Conference Report
 

Georgia Council of Media Organizations and Southeastern Library Association 2000 Joint Conference

(aka "COMO/SELA")

Jekyll Island, Georgia, October 11-13, 2000
Submitted by Carole Covington, Cora Cobb, and Susan Hinds

Notes from Carole Covington
 

Session Name: Be Your Own Workflow Consultant

Presenter: Diane Brown of Southeastern Library Network, Inc.

Scope: Billed as a debunker of technical services’ "sacred cows", this session analyzed workflow on a departmental, rather than personal, level. It explored the ongoing struggles between speed and accuracy, between customization and standardization, and between paper and electronic. Backlogs, bottlenecks, and other booby traps were exposed.

Most memorable points: 

Can the patron FIND an item from an imperfect record or not? If so, then why not save time and let it go out of Cataloging that way if a backlog exists? 
There are even more ways to save money when searching OCLC than you thought (complete with a to-the-penny chart). 
The future of Cataloging holds many formats other than MARC records. 
If "metadata" means information that describes other information, then Catalogers should be titled "Metadata Specialists".
 

Session Name: Technical Services Issues: A Panel Discussion

Presenters: Henry McCurley et al. (Debbie Holmes of Floyd College and Kathleen Wells of the University of Southern Mississippi)

Scope: This session consisted of questions from the audience and answers from the panel. Since the initial call for questions drew no response from the audience, the moderator started a discussion about the Cooperative Online Resource Catalog. The panel responded with a careful explanation of CORC that enabled me, and evidently others in the audience as well, to truly understand its nature for the first time. The panel handled questions on other topics equally well.

Most memorable point: CORC is in its early stages and is not well received in all library circles. (My impression was that CORC is regarded by some as an infant outlaw.) Auburn is among the pioneers in its development. 
 

Notes from Cora Cobb

Staff and Today’s Libraries
 

The workshop I attended dealt primary with the configuration of today’s library with the goal of better service to patrons.  With the rapid changes in technology, libraries, librarians, and staff across the country are  world wide web and database savvy.  The number one area that tops the list is staff.  Staff plays a larger role in libraries of today by assuming more responsibility. These changes are also contributing to an increase in cross training.  Enhanced training in different areas of the library such as reference, public relations (circulation), and cataloging  (serials and books), etc., are reflected in the quality of service patrons receive. 
 

Notes from Susan Hinds

Thursday, Oct 12, 2000        8:30 am - 10:20 am

Circulation Across Statewide Systems:  The GIL & PINES project in Georgia

Presenters:  Claire Colombo, University of Georgia, Jennifer Watson, Georgia Office of Public Library Services

The session covered two Georgia projects that are currently adapting automation to advanced customer access to materials across statewide library systems. 

I was most interested in the presentation by Claire Columbo from the University of Georgia.  They are a Voyager library and will be beta testing this service.  Other Georgia libraries beta testing this process will be Costal Community College, Bainbridge, Columbus State and the Medical College.

Their goal is seamless borrowing among participating libraries..  A patron from any of the participating libraries can access the universal catalog and place a request on an item not located within their home library.  The system decides where the request will be sent if more than one location owns the requested material.   If all goes well, it should be delivered to the patrons' home library within four days.

Each local library can determine how they want to process requests---from hourly to a specificed number of established times each day.  The request is checked out to the requesting patrons' home library and sent to this library where the patron will then come in to check it out.  It displays in the catalog as an "in transit" item until it is checked out by the patron.  When it is returned, it is checked in at the paton's home library where it displays "in transit" again.  It is then sent back to it's originating library and checked in so that the "in transit" message disappears.  This is the current process at AU Libraries when a book belonging to one of the branch librararies is returned to the main library. 

One question that was brought up concerning Interlibrary Loans--where would this leave them?  Claire indicated that this process should take the "simple" off of ILLs' shoulders and leave them more time to work with those hard citations.  It's definitely not meant to do away with ILL, but to reduce the "clerical" from their job. 

Claire indicated Endeavor had not been successful in loading the system at this time, but she had high hopes that it would be later that day--in fact she was leaving immediately after the meeting to prepare for it. 

 A statewide committee was formed consisting of members from the participating libraries to set up policies by which all libraries would abide.  Apparently this committee had their work cut out for them and after a lot of discussion came to a set of policies all could live with.  Some of the policies they set included loan periods (28 days), types of items that can't be checked out (item type set by each library), recalls (none placed on universal catalog level), number of items a patrons can check out (300 as a universal borrower).  At Valdosta, a patron is only allowed to check out 50 items at one time, but as a universal borrowers, their limit is 300.  It has also been decided that no fines will be charged, however during the beta testing process this part will be tested--in fact, every aspect of the system will be tested regardless if it will be insitutied or not.

There is a Phase Two part of universal borrowing that Claire discussed. When it is time to implement Phase Two, they will take a step back to see if it is actually accomplishing what it is designed to accomplish.  The committee will also look at the policies they have in place to see if any changes need to be made.  In Phase One, if a request can't be satisfied by the library a yes or no is sent to the requesting patron.  The patron then has to rerequest the item from another library.  In Phase Two, they hope to have a "smart" request feature that will automatically forward the request to another intitution.  This system is just like any other componet of Voyager--it will be constantly changing and improving.

The second part of the discussion concerned the PINES project--universal borrowing for the public library sector.   The one advantage Jennifer Watson listed was that this would help take a further burden off of Interlibrary Loans. They also indicated that the eventual goal was to tie into the academic libraries and all work together to supply materials to all Georgia library patrons.