Budgets and Projects

Today, my internship meeting was all about how we make Acquisitions through one of our main vendors, Harrassowitz, through the use of several key programs: ReMARC, OCLC Connexion, and Workflows.  The Music Library uses Harrassowitz as its main vendor for European monographs and scores, and thus purchases a great deal of traditional "classical" music literature from them.

My internship coordinator gave me a stack of Bibliographic records (referred to by me as "bib records" from here on out) to seek out and determine whether or not we were already in possession of an earlier edition or version of the score in question.  For all but one, we did not already have the title.  Thus, I used Workflows to begin the ordering process: by importing the bib record from OCLC using ReMARC (a kind of snapshot program for bib records).  I import the record using the SmartPort command in Workflows, and from there I am able to process my order.  After I create an order number, I use Harrassowitz's website here to actually firm order the item.  This way, it goes through both their system and ours to purchase the title.

Once the item is shipped, it will go first to Wells Library (the main campus Library) to be quickly processed and then sent to the Music Library for cataloging.  At first, I was a tad confused as to why this happens, instead of all orders being shipped directly to us -- but it was explained that if books need further care, like binding or whatnot, it is much easier to send them with an order of Wells books.  It still seems like a bit of an unnecessary step to me, but it works, and who am I to argue with a system that isn't broken?

Order books also brings up an interesting point: the budget.  This is an important time in the fiscal year, since we're beginning to get a little short on funds.  We need to over-spend, rather than under-spend, because a great deal of our orders may not come in before the end of the fiscal year and we need to have spent all of our money to get MORE money the next year.  At present, we have about 35% of our budget remaining, which means the semester long project I am working on: both my desiderata list and my Collected Works projects (which I'm sure I'll post about soon) will have a place within the remaining funds

Yankee Book Peddlers

As part of my internship opportunities I had the opportunity to attend a meeting for Collection Developers from the Indiana University's many Libraries with Yankee Book Peddlers (YBP).  YBP is one of the many vendors that the University Libraries have agreements with, and the Music Library is no different.  We primarily receive monographs, rather than scores, from YBP, and have a rather lengthy (15 page) approval plan with them.  This morning, the meeting was run by Collection Development Manager Suzanne Kapusta and Director of U.S. Sales, Mike Walmsley.

The focus of the meeting was the changes being made to Gobi, the Yankee Book Peddler ordering website, where the librarians and acquisitions staff are able to view the books being automatically ordered as per their approval plans, the books recommended to the libraries on "slips", and are able to firm order titles.  The website is getting a virtual facelift, being launched in June 2012.  The new interface will be more aesthetically pleasing and contain a great deal more graphical elements.  The "slips" for the books will now contain book jacket scans, and all of the action buttons will be replaced by graphics; for example save will become a floppy disk, email becomes an envelope, and so on.  

Perhaps the most important feature that is being changed, however, is the search feature.  The current search methods are "Quick Search," which appears on the main page and is a general keyword search of title and summary fields, and "Standard Search" which must be chosen, and has a great deal more options for paring down the search.  The new interface will involve faceted searching, meaning that on the main page, the user can select from a drop-down menu the type of search they wish to perform -- allowing the user to narrow their search without taking the additional steps to reach the "Standard Search" page.  The user will be able to choose from a Subject search, which searches the Library of Congress Subject Headings as well as Interdisciplinary subjects, an Author/Editor search, a Keyword search which will now be able to search all of the fields of an entry, so that the Table of Contents and other notes are accessible by the search (and to note: the Keyword search will now also be able to use Boolean terms), a Title search, and an ISBN number search.  Once a search is performed, the new left sidebar will have categories in which a user will be able to par down the search.  For example, it will be much like Amazon.com, where if one would say, search for "Neil Gaiman" it would list "Movies & TV (43)" and "Books (1,973)".  If one of these categories is selected, the top of each page will list the user's "breadcrumbs" or how they have pared down the search results.

The last changes the YBP representatives discussed were changes to DDA or Demand Driven Acquisitions.  These changes are uniquely related to E-Book purchasing through EBL and Ebrary, which are two areas the Music Library does not really fully embrace as of yet.  Thus, this update was not as important to our collection development.

The presentation itself was informal, and many of the IU Librarians asked questions intermittently, making suggestions to further enhance the new interface (such as allowing narrowing by edition) and the ability to highlight certain fields when going over a slip list.  All of these suggestions were met with honest and interested responses by Suzanne and Mike, which made the dialogue that much easier.

After the formal presentation was over, after about an hour, myself and my Internship Adviser had a private meeting with the representatives.  In this meeting, we confirmed the meaning of some of the language used in the Music Library's approval plan as well as addressed a glitch in the "slips" system, since at the end of every "slip" list, we were being recommended books on Art, not music.  This was easily noted and hopefully fixed.  We also gained the ability to see of our fund's invoices on Gobi, which will make finding out what was shipped when much easier for us -- since all of our new acquisitions go to Wells Library first for processing.

Overall, the experience was very enlightening for me as a student.  Seeing the relationship between vendor and Library firsthand was eye-opening, and I was able to learn quite a bit more about one of the vendors which I will be firm ordering from this semester.

Introduction

It is the start of Spring semester here at Indiana University, Bloomington, which means, I, Sarah, am beginning my first internship experience in the realm of Music Libraries.  This blog will be dedicated solely to that experience, and contain both observations, thought provoking challenges, and article annotations.  I will also, lovingly, use this blog to keep track of my hour count - as apparently this is left up to me to handle.  (And knowing me, if I don't write it down, I'll forget.)

So I thought first I'd start out with a brief introduction.  My name is Sarah Elizabeth.  I am twenty-four going on twenty-five on April's Friday the 13th, and I am originally from a very small town north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  This is my second semester here at Indiana University, and while I'm slightly sad that winter seems to have finally hit Bloomington, I'm happy to say that I really love it here.  I went to a small liberal arts college in Meadville, PA named Allegheny College, where I graduated with the "unusual combination" of a Bachelor of the Arts in Music (Vocal) and Women's Studies, with a minor in Black Studies.  I went on from Allegheny to pursue my Master's degree in Music History and Literature at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (known as IUP), and it was there that I met my Music Library mentor, and there I got the notion to continue my education in Music Librarianship.  Thus, I am a Master of Library Science candidate with a specialization in Music Librarianship.  This internship is part of my required coursework, but I am actually very excited about it.

The following is the goals and outline of duties that is part of my first assignment for the course in general:

Goals: 

The intern will be working within an existing collections development policy. She will create a desiderata list based on a topic of interest and work on finding appropriate items to enhance the library's existing collection. She will work with order processing, and learn and hone skills in Workflow, as well as catalog searching. She will also become educated on vendor relationships, and will attend meetings with library personnel to observe these vendor-library interactions. She will also be responsible for the reading of two books by R. Michael Fling: Library Acquisitions of Music and Guide to Developing a Library Music Collection.

Duties:

• Assist with Order Processing 
• Provide input on which titles to firm order
• Create a cohesive desiderata list containing several types of media, from which titles will be ordered at conclusion of internship
• Attend meetings with Vendors (such as YBP)
• Assist in other areas of Acquisitions and Collection Development as called upon
• Read the two texts by R. Michael Fling
• Maintain a blog about experiences

Obviously that last one prompted the creation of this blog, The Sharp (#) Intern.  (Yes, I am fully aware that it's a slightly ridiculous pun.)  But this is it!  I hope you, as the reader, enjoys the ride as much as I do/will/hope I will.