I was just working on this. We've also asked for things to be held but we
know there are large quantities of periodical issues on campus. Some were
delivered to our building for weeks even though we were not there and in
more recent weeks, we think campus mail began storing everything in another
building on campus.
One idea is that since the library most likely will first reopen only to
staff, we could spread things out in classrooms or all over the library so
that multiple people can do some immediate triage working at a distance
from each other, including people who do not work in technical services.
For our print periodical titles (just under 1000 subs), we are thinking to
scrap check-in (which we will probably stop altogether now, like so many
have done long ago) and I'm pondering whether to take the time to put a
property stamp on the issues or not. This is stuff we bind. Maybe it will
depend on how much time we have to get them under control before patrons
are coming into the building. I calculate that at a norm of few hours a day
including check-in, and using 10 weeks away (we're at 7 right now), 5 days
a week, then 150 hours of labor to get it under control would be a gross
overestimate because of eliminating check-in. So if you have just 5 people
helping temporarily, that's 30 hrs/person total (and it doesn't have to be
the same people all the time because there's not much training for sorting
and stamping), and say they can only do 3 hours a day on it, it's done in
about 2 weeks. What do you think? Does it adjust to your scale?
For books and other non-periodical materials, my main focus will be paying
invoices that have not yet been paid (including recording them in the
library system before FY end) and confirming the titles on the invoices
arrived. I'm optimistic that invoice work will be minimal since we've
actually processed almost every one for items that were shipped before I
stopped the shipping and because we had to stop ordering too. Everything
else (receiving in the system, cataloging) can be done over time, including
figuring out the best way to catch it up expeditiously.
And I have to be optimistic because we're also in the middle of a system
migration (Voyager to Alma), so we really have to have our fiscal records
right in Voyager and do our rollover before our system cutover!
Lauren
--
Lauren Corbett
Director of Resource Services, Z. Smith Reynolds Library
Wake Forest University
336-758-6136 ISNI: 0000 0003 5170 369X
On Wed, Apr 29, 2020 at 5:27 PM Dittman, Amy <amy_dittman_at_harvard.edu>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if anyone had started to develop plans for the day at
> least some of us might return to working on-site. How do you plan to
> address the backlogs that have formed?
>
> We anticipate a large number of our serial issues to be waiting for us –
> we asked a lot of our major vendors to hold our shipments, but so many
> serials come directly from the publisher, that we are anticipating that
> those will still be waiting for us, as well as anything that shipped prior
> to the decision to leave campus, and arrived after our departure.
>
> Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas they would be willing to share
> about how they plan to address large quantities of material, particularly
> if some staff remain off-site to continue some level of social distancing?
> Thanks!
>
> Amy
>
>
>
> Amy Dittman
> Head of Electronic Resources and Serials Acquisitions
>
> Harvard Library ITS
>
> 625 Massachusetts Ave, Room 301
>
> amy_dittman_at_harvard.edu
>
> 617-998-1656
>
>
>
> Report a problem: http://library.harvard.edu/report-problem
>
>
>
Received on Wed Apr 29 2020 - 19:31:39 EDT