Reference Librarians' Page

I’ve been asked to post the procedure for finding items in the cataloging backlog.  I will put it as a post here,  link it as a word document in the resource links on the blog, and print it out and put it in the Reference Binder at the desk.

Cataloging Backlog Items

When you see an item in the OPAC (the web/public version of the catalog) and it has no call# or no location or the call# is obviously incomplete it is an indication that an item may be in our cataloging backlog.  Because Voyager in the OPAC only shows certain status designations, and considered something in “Cataloging Review” to also be “Available” there is no way to tell from the OPAC if something is in the cataloging backlog.

So, when this  happens, or if you have looked for a book on the shelf an can’t find it.  The next step is to see if it is in the Cataloging Backlog.

To Check if An Item has a Status of “Cataloging Review” i.e. in the Cataloging Backlog

1. Look the item up in a Voyager staff module - either Circulation or Cataloging will work for this part - but only Cataloging will work for the 2nd part - so it is best to start in cataloging unless you just want to quickly find the status.
2. To look it up in Circulation, follow these steps :

• Click on the Item Icon
• Click on the … next to the barcode entry box
• Search for the item using whichever index you want
• When you have the item on the screen, click on the Status Icon - this is the one that looks like a graph.
• This will list all the statuses in the top half.  If one of them is “Cataloging Review” then the item should be in the cataloging backlog

3. To look the item up in the Cataloging Module

• Click on the Search Icon (Magnifying Glass)
• Search for the book/film
• When you have the bibliographic record up on the screen, click on the “Get Items” tab
• With the item record up on the screen, click on the Status Icon - this is the one that looks like a graph.
• This will list all the statuses in the top half.  If one of them is “Cataloging Review” then the item should be in the cataloging backlog

Finding the item in the Cataloging Backlog

1. Find the bibliographic record in the Voyager Cataloging module
2. Click on the history tab of the bibliographic record
3. Check to see who created the record.
1. If it lists load - then it is pre-Voyager - follow those steps below
2. If it lists a person - then it is post-Voyager - follow those steps below
4. Find the correct bib number
1. Pre-Voyager - look for an 035 field that has a subfield 9 - the number in that subfield is the Horizon Bib number.  That is the number you need.
2. Post-Voyager - look at the bib number at the top of the screen, where it says bib…. followed by a  number.  That is the Voyager bib  number, that is what you need.
5. Check the size - look at the 300 tag at the subfield c for the centimeters.  If it is over 30, then you will want to look in the cataloging backlog oversize.  If it is under 30 it should be in the regular cataloging backlog.  If it is blank, then you should start with the regular backlog and check the oversize if not found there.

Finding the item on the Cataloging Backlog Shelves

The cataloging backlog is in Sharon Clayton’s office

The items in the Cataloging backlog are in order by either their Horizon or Voyager bib numbers depending on whether they are pre or post Voyager (see above).

The bib  numbers are written on yellow slips that stick out of the items.
The regular Cataloging backlog section starts in the open bookcase on her South wall that is closest to her door.

It continues through till the 2nd to the last shelf of that bookcase, and then jumps over to the glass fronted bookcase along that same wall, but closest to the window.  It continues in that case until the 3rd to the last shelf.

The Oversize Cataloging backlog section starts on the last shelf of the open bookcase on her South Wall that is closest to her door.

It continues through to the glass fronted bookcase along that same wall, but closest to the window.  It continues in that case on the last two shelves.

What to do when you find an item in the Cataloging Backlog

About 95% of these items are special collections materials, so they cannot be just given to patrons.  It is not easy to tell if something is not for special collections, so we treat everything in this backlog as if it is.

If it is during special collections hours, you may bring the item up to the special collections reading room for the patron to view.

1. First, write the bib number and the title on a slip with a note “Taken to SCA Reading Room” and put that note in Sharon Clayton’s mailbox.
2. Bring the patron and the item up to the SCA reading room
3. Give the item to the SCA person on duty, who will then give it to the patron and record the regular things they record for readers.
4. Tell the SCA staff person that it should be returned to Sharon’s mailbox or office chair when they are sure the patron no longer needs it.

If it is not during SCA Hours

1. Notify the patron that they will have to come back during SCA Reading Room hours to view the item, and tell them when those are.
2. Write the bib number and the title on a slip with a note “Taken to SCA Reading Room” and put that note in Sharon Clayton’s mailbox.
3. Bring the item and your master key up to the SCA Reading Room
4. Write a note indicating the patron’s name and that they will come back to see sometime soon when SCA is open
5. Leave the item with the note on the end of the first long table in the reading room.

If the patron indicates that she/he cannot come back and so is not going to view the item - then leave it on the shelf in the backlog, but make a note of the bib number and title and leave that in Sharon’s mailbox saying that a patron wanted, but could not wait.

