Keeping up with tech services

The UPS driver continues to bring new orders the technical services. With the first - and second - start-up funds spent and cataloging under way, responsibility for these items circles back to me. Keeping up with our cataloger's brisk pace has been a daily challenge! Within three days she has cataloged activity books (sixteen different classifications), a collection of leveled book kits, and this afternoon the reference collection.

Building electronic access links to the collection is time consuming, especially since I elected to do so from catalog records prior to book order slips being delivered, and essential. The information it presents to the IRC Columbus Center Committee, translates to an immediately viable resource as end of year staff meetings in Columbus featured the blog and web page with mention of the LibGuide planned for the next few weeks.

The Care and Feeding of Library Student Assistants, Greg Martin

This is the last post in a short series of posts summarizing information from the CMCIG workshop. For additional comments from workshop attendees, visit the CMCIG Blog.

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The workshop concluded with a session by Greg Martin, CMCIG chair and Curriculum Materials Center Librarian at Cedarville University and author of Cedarville's Curriculum Materials Center blog.. Greg's presentation, "The Care and Feeding of Library Student Assistants," detailed the multifaceted programs in place at Cedarville University including information on their awards plan, fall cookout, "goody" bags, and a spring library appreciation banquet. I was a bit awestruck by the sheer number of programs funded by the library, but was able to garner basic ideas for things to incorporate into my IRC.

Prior to the workshop, Greg requested attendees bring their own training manuals and handbooks to share with the group. During the open discussion time following the presentation, a variety of great ideas and questions were fielded by and for the good of the group. This was a great opportunity to not only see how other librarians hire and train student assistants, but also how they field problems, concerns, and triumphs running their CMCs.

Tags: ALAO, CMCIG, CMCIG workshop, Greg Martin, Cedarville University

Weeding and Cooperative Collection Development, Sara Bushong

This is the first post in a short series of posts summarizing information from the CMCIG workshop. For additional comments from workshop attendees, visit the CMCIG Blog.

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The CMCIG workshop, Dynamic CMC's: Tools to Improve Service, was held Friday, May 18, 2007, at Miami University's King Library. The first session presenter was Sara Bushong, Head Librarian of the Curriculum Resource Center at Bowling Green State University's Jerome Library. Sara's presentation, "Weeding and Cooperative Collection Development," included discussions on weeding that have been present on the EBSS list serv in the last month, detailed the weeding project currently in progress at BGSU, and provided information regarding OhioLINK and cooperative collection development.

Issues Facing CMC's include collection development and the ever present questions of "Is it old?" or "Is it historical?" CMC directors must determine how long to keep textbooks, activity books, and materials kits and juggle these issues with our individual collection development missions and policies. Sara detailed several points made on the EBSS list regarding different weeding system in place. One of the most prevalent methods, the CREW guidelines revised and updated by Belinda Boon, utilizes a six point guideline following the acronym MUSTIE (Misleading, Ugly, Superseded, Trivial, Irrelevant, Elsewhere attainable).

BGSU's collection analysis and weeding project was introduced to workshop attendees, as well as the criteria form used for the CRC collection. The form identified three key factors; circulation trends (last two circulation dates), depository trends (number of copies), and ownership by OhioLINK (public and academic) libraries. Further considerations for withdrawal from the CRC collection or consignment to the BGSU depository with final decisions regarding withdrawal of titles were made by the CRC staff. :

• If (title) is already in depository: Withdraw
• If OhioLINK has lots of circulating copies (+5): Withdraw
• If OhioLINK has few copies (3 - 5 depending on title): BGSU Depository
• If there are more than 2 copies in another depository: Withdraw
• If there are only single copies in two other depositories: BGSU Depository
• If copy is in bad condition and not a significant title: Withdraw

The analysis form criteria was applied to children and young adult literature, curriculum textbooks (additional terms), activity books, and reference books. Sara reported that at this time, BGSU has withdrawn almost 4,000 items thus helping to "refine our collecting focus, make decisions for the future, and relieve space needs and physical weight issues."

I found this session particularly interesting as one week prior to the workshop I fielded inquiries from the library director regarding weeding the AU juvenile collection (space is a continuous issue as is the relevance of our collection). A large collection does not guarantee a comprehesive and useful collection, it is just large. We do own dated non-fiction titles that should be removed and replaced with newer titles having correct information. An important distinction to make, and one that was discussed at length during the workshop, is that weeding processes are not "one size fits all." Every library and/or curriculum materials center librarian has to use the system most benefitting individual mission and collection development statements. I have instigated a quick discussion concerning a potential weeding project (juvenile non-fiction)with one of the college of education professors. It will be beneficial to me having a representative from the college using the juvenile collection share in the decision making process.

For more information on this presentation, contact Sara Bushong, Bowling Green State University.

Updated 5/23/07

Tags: ALAO, CMCIG, Sara Bushong, Weeding collections

Ellison Die Library

It is my last weekend to work this term and thanks to Gina Bolger, the education librarian at Cornerstone University's Curriculum Materials Center, I had a fun and useful project to work with this afternoon. I will be doing a complete IRC web page overhaul in the next few weeks and always like to see what others are doing. Thursday, I was surfing the net looking a other CMC web pages and found Cornerstone University's CMC site. One sentence caught my attention, "Logon to our Ellison Die Library to see our collection of die cuts." What a great idea! After a simple login process at Ellison's Die Library page, I was able to create two libraries for the IRC's collections:

• IRC - Alphabet & Number Library
  Die Library ID: 8795
  Password: auirc
• IRC - Borders & General Dies
  Die Library ID: 0234
  Password: auirc

Anyone may login and view our existing collections, and only the librarian is allowed to edit. This is a nice perk to add to my IRC page and will help me keep track of the dies existing in our collection. It might even replace my spreadsheet (or not).

Tags: Library Cloud, Ellison Dies, Ellison Die Cut Library