, closed media stacks, streaming video reserves, micromedia and micro readers. They have moved their Reference area to better serve the needs of their patrons and are in the process of creating additional collaborative spaces for instructors and students. Storage requests are scanned at the storage facility. Their Consortium Borrowing and Intercampus requests are processed using ILLiad.
The Library has roughly 180 staff about 80 of that total is the Access Services Dept. of which 60-65 are working students. They do not have work study employees. All employees are hired by Human Resources. They have some student supervisors. I was impressed with their staff training. They use a program called Jing to create computer tutorials that move through steps and screens of Circulation functions. They also enlisted students to create a script and act in a video about customer service. The video was to the point, entertaining, and memorable. Communication is achieved through the Staff Webpage, Wiki, Blog, and Blackboard. The training Manuals on the Staff webpage are easy to navigate as it has word search capability. The Access Services Round Table meets once a month. These meetings are for Branch and Main Library Access Service staff. The day I was there, they covered using the Blog to relay information on conferences and outside travels, how the Blog works, and using the list serve to notify participants. The Dartmouth Libraries were about to go live with a new library website. New features were highlighted and users’ responses to the trial version were discussed. They covered the reasons for using caution when freeing records in use and the ins and outs of the Millennium Enhancements voting process. Communication among staff is a priority and I saw it in action. Another example of effective communication was their zone system. The library worked with campus wide publicity to establish a zone symbol system. The different zones and symbols established were the Quiet (cell phone policy), the Covered Cup, and the No Food or Drink. Recyclable covered cups were promoted to decrease the incidence of trash and spills.
It was a fun, energizing learning experience. I was able to see how similar processes were handled and it allowed me a new perspective on systems where we differed. It gave me new tools to work with that I’ve seen used successfully. I hope others take advantage of this program.
JONATHAN:
My job shadowing experience at Mason Library was positive. Deng Pan introduced me to some of her coworkers within and outside of her department, gave me a tour of the library, answered many of my questions about Mason Library, and inquired of me particulars about Dimond. I found that one day of job shadowing was really only enough to scratch the surface of Mason’s procedures because nearly every answer to a question prompted yet another question. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the opportunity to travel to another library and learn about some of its procedures.
Dimond Library is larger than Mason Library. A quick comparison of the two libraries’ websites indicates that Dimond Library operates with nearly three times as many employees and holds roughly six times as many physical volumes as its sister institution in Keene. Twenty-three people work in Dimond’s Technical Services (down to twenty people, as of June 1, 2008) whereas only four people staff Technical Services at Mason. Dimond’s Technical Services has several official subunits: Acquisitions, Serials Check In and Cataloging/Bindery/Mailroom, Monographs Cataloging/Authority work. Mason’s Technical Services is comprised of Cataloging and Acquisitions.
The Acquisitions unit at Mason Library exports the bibliographic record for a new book from OCLC into III at the time of order. With few exceptions, this is the record the library uses. When the book arrives, a cataloger minimally edits that bib record in III’s Millennium, creates, prints, and applies a call number label, and sends the book on its way. At Dimond, once the book arrives, catalogers spend time searching for and editing a bibliographic record to replace the one Acquisitions used at the time of order. The record is edited in OCLC Connexion Client (rather than Millennium) and after the record is exported to III, the book moves to the monographs processing area where it receives its call number label, gets reviewed, and is sent to its proper location in one of the Durham-campus library buildings.
Deng catalogs most media items at Mason, as well as items whose bib records need substantial work. She also creates bib records for items that need original cataloging. Compact discs and music scores are cataloged by one of the Reference Librarians who knows how and is very willing to catalog these formats. I do not know how this particular situation is reconciled in the cataloging statistics or in the departmental statistics. Bob Morin catalogs most media items at Dimond, including compact discs. Both he and Christina Bellinger create bib records for items that need complex original cataloging. New music scores are cataloged by Bob. Items whose bib records need substantial work are handled by the cataloging staff, with input from Bob, Christina and Kathryn Stuart when needed.
Mason Library shares Millennium with Keene Public Library and assumes two-thirds of the annual maintenance fee, but does not catalog material for the public facility. The OPAC allows patrons to scope searches to particular collections within either library or to search all collections of both libraries. An open-source or “next-generation” catalog is not in the immediate future for Mason Library because such catalogs require more maintenance and time than the systems staff can accommodate right now. Furthermore, the impact of changing a shared catalog is unknown, and neither library is currently ready to devote the resources needed to evaluate this kind of change.
I recommend participation in the NHCUC Job-shadowing and Leadership Mentoring Program. For the shadower/mentored, it is an interesting opportunity to observe other modes of operation in a familiar context and to reflect on some of Dimond’s own processes. For the shadowed/mentor, it is an opportunity to promote growth by sharing.
Posted by Rachel Gogan 
Posted by Rachel Gogan 
Posted by Rachel Gogan 
