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Acquisitions/Serials User Group: Spring 2006

April 20, 2006


MINUTES

  1. The April 20, 2006 Acquisitions/Serials User group meeting was called to order by Leah Anderson - convener (TRC).

  2. Sandy Hoffbeck (SMSU) volunteered to be recorder.

  3. A motion was made, seconded and approved to change the order of the agenda. #7 was moved to be discussed prior to #5. The changed agenda was adopted.

  4. There were no corrections to the Fall minutes and were approved.

  5. There was discussion of the pros and cons of having 2 conveners and 2 user council representatives. By keeping it as two groups that meet instead of one, we have additional voices on the user council. This could be useful when enhancement needs for the consortium are prioritized.
    It is difficult to get volunteers for these positions, so changing to a single group with 1 convener and 1 user council representative would reduce that problem. A motion was made, seconded and approved to remain as two groups until we are on version 17. We will reconsider the need for two groups at that time. The vote was taken separately with 1 vote per institution for acquisitions and 1 vote per institution for serials.

  6. Elections.
    • Diane Richards (MSU, Mankato) will be the acquisitions convener through 2007;
    • Diane Christensen (Gustavus) will be the acquisitions user council representative through 2008;
    • Becky Schwartzkopf (MSU, Mankato) will be the serials convener through 2008;
    • Todd Martinson (St. Johns/St. Bens) will be the serials user council representative through 2007.

  7. Leah Anderson reported on the Regional ExLibris User group meeting. She said it was good to see what other institutions are doing and would encourage more people to attend. There was discussion on if the Regional ExLibris User group meeting replaced the MnLINK meetings. The Fall MnLINK meeting will probably be more for the Gateway with the Spring meeting continuing as it has been. The ExLibris meeting isn't a replacement of the MnLINK meetings.

  8. Dee Nolan reported on PALS activities as shown in the "Support and Training Services Report". There was discussion of the EDI process for ordering, electronic claiming and invoicing. EDI acknowledgements aren't working at this time. Currently PALS has Blackwell, Baker and Taylor, and Midwest set for ordering. Any libraries who would like to do EDI ordering with these vendors should send a message to the PALS eDesk. Blackwell and Midwest accept the 13 digit ISBN on orders; Baker & Taylor doesn't, but expects to have this fixed by July. Page 7 of the PALS report explains how the 13 digit ISBN functions currently in Aleph. ALEPH should be compliant with the 13 digit ISBN in version 18. EBSCO electronic claiming is on page 15 of the PALS report.

    There was discussion of what vendors we need to have setup for EDI ordering. YBP - 4 libraries use; Book House - 2 libraries; Ambassador - 1 library; Emery Pratt - 1 library. Blackwell's has collection manager software that is free. This product is being evaluated by the statewide cooperative collection task force. We will be receiving a survey from the task force regarding this type of management software. YBP has a similar product and is part of the evaluation process. It was commented on that last fall we had voted to have Blackwell setup for EDI ordering with the collection manager part included. This was not represented in the minutes of October 24, 2005.

    Discussion continued on the PALS work plan. The need for an interface (BANNER) to Business Services (campus accounting) and a better reporting system, such as ARC or other customization to meet the needs of the standard report that many of us will need to do during Fall, 2006 were discussed. It was unanimously approved as follows:
    • Top priority: customized reports, EDI vendors, Blackwell's collection manager
    • 3rd priority: interface to business services (campus accounting) - BANNER.

  9. We continued the discussion on reports. For some of the information needed, we should be able to run local reports. A shelf list report can be used to create an xml file for total collection reporting. Acq02 and 03 and some items reports might help with others. There was a motion, seconded and approved to take this to user council for a small group to be created to work with PALS to develop customized reports that are needed by many of the libraries.

  10. Sandy Hoffbeck (SMSU) shared examples of the serials claim report. Discussion continued of the problems with the report. This item has been sent to ExLibris.

  11. The collection manager software was discussed under item 8 and has been requested to be part of priority 1 on the work plan.

  12. Work flows changes were discussed. We found that barcodes for new items are added during cataloging, in acquisitions and loaded, and in acquisitions but not loaded until cataloging. Loading of records from BIP is cumbersome, with typing the information often being faster. When downloading from OCLC more information goes into the order record. With some libraries choosing to display order records in the OPAC, the OCLC download is needed.

