Service Quality
Improvement Council
Minutes
January 12, 2000
Meeting came to order at 3:05 p.m.
Present: Kenny Marone, Danuta Nitecki (acting chair & recorder), Sandy
Peterson, Rich Richie, Martha Smalley, Andy Shimp
Absent: Suzanne Eggleston, Katie Bauer, Paul Stuehrenberg (Chair), Sue
Crockford-Peters, Emily Horning, Joan Swanekamp
I. Announcements
A. The Library Management Council [LMC] approved the SQI Council's report
on Statistics Gathering at the YUL for the Association of Research Libraries
[ARL], prepared by the Assessment Group. The Council was encouraged to implement
the recommended approach of taking count of reference transactions on two
randomly picked dates each month. The Assessment Group was asked to schedule
the information meeting for representatives from each unit and to begin the
new method of gathering statistics as soon as possible.
B. The LMC also discussed the SQI-C's proposal on Staff Recognition for support
of service quality improvement, prepared by the Staffing Issues Group. The
general reaction to the concept was very favorable, though there was some
discussion about the budget, the number of awards and other details of the
recognition program. The newly formed Human Resources Council offered to
review the proposal and return to LMC with their recommendations within two
weeks. Sandy Peterson will work with that group.
C. The second staff presentation on the Borrow Direct service pilot was given
right before this Council meeting. Danuta reminded Council members that this
is a test of a service that is underdevelopment. Advertisement of the program
is not aggressive, though anyone wishing to bring attention to it to our
readers is welcome to do so. The Borrow Direct planning group asks that if
information about the pilot is posted on the web, that readers are referred
to the url [http://borrowdirect.library.yale.edu/] where the group will maintain
current information about it.
D. A Task Force on Public Printing has been appointed to review and recommend
a library-wide program for computer printing. Sandy Peterson will chair the
Task Force; other members include Emily Horning, Jennifer Kostelnik, Nadav
Sela, Susan Brady, Ernie Marinko, and Cindy Greenspun. The Task Force is
charged to make its recommendations to SQI-C by April, 2000. Kenny observed
that at the Medical Library, an average of 100,000 pages per month were printed
from computers, and she looks forward to the recommendations from this Task
Force as a possible solution which the Medical Library might share.
E. Danuta noted that to date we have a 42% response rate on the service quality
survey. Data are being coded and proofed. She hopes to be able to draw some
observations and report on results soon.
F. SQI-C members were reminded to attend the presentations to be made by
the candidates for the SQI Support Director the week of January 24. Interviews
are being scheduled for candidates for the Document Delivery Head as well.
G. Danuta reported that the Online Curriculum Support proposal has received
partial funding support from the University Librarian.
H. Several SQI-C groups will be invited to participate in an effort to plan
the implementation of the new service design for CCL and SML entry floors.
Danuta and Alan Solomon will be conducting information gathering sessions
to identify programmatic impact of the concept to create an integrated service
environment in these public areas. Jeong will be contacted chairs to schedule
the discussions.
II. Reports
A. Sandy Peterson summarized the review of 1999 activities of the Staffing
Issues Group which she had prepared and distributed in mid December. The
group's major effort has been researching and developing the staff recognition
program. Other issues referred to the group and now on its agenda are a)
problem patron policy, and b) services during extreme weather policy. A report
on the latter may come to the next SQI-C meeting. With creation of the library's
Human Resources Council, there may be new topics of common interest.
B. Kenny Marone reviewed the Document Delivery Group's report for last year
that she had distributed in mid-December. The group explored a "one stop"
delivery model inspired by the Amazon.com service and identified barriers
to implementation here. Service improvements introduced by the group included
standardized web forms for requesting document delivery, more libraries offering
paging services, and test use at the Medical Library of credit cards for
document service payments. The group will pilot a beta test across libraries
for delivering articles via the Electronic Document Delivery System, subject
to System support [scheduled on this year's LSO priorities list]. The group
is working on a plan to accomplish a "one stop" form for library wide deliveries.
It was also asked to recommend service standards such as response time and
reader status notifications for document delivery services.
C. The Reference Group will make its report next. The Web Advisory Group
[WAG] was invited to give an update to the SQI-C on its activities toward
improving services.
D. Danuta asked for a future agenda to consider where to best raise issues
relating to circulation. We agreed last year to postpone starting a group
for this service program, and there exists the LibTech Circulation Committee.
Two topics have recently been raised for which a program review would be
welcomed: rationale for circulation loan periods and patron requests of
in-process items. She'll ask members to consider this for a future discussion.
The meeting adjourned at 4 p.m.
Recorded by Danuta Nitecki,
danuta.nitecki@yale.edu
