PRESERVING THE HISTORY OF U. S. AGRICULTURE AND RURAL LIFE
AN N.E.H. FUNDED GRANT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
Six month report
January to June 2000
July 31, 2000
Mary Ochs
Head of Collection Development
USAIN/NEH Preservation Project Director
Mann Library
Cornell University
Dear Mary,
Enclosed please find a summary of
the progress staff at the University of Florida’s Smathers Library has made on
the USAIN grant during the six month period of January to June 2000. As the
Primary Investigator, I am happy to report that significant advancements have
been made in all areas of the grant. As
I have been consistently forwarding to you detailed monthly reports, I will
simply sketch out the broader issues in this document.
If you or someone on your staff needs clarification on any topic
mentioned with this report, please have them contact me directly and I can point
them towards the appropriate monthly reports.
- Cataloging:
On January 1st Susan Constantineau was hired on a full time
temporary basis to be the cataloger for the USAIN project.
Ms. Constantineau had previously worked in the cataloging department
at Dartmouth and worked as the temporary full time cataloger for the United
States Newspaper Project (USNP) from spring of 1998 to December of 1999.
After wrapping up her USNP duties, she began her USAIN tenure by
attacking a truck of monographs needing AACR2 updates and authority work.
She completed 171 titles in the first two months.
She concentrated on monographs and pamphlets initially but soon
entered the wonderful world of serials.
Many of the serial runs included in the bibliography for Florida are
not held completely by UF. Therefore,
she began to InterLibrary Loan volumes and individual issues from other
Libraries in June. [Staff in the Preservation Department are responsible for
ILL’ing any needed monographic titles.] To allow Susan time to concentrate
on serials, a second full time temporary position was filled June 1st.
Jack Fisher, who worked in the Resource Services Department years
ago, was hired for 6 weeks to work on copy cataloging of monographs,
pamphlets and theses. Jack has proven to be a valuable asset and we are
considering keeping him on after his 6 weeks are over.
I asked Susan and Jack to keep statistics of their accomplishments
and I have attached that document as Appendix One.
- Filming:
In house filming operations began in earnest in early January.
As the full time staff in the Reprographics Unit is exceedingly busy
with administrative and training responsibilities, we tend to hire students
on grant monies to be the primary filmers.
Therefore, our general workflow and monthly productivity are heavily
influenced by class schedules and the overall availability of the students.
For example, production was limited in March since all of our filmers
left for Spring Break. Fortunately,
we were able to hire two talented filmers to work from May to August, so
there has been no drop in production over the summer months.
I am pleased to announce that during the month of June we exceeded
our stated project wide goal of 573 titles filmed and are almost half way to
our goal of 1,749 volumes filmed. Please
see Appendix Two for a summary of all filming activities for the
January-June period.
- Communication:
In hopes of establishing open channels of communication between all
members of the USAIN management team, I decided to conduct a monthly meeting
dedicated exclusively to addressing USAIN grant issues.
Library staff with significant commitments to the grant such as
myself, the full time catalogers, their supervisors and certain Preservation
staff attend. Those currently
peripheral to the grant, such as ILL office staff and selectors in the
Science Library, do not attend. These
meetings, held the second Wednesday of every month, generally run about an
hour. Our agendas usually
consist of a report from Preservation regarding filming productivity, a
report from Resource Services regarding cataloging productivity, discussion
of ILL issues, budget updates and any work flow concerns that need to be
addressed. There is also an
internal, UF only Web page that is a central gathering site for statistics,
reports and meeting agendas and minutes.
- Budget/Finance:
I still have not received the June report from the Division of
Sponsored Research here on campus. I
will forward data to you regarding our financial picture as soon as I
receive it. I could share May’s figures with you, but as it is
almost August now and Jack, the second full time cataloger, was hired at an
attractive hourly wage on June 1st, May’s figures are basically
irrelevant.
Thanks and again, if you have any further questions, please
do not hesitate to contact me at cathy@mail.uflib.ufl.edu
or 352-392-6962.
Sincerely,
Cathleen L. Mook
Head, Preservation Department
Primary Investigator, USAIN grant
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