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Technical Services Redesign
Short-Term Planning (to last 6 - 12 months)

April 12, 1995

Objectives

1. Keep up with the flow of work as we lose staff through attrition, reassignment, retirement, etc.
2. Take the $250,000 cut on 9/1/95
3. Move staff in a staff development direction, i.e., to broaden skills for future flexibility within and outside of T.S.
4. Keep up morale by moving staff to needed functions, rather than just "waiting"
5. Make transitions which move us in the direction of the Redesign process changes
6. Make good use of existing expertise and skill sets
7. Manage the timing of terminations for term staff

Main Elements

MERGE ACQUISITIONS RECEIVING WITH COPY CATALOGING

The most dramatic change is to merge the functions of Receiving with those of Copy Cataloging and put this set of staff on Meyer 4th floor. Perhaps include one person from Binding and Finishing to supply the end-processing expertise and to allow some staff development. This group will handle the bulk of our monographic materials; exceptional materials (non-book, microforms, terminal sets, added volumes, accompanying materials, etc.) will be handled by the group working with "complicated cataloging," below.

The staff of the former two sections will cross train each other in the following component functions: receiving, copy cataloging, PUBbing, barcoding (item creation), and simple end-processing. Inclusion of end-processing adds variety to the work and the physical motion required. Though we are not sure of this piece, we believe it worth a try. The name will be Monograph Receiving Group, and it represents about 12 permanent FTE and 3 term positions

Having the bulk of our material received and cataloged in Meyer prompts us to move the Binding and Finishing operation (except for Bindery Receiving) to Meyer. It is a relatively even swap of space between Meyer 3rd Floor Replacement and Reformatting Section and Galvez Binding and Finishing operations.

COMBINE COMPLICATED COPY CATALOGING, COPY-ASSISTED CATALOGING, AND SOME RECORD MAINTENANCE

Complicated copy cataloging (noted above: non-book, microforms, terminal sets, added volumes, accompanying materials) staff will be combined with staff who do variant edition and copy assisted cataloging (formerly in Original Monographic Cataloging section). Some staff from the former Catalog Management Section will be placed here as well. These people will be consolidated into Galvez, near OMC.

Staff will be cross-trained so skill sets will merge. Record maintenance function may evolve into a Resource Group-based model of support, with staff from this section detailed to serve specific needs of each RG. Among the options being considered are rotating stints during which the staff person resides physically at a service unit. The intention is for staff to get on-site exposure to the immediacy of PS data needs; rotating back to Cataloging space allows them to keep up their cataloging/standards skills and to bring the enhanced understanding back to the group. This short term plan includes support for distributing some maintenance to branch staff. The name of the full unit will be Copy-Assisted Cataloging Group, and it represents about 7 FTE.

CONSOLIDATE ORIGINAL MONOGRAPH CATALOGING UNITS; MOVE RESPONSIBILITY FOR PUB RECALL

Merge Science/Social Science unit and Humanities unit into one group. The function of current Copy Cataloging which does PUB recalling is split off and becomes a Team within OMC responsibility. The support staff in OMC will now handle both pre-cat transliterations and transcriptions AND PUB recall. The PUB recall work will evolve into the after-cycling work that we anticipate when we do Diogenes or other service for principal PUB coverage. This is essentially a student-staffed operation, with 1 FTE LS oversight. The name, Original Monograph Cataloging (OMC) is resurrected; its support group will be called the Distribution Team. The combined group represents about 11 FTE.

DIGITAL INITIATIVE SUPPORT

Current Serials Cataloging remains the same and in Meyer. Included under the same umbrella will be staff who create and maintain records for online information resources. Included: create and maintain metadata, add, umodify, or otherwise maintain resources that are in SUL/AIR home pages; do html conversion; do SGML markup; provide scanning and OCR service. The name will be Serials and Electronic Resources Cataloging Group; number of staff beyond the current 5 FTE is unknown as of today.

CONSOLIDATE DATABASE MANAGEMENT

High-level responsibility for data integrity is housed here. A large piece of this formerly resided in Systems; a smaller piece sat in CMS. Included is responsibility to review and prioritize distributed maintenance schema and maintenance functions performed in Copy Assisted Cataloging Group. Global changes of data, in concert with Systems when appropriate, is managed here. Managing the vendor authorities pass and resultant data sits here. Specifying current data import/export and Tran/Can function are also included. As Redesign evolves, we expect more FTE will be detailed to these functions to set up monitoring and testing tools for incoming data from vendors and utilities. The name will be Database Management, and it will start with 2.5 FTE.

Essentially Unchanged in this plan

Search/Order
Serials Records
Payments
Replacement and Reformatting (except that it moves)
Binding and Finishing (except that it moves)
Conservation Treatment

4/11/95

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Last modified: August 9, 2005