Update on new serials workflow for Lamont (and implications for us)

As you know, Widener Serials Services assumed responsibility for the ordering and check-in of Lamont periodicals as of May 10. Danielle and Jon are working with Jean Lenville (Widener Library's Head of Serials) to write up formal procedures. The Serials shift is being framed as a pilot to run through 2007.

A few points of procedure have been distilled below, in case questions arise for you or come your way from patrons. The full draft of new procedures is also linked from the Reference Manual (under "HCL and Lamont Library Policies").
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1. Newspapers: Newspapers will still be delivered the "old" way each morning, at the same time, and from the same company (Wellington News). Widener will manage the order and handle payment and 625 will do the (minimal) cataloging needed.

In the short term (i.e., until we move to Level One), Reference will continue to put the newspapers out each morning. This will cease to be our work as of September 10.

In the meantime, Heather is working with Administration on an alternative site (and alternative method of displaying) dailies. Also to be handed off: the Monday morning ritual of weeding back issues of newspapers. Presumably, Access Services will inherit this task.
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2. Duplicate subscriptions : with the exception of the Chronicle of Higher Education, we will no longer maintain any double subscriptions. Widener Serials Services relies on claims. Replacement copies for missing issues may end up being supplied from some Quad Library serial titles (which are not retained).However, the decision on procedure has not been made.
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3. Delivery and procedures for current periodicals: new issues of journal and magazines will arrive between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. each workday in black bins (to distinguish them from their gray intra-library cousins). These bins will be brought to the truck barn. Access Services will take care of putting these items on the Cafe shelves each day shortly after they are delivered.
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4. Serials with missing pages or in need of repair : Lynn WD will continue to care for these items during the times she is scheduled to work on site in Lamont. Our former practice was to deliver these items to Tech Services. Starting on June 1st, these items should be put on the bindery shelf just behind the Access Services counter. This shelf is also where books in need of repair will continue to be collected.
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5. Shelving: currently, this work is performed jointly by Reference and Access Services. During the day, our student shelver puts out new issues, makes a sweep of the Cafe, and reshelves items found on the tables there. Access Services makes at least one sweep in the overnight hours and may also be doing so at another point in the day.

My understanding is that we will no longer be responsible for re-shelving any issues of periodicals, even while we are still on Level Three. The switchover of responsibility has not happened yet; this will be negotiated when Linda returns from England. Given that Colleen will be on vacation all through June, however, and that Katie will be graduating, we can certainly pitch in on the work through the summer.
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6. Weeding of the periodicals: Currently, Colleen -- with Katie's help -- has been responsible for weeding at regular intervals. Colleen works from a list generated by Tech Services that identifies which items we retain and which we don't; this list also identifies how many issues to bind (or discard). By long-standing arrangement, we send one or two titles on to Cabot when we weed them; one or two others go to Widener to round out their holdings as "library of record."

What happens after June 1, however, is still to be determined. My impression is that Access Services is willing to take on this responsibility, unless it becomes clear that Colleen should continue pulling limited retention titles, as she is familiar with procedures already. More will follow.
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7. Chain of command: Jean Lenville is the primary contact for Serials Services issues we have; her backup in Widener is Sandy Murphy. For everyday-type problems -- if you encounter (or learn from a patron about) missing issues, for example -- they're the people to seek out by phone or email.

In Lamont, Jon is the primary contact and Linda is his backup. Alert them both if something catastrophic happens (a subscription ceases -- or stops arriving altogether, a catalog record has egregious errors, etc.). Jon will liaise with Serials Services to address the problems; in his absence, Linda will do so.

Linda is the primary contact for serials issues at the Quad Library, although it is doubtful we'll hear about Quad problems before she does.

ILL: What I didn't know

Today, at the Reference and Access Services Council (RASC) meeting, I learned something that took me by surprise. Perhaps it's news to you, too.

If an item is checked out (or all copies of the item have been checked out), you can -- and, in fact, are advised to -- suggest that the patron put in an ILL request.

I had long been under the (apparently false) impression that ILL requests for Harvard-owned materials were verboten (except when they carried the designation "lost" or "missing." I've passed that message along to many students over the years, unfortunately.

Of course, for papers due within a very short time frame, ILL is perhaps no better an option than placing a "hold" on the Harvard copy. But if the question comes up, as it sometimes does in instruction sessions, you now have the straight story.

The Widener ILL web page makes no mention of this exception. Nor does it identify Baker and Countway as libraries that provide internal ILLs to Harvard affiliates.

I've emailed Marilyn about the web page in the hopes that a sentence or two might be added, if only to clear up librarians' lingering confusions. She's agreeed to see what she can do.

Dailies, weeklies and tabloid-sized serials: new retention schedules

• New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Herald, and Boston Globe: we retain one full week plus current week. That means that we'll have 8-13 issues on hand at any given time.
  
  These papers should be weeded (and recycled) regularly, on Monday mornings, by the Reference librarian on duty.
  
  
• Harvard Crimson: we retain, as before, 2 weeks.
  
  
• Cambridge Chronicle: we now will carry the most current week only (no backfile)
  
  
• Harvard Gazette: we will carry the most current issue only (no backfile)
  
  
• Chronicle of Higher Education (plus its several parts): 12 issues (most recent three months)
  
  
• Variety
  
  
• Village Voice