Page History

...

Investigation: Members of the Working Group shared respective organizational charts and discussed details of reporting and decision-making structures during phone conversations and in a face-to-face meeting.

Monographs Processing Services (MPS) has a Divisional Director that includes a copy cataloging department which consists of three individual units, and a monographs acquisitions department (MAS) with two individual units. Decisions affecting policy and procedure within MAS are discussed between the department Head and the Order Unit Librarian and brought to the larger division as information sharing.  Policy and procedural decisions affecting the MPS Division are discussed and agreed up in consultation with the Division Director and all unit Librarians.  Changes to policy and procedure that affect other acquisitions and cataloging divisions are discussed at the Print & Electronic Resources Coordination (PERC) committee.  Fiscal and budgetary issues and possible policy and procedural changes affecting acquisitions and Collection Development are discussed at Materials Budget Group (MBG) meetings.  Issues regarding selection, collection, and budgets with regards to selectors are discussed at the Selectors Discussion Group (SDG) meetings.

Acquisitions and Automated Technical Services (AATS) is directed by Boaz Nadav-Manes, and consists of Copy Cataloging/Inputting, Ordering and Gifts, Receiving and Documents, and Batch Processing and Metadata Management.  Procedural decisions are made by the administrative supervisor or coordinator of that unit in consultation with the director of AATS.  Policy decisions are made by the director of AATS who consults with one or all of the appropriate unit supervisors or coordinators as needed.

...

Both Columbia and Cornell handle similar material, process priority and non-priority orders, and receive them in similar ways.  However, there are significant differences (imbed) in policies, practices and workflows between the two institutions and some of these are inherent in the systems utilized to ingest and place orders.  Columbia utilizes GOBI as its main discovery, selection and ordering tool for domestic and UK imprints that are not specialized material, e.g., fine art and architecture and music scores.  The POOF is primarily used by selectors to submit orders and OAR staff enter the orders directly into Voyager after ingesting the record using WorldCat's Connexion.  OAR Unit staff are authorized to approve purchase orders in Voyager and are reviewed by the Order Unit Librarian or Head, MAS before they are forwarded to vendors.  Cornell does not use GOBI in the same manner as Columbia.  Cornell's primary discovery, selection and ordering tool is WCS.  The use of WCS at Cornell informs their practices and workflows.  Cornell's ordering staff do not approve POs in Voyager; supervisors of ordering staff approve POs on a daily basis.  Cornell's ordering staff create new orders using the POOF whereas Columbia enters them directly into Voyager.

Summarize dependencies and limitations in working with other functional units at Columbia and Cornell.

Investigation: Members of the Working Group shared and posted respective documentation on dependencies and limitations on Basecamp and the 2CUL wiki and discussed details during phone conversations, and a face-to-face meeting.

Columbia and Cornell's ordering units depend on external departments such as collection development, Information Technology (IT), and accounting which can sometimes inhibit their ordering processes.  Columbia cannot conduct business with a vendor until they have been set up by the University's Vendor Management team.  Cornell is a bit more lax with regards to doing business with new vendors.  Credit cards are strictly controlled at Columbia and only the Order Unit Librarian and Head, MAS possess credit cards for firm ordering.  Cornell's ordering staff have their own credit cards.  Both Columbia and Cornell rely on their respective collection development departments whenever an order is submitted on an overspent fund.  Columbia must ask for collection development's permission to proceed on orders over $500. 

Summarize available baseline productivity numbers in the receiving departments at Columbia and Cornell.

Investigation: Members of the Working Group shared and posted respective documentation on baseline productivity numbers between fiscal years 2009 and 2012 on Basecamp and the 2CUL wiki.  The productivity numbers were discussed in detail during phone conversations, email correspondence, and a face-to-face meeting.              

As mentioned in the summary of staffing and expertise section of this report, the processing of CJKT material takes place in C.V. Starr East Asian Library which is physically and organizationally outside of the Monographs Processing Services Division at Columbia.  Cornell processes materials in CJKT within their central Library Technical Services division.  This organizational difference explicates the three distinct groups of baseline productivity numbers displayed in our reports: Columbia, Columbia-Starr (C.V. Starr East Asian Library), and Cornell.  The overall numbers show a steady decline in the quantity of firm orders for Columbia and Cornell, while Starr's productivity numbers have stayed relatively the same over the same span of time.  Cornell's numbers with CJKT are higher than Columbia's without CJKT.  However, Columbia's productivity numbers combined with Starr's CJKT numbers are higher overall than Cornell's. 

Recommendations regarding a work plan and critical issues to explore in Phase 2 of the group's assignment.

...