    How to update the vendor file was discussed. Should new records be changed when you have a different address for the same vendor? The federal and state ID numbers were migrated from PALS to contact 2 and 3. We should continue to put this information in these fields. Many years ago we had a task force that looked at how to change vendor information in our shared environment. PALS will locate this report for us to update.

  13. & 14 will be answered as part of the evaluation form.
  14. Year end roll over has caused some problems when adding in an inflation factor. It seems to work okay when this isn't used.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:40 p.m.



AGENDA
  1. Welcome by convener -Leah Anderson

  2. Recorder - need a volunteer

  3. Adopt agenda

  4. Approval of Fall Minutes - October 24, 2005

  5. Elections
    1. Acquisitions Convener to finish out Julie Blake's term - 2007
    2. Acquisitions User Council Rep to replace Rosie Bunge - 2008
    3. Serials Convener to replace Leah Anderson - 2008
    Becky Schwartzkopf is Serials User Council Rep until 2007

  6. Regional ExLibris User Group Report

  7. Discussion on combining Acquisitions and Serials permanently

  8. PALS Report Q & A Adobe Acrobat - Dee Nolan (PALS)
    1. Work plan
  9. Discussion on reports - Sandy Hoffbeck (SSU)
    1. What reports are others using to get the information needed for the "academic library survey", such as the collection and purchases information needed?

  10. Serial Claim Report - Sandy Hoffbeck (SSU)
    1. How to get it to sort by title instead of ADM no.?
    2. How to search by the ADM no. listed on the report?

  11. Link from MnPALS Acquisitions Module to Blackwell's Collection Manager - Diane Richards (MSU)

  12. Discussion and sharing of work flow changes and best practices, i.e. standing orders, claiming, etc. - Sandy Hoffbeck (SSU)

  13. Reaction to morning Futures Panel Discussion

  14. Ideas for future MnPALS meetings and possible breakout sessions

  15. Other/Adjourn

Discussion Notes:

  1. Should the MnPALS Acquisitions and Serial groups be combined permanently? In the next version of ALEPH, Acquisitions and Serials will be one module, not two. At the ELUNA level, the groups are already combined in one. Enhancement requests are accepted from the one group, not two. Pros and cons should be discussed. One con is less voice on the User Council because there would be one convener and one user council representative. If the group would like to combine, a proposal would be needed. That proposal would then go to the User Council for approval. The User Council would send it to the Executive Committee and then the Governance Structure would need to be changed once everything was approved.

  2. Have any libraries been successful in producing reports that are helpful for the academic library survey? If so, be prepared to share your success. In general, it may also be beneficial to brainstorm on what kinds of reports Acquisitions and Serials staff need in ALEPH that are not presently available.

  3. Serial Claim Report
    1. There are a couple of known problems with the serial claim report (serial-04). One is that items show up on the report even though they are not serial claims. This has been reported to ExLibris and will be fixed in future versions. The good thing about them showing on the report is that usually they are indeed items that have not been arrived. For instance, it may be a government document that has had an item record created with a barcode etc. but the arrival date on TAB3 of the item record was never filled in. So even though they are not necessarily serial items, it is a good way to find those item records that need to be arrived.

      Another known problem is that when you run the serial claim report there is a sort field that you can choose as to whether you want the report to print out in Title order or Vendor order. No matter what sort order you choose, it prints out in vendor order and then ADM record number order. This has been reported to ExLibris and it has a status of analysis. So at this time there is nothing that can be done to get it to sort by Title.

    2. To find a record by the ADM number you need to go to the Cataloging module. In the Cataloging module set your File Connect to your ___50 library. Click on the Load Record from Server icon. Type in the ADM record number and click OK. The ADM record will appear. (Note that the LKR field shows the SYS01 number for this record.) After the ADM record is loaded you can push it to the Acquisitions, Serials, or Items module. This search tip is available in the answer book of the PALS edesk.

  4. MSU Mankato is under pressure from their Dean to get electronic ordering off the ground and would like to use Collection Manager to do it. They would like to see pressure applied to MnPALS to make that happen.

  5. If anyone has any work flow questions or best practices that they would like to share with the group, please bring your questions and/or ideas to the meeting.
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