It s not all about the metadata How the

It’s not all about the metadata: How the work of the Bib Services Team contributes to the User Experience: Evidence from the PIC Project Lynne Dyer, Bibliographic Services Team Manager, De Montfort University DMU Bib Services – PIC Project August 2014

The two programmes of work for Bib Services • The Record Enhancement to Aid Discover-ability Initiative • The Protecting the Integrity of our Catalogue Project were both developed in October 2012, and pulled together work that the team were already doing. They provided the team with an idea of where they were headed over the next year or so. DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

READ-ability, and to some extent PIC, was about : • Bib Services committing to improving the experience of students and other library users when interacting with the library catalogue and the library stock. • Articulating and understanding what Bib Services as a team did and how what Bib Services did helped the users. • Promoting the work of Bib Services to the wider library staff. READ-ability focussed mainly on the work of the cataloguers: PIC focussed mainly on the work of cataloguing colleagues. DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

The PIC Project was a companion to the READ-ability Initiative. It aimed to: • Focus on, and pull together much of the work done by other colleagues in Bib Services. • Recognise that most of the work being done helped to protect the integrity of the catalogue, which in turn helped with discoverability of information, and ultimately with the user experience. DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

Note that Bib Services’ regular activities, like the ordering, cataloguing, classifying, processing (and hotlinking where appropriate) new books, streamed videos, DMU theses and new and amended journals titles already contributed to both the READ-ability Initiative and the PIC Project. So, the focus of the two programmes was on new and different activities, which wherever possible and appropriate would become part of the regular work of the team. DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

PIC-Project - Progress • While cataloguers concentrate on re-classification, PIC involves the physical re-classification of stock (within the book and on the LMS). Loads have been done but is almost impossible to quantify • Hotlinks added to resources like government publications that we’ve bought, have been verified and updated as necessary and are now future-proofed via the Wayback machine. Again, impossible to quantify, but many A 4 ringbinders of printouts! Those that are not future-proofed are checked on an annual basis DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

PIC-Project - Progress • Stockchecking – stockcheck of main library, Law Library, and most of the separate collections has been done over period of 2 years • Couple of small sections left to do before embarking on a rolling programme • Resulted in many changes to catalogue records and physical changes to actual items • And a catalogue that accurately reflects what is on the shelves! DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

PIC-Project - Progress Stockchecking was a complex process which involved: • querying the LMS, • producing a spreadsheet report (items in a class number range), • downloading results to laptop, • walking around the library wanding RFID tags, • uploading results to pc, • comparing the 2 spreadsheets DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

PIC-Project - Progress This process produced info that allowed us to correct many anomalies: • items still on loan despite being on the shelves, • items with the wrong status, e. g. withdrawn, • problems with the RFID tags, e. g. missing or incorrectly programmed, • items with an incorrect sequence/item type/spine label, • items incorrectly shelved, • and a whole raft of other, miscellaneous problems! I don’t have figures, but the number of items that had gone missing was far fewer than expected! DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

PIC-Project - Progress • Binding – regular journal binding has been done as well as many books beyond repair, where it was cheaper to re-bind than buy a new/2 nd hand copy. Also bound items from the Special Collections which haven’t before been considered • Withdrawals this year have run into the 1000 s and have included regular weeding schedules, offprints, virtual offprints, and an increase in damaged items being withdrawn rather than repaired, as well as VHS withdrawals DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

PIC-Project - Progress • New missing items procedure seems to be working: Status of the item changed so is reflected more accurately on the catalogue. After a certain period if not found the item is withdrawn • Repairs – this has been another area of growth, although see Withdrawals above. 717 (2010 -11), 1526 (2011 -12), 1367 (2012 -13), 351 (2013 -14) • Re-locations – much short loan stock was re-located to either 7 -day loan or Normal loan & 7 -day to normal DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

Process Reviews - Progress Several process reviews are currently happening: • Journals process review • Conversion of team operating manual to a Lib. Guide • Book ordering (including EDI Quotes/Invoices) • Inter-library loans (Capita module) Further process reviews for the coming year include: • E-books and E-resources DMU Bib Services – PIC Project

What next? Who knows! DMU Bib Services – PIC Project