USAIN Management Team Meeting Minutes
10 May 2000
11:00am
Smathers Library Conference Room
Present:
Cathy Mook, Principal Investigator
Jimmie Lundgren
Nelda Schwartz
Susan Constantineau
Victoria Naipavel
Filming Production for April: As in March, filming production was again limited due to the vagrancies of our student filmers. Spring term classes ended on April 26th, but as they began to prepare for finals mid-month, their attendance became increasingly spotty. [Please see the April 2000 filming statistics for exact figures.] Our reliance on students as filmers is obviously problematic, but given the nature of the beast, fairly well understood. These periods of down time usually happen at breaks and holidays and are accounted for in all funding and staffing discussions.
It was also noted that there are 1,414 volumes still to film. Approximately 500 are queued in Preservation with their targets, ready to film. Another significant batch is working its way through the filming queue. The final 200 to 300 titles/volumes to be gathered will come from a variety of sources including the National Agriculture Library, UF Special Collections, InterLibrary Loan, and a second pass through the Marston Science Library to retrieve titles that were not found during previous retrieval runs. We are also considering contacting staff members at the IFAS (institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences) Experiment Stations to see if they possess any of the titles contained in the bibliography but not housed in the Libraries.
It was noted later in the meeting that a dependable student had been hired to film 30 hours a week for the entire summer and that her start date was May 15, 2000. In addition to the filmer, one other student (or possibly two) will be hired in Preservation to assist with searching, data base entry and title/volume retrieval.
Cataloging Production for April: Cataloging production for April continued at a similar pace as March production. Naomi Young, Serials Cataloger in charge of reviewing Susan's work for CONSER completeness, was unable to attend the meeting since she was attending a CONSER workshop in Washington, D.C.. Naomi did not have time in April to review Susan's March or April work. It was suggested that perhaps Susan only bring certain categories of work to Naomi for review, such a difficult or unclear titles changes. This would, of course, affect our CONSER statistics. This proposal will be undergo further exploration next week upon Naomi's return.
In an effort to increase the number of titles cataloged in a month, a decision was made to hire a temporary (6 week) cataloger to move the process forward faster. [Jimmie Lundgren had someone in mind who is a school teacher and has summers free. She contacted this person and he was interested in pursuing the opportunity. A salary was agreed upon between Jimmie and Cathy and Jack comes on board starting June 5th.] It is the hope of the P.I. that significant and speedy progress is made toward cataloging the titles already gathered and sitting on the shelves upstairs because of an impending physical reorganization of the staff space within Resource Services scheduled to begin mid-summer. The reorganization will possibly impede the workflow within the entire department for many weeks.
Josie, the USAIN student in Resource Services, has inventoried 8 more serials titles for missing issues and volumes. Susan was unsure exactly what gaps Josie discovered. Susan will compile the missing issue data and eventually forward a list of needed volumes to David Fuller in ILL.
Budget: Cathy Mook reviewed the budget with an eye towards the future. Given the amount spent on the grant so far, the funds being expended for Susan's salary and benefits, and the monies allocated for summer student support in Resource Services and Preservation, the amount of funding remaining will definitely be enough to cover all additional expenses until December 2000. In fact, there may be enough to gather, catalog and film more tiles and volumes than originally contracted. However, as there have been difficulties finding enough titles from the bibliography, and the various bottlenecks in Resource Services and Preservation, we do not really anticipate running over our projections.
Interlibrary Loan: Cathy Mook and David Fuller, Head of the ILL Department, met late in April to discuss the ability of Preservation and ILL to work together to gather needed titles and volumes smoothly and efficiently. David was very helpful and had some good ideas on which other libraries might be good suppliers of historical agricultural data. He is going to work on a form for us to fill out.
Other: Wally Olsen emailed Cathy that the letter confirming the extension of the grant should be sent from Cornell any day now. Wally also requested a substantive 6 month report at the end of June.
Respectfully Submitted,
Cathy Mook
May 10, 2000
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