YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
CIRCULATION SUPPORT GROUP

Minutes

Old Business:
Minutes from 08/31 meeting. Judy will contact Pam for minor emendations.

New Business:

STAFF TRAINING

Shaundolyn Slaughter, the library's Staff Development Coordinator and Technical Trainer, met with the group to discuss training for library staff and student workers. She wanted to know what the group believed the library's training needs are and what direction we should move in.

Among the circulation training needs mentioned were reserves, bibliographic records/MFHD, stack maintenance and, especially, tutorials. Many members of the group are very eager to have circulation tutorials available to staff. Shaundolyn said that tutorials are not a top priority at present.
Documentation for circulation training was also discussed. The need to revise and review existing documentation was discussed in view of the circulation changes that will arise from the new release of Voyager. Much of the current documentation is written from a "Notis" mindset - training staff who had formerly worked in Notis to learn to work using Voyager. At present there is no circulation documentation revision group.
At this point members of the group again mentioned the need for tutorials. Sue Crockford-Peters said that any investment in time should be put into the creation of tutorials as opposed to documentation and that tutorials are in fact a form of documentation.
Shaundolyn then asked the group to help her prioritize what is needed in a centralized basic training for new staff offered by Human Resources. Among the topics offered by the group was MFHD for circulation - understanding cataloging and how it impacts us in circulation. Other topics were cross training in different Voyager modules and training for staff moving from one job module to another.
When asked what she would do with the information garnered from this meeting Shaundolyn replied that she would assess this info and use it to prioritize the type of training to be offered by Human Resources. At this point the discussion had to be cut short because of time constraints.

MEDIA!

Lisa Thomas of CCL spoke to the group about the work of the Media Task Force, on which she served. Media items - videos, CD's and DVD's - formerly were not eligible for call slip requesting between libraries. Some libraries treated these items as Closed Reserve items. With the adoption of special security cases for these items there have been changes in the circulation policies regarding them. These items are now available for call slip requests. Media items catalogued as individual items will go out on loan for seven days. Media items cataloged with accompanying material - such as a book - will go out for that material's loan period. On media items accompanying other material each item will be barcoded separately as if they were different volumes with the appropriate code - DVD, CD, etc. - appearing in the CHRON field. The new item types for this material went live on Friday 10/07/04.
The group was then given the opportunity to examine the new case and shell in which all circulating audio-visual and software media will be stored. The shell is unlocked by a special unlocking mechanism as each item is checked out. Empty shells are kept at the circulation desk to be used when the next item gets returned. The cases have a pocket on the outside for the inclusion of routing or hold slips.
For further information about new circulation policies for media items please go to the library's media website at http://www.library.yale.edu/rsc/sml/media/

PENDING:

Wish list for circulation folks to the Systems Office
Fall LSO developments for the circulation/access/privileges/reserves etc. Sue Crockford-Peters

Student hiring, training, firing, etc.

Report on the growth investigation of workload in Access Services. Nathanael Shelley. Now planned for the December 14th meeting.

Updated financial procedures - using the credit card. Chris Killheffer

Unreturned books project - What has been happening since the position was filled on 5/04? Chris Killheffer.