December 14 Department Meeting Minutes

Christine De Vries came to talk to us about preservation issues.

• Filmoplast. It may be good for some situations (Kay would be the one to ask), but the tape creates a “strong” area that actually leads to the rest breaking around it. They have a kind of Japanese paper they will train us to apply with little irons instead. Laura will set up training sessions with Christine and Kay.

• Tipping in. They would rather do it (our archival glue is gone in any case), and it shouldn’t take the item out of commission for very long. At the moment they have the staff to handle the workflow. We made the point that most of the terrible repairs they see on items we send down were done decades ago, so we’re not currently wreaking the same havoc.

• They are working out a separate procedure by which we can send items down for binding/repairs/photocopying without having them cataloged first. They have pullout shelving where they can store them separate from the main workflow. Laura, Christine and Kay will develop a method of keeping track of what we sent down (probably a spreadsheet). (They can’t do much archival photocopying right now, and it costs, on average, $140 apiece to send it out to be done commercially.) The collections we’re shifting out of M350 but not sending offsite would be the prime next candidates for this preservation stream. Once we identify which sections will be going where we can tell Christine which ones she needs to survey.

• PASCAL labels. They use a bone folder (a smooth plastic or bone tool) to burnish the labels onto the books—they don’t stick otherwise—and will send us some.

• We decided that books going to PASCAL no longer need call number labels--presumably no shelver or patron will ever need to use the call numbers to get the books. However, books with wide-enough spines that are staying here need good labels. Christine offered to have Preservation print out permanent-ink labels down there, which will not take longer, but we need to test whether our call numbers can be formatted correctly through Anzio or whether we need to send them from a Word document we create ourselves. Preservation has a Word template designed for use with the special labels and it may be possible to use that. Laura will check with Kou to see if he has enough hours to keep up with the demand, and if not get someone to help him. Several people would have to be trained in this process (or processes, if U.S. docs can’t be labeled through Anzio).

Peggy asked for topics for the next Research Desk retreat.

• Tech topics especially—Deb mentioned wireless problems.

• VPN

• Comprehensive guide to privileges—Commons, equipment, circ—for all patrons, including Naropa and alumni, all on one list, circ privileges and Commons rules and room reservations and equipment access, etc.
  

• Citation guides--rather than re-invent the wheel, refer patrons to the Purdue Owl site for citation help, and the North Carolina site for writing help. In any case, don't we need more than one print copy in Ref?
  
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• (Post-meeting discussion). The library doesn't have up-to-date study guides for the big academic tests--GREs, LSATs, MCATs, etc., and it's hard to keep up with them in print, but shouldn't we *have* current ones? Should we subscribe to a database with permission for a few simultaneous users? (Peggy says it's too late to suggest this for the retreat.)