Reference Desk Observations :

• Psyc 276 (Hoffmann) seems to have a paper that requires a lot of sources, there were a lot of Interlibrary Loans for this on Friday and on Sunday night from multiple students in the class
• Ditto for JOUR 323 (Amor) - although this may have been all one student.
• Graphic Design Class - Anne spoke to the professor, who had thought that the full photoshop version was on the library lab machines, but it is not. Anne will confirm with her. If students have saved their document as a PDF, then they can open and print it on the machines here. If it is saved as a Photoshop file, then they must send the print command from the lab. She will make her students aware of this.

Interlibrary Loan - I-Share vs. Illiad and instruction page - Anne indicated that she had not sent us the page(s) she is working on to review yet, and that she will try to do that soon. Reminder from last time - She was also going to then send us a list of all the current places we have links to either Illiad or I-Share, and then an indication of her take on which of those links should go to the new page and any links that should be added that go to the new page.
T20M Topic Survey - It was decided that we would close this now. Laurie will do so, and send an email with a collation/summary of the responses received. We need to look at that and write back about what we think the next session (Jan 27) should have as a topic. Hopefully we can decide this via email rather than waiting till the next ref meeting so that whoever ends up doing it has time to prepare.

Ref Works Session

It was decided that we will have 2 sessions for students. Heather will lead one on Wednesday January 28th at 7pm in the Andrews Forum using laptops; Laurie will lead one on February 3rd at 4pm in one of the computer labs. Heather will advertise, including sending a message to the faculty/staff listserve asking faculty to announce it in their classes.

Assessment

• Heather indicated that she had read some articles and looked at the ACRL Guidelines & best practices info, and that this reading confirmed all of the ideas that we had come up with at the retreat, and did not really add anything.
• Asessment should be tailored to your own program,
• Assessment should be done at multiple levels from the program level to the specific workshop/class level
• Taking into account learning styles by having multiple/varying assessment points or tools is also important.
• Jeff pulled a number of books from the collection on educational assessment in general - assessing student learning. These are currently on the staff room table. We can leave them there for a few days - feel free to borrow. If you plan on looking at one extensively, please take it to the desk to check out. I’ll have any left go back to re-shelving on Friday.
• Jeff asked that we look at #10 on the tasks to do Winter term list - Augmenting the instruction stats we keep & collating them on a term rather than annual basis.
• He passed around an example of categories of a spread sheet that Tanna could create based on the information we put in the calendar: Term - Course no - Course title - Librarian - Instructor - # attended - location.
• Sharon expressed concern about having Tanna do the extraction from the calendar to the spread sheet because of the possibility that she would make errors in knowing which events to include.
• Anne suggested that if we had Tanna err on the side of including, and that we could then remove them later that we would probably be safe, and Sharon agreed.
• It was agreed that Tanna will then regularly (Monthly or maybe bi-weekly) transfer the data to an Excel spreadsheet with the goal of final transferal by the end of the 1st after each term is completed. Sharon will give Tanna a set of instructions with criteria of what to include.
• It was agreed that Heather would then edit / extrapolate other variables/ and create a report within 2 weeks after Tanna finishes the initial spreadsheet.
• The data elements we currently track in addition to those listed above are :
• School (Arts, Humanities, Soc. Sci, Sciences - including % of schools having instruction and % of instruction by school)
• Department (including % of departments having instruction and % of instruction done by department)
• Course level (100, 200, 300, Honors/independent study, non course related; % of instruction at each level; % course related vs non course relatedl)
• % inside vs outside the library building
• % Knox student / Knox faculty / non-Knox students / non-Knox-non-student.
• We then discussed if there were any other data elements we wanted to add. It was decided to add to each calendar entry an indication of “Assessment Yes” or “No Assessment” and that Tanna would include a column for this on the spread sheet.
• We then discussed whether there were other items on the list that we wanted to try to begin this term.
• Sharon suggested doing more with professor feedback or augmenting reference desk observation recording as possibilities
• Jeff indicated that he thought following up with professors was an important step to begin soon.
• Jeff also indicated that he would like to see us write up some kind of summary of the assessment we had done at the end of the year that also indicated what had worked well that we could distribute to faculty.
• It was decided that we would add augmenting the collection of professor feedback (i.e. feedback from professors who have had a library instruction session done for their course) in an experimental way. Everyone would try to do more of this by trying out different things - survey, email, conversation, or just recording informal feedback received. Reminder - what we want here is not feedback on if the professor “liked” the session but if the professor felt that the students learned something at it and if that learning was reflected in the assignments they turned in and/or in classroom discussion etc. And that we would share with each other what we were trying out and what was working or not working.
• Sharon asked if we also wanted to do anything towards getting a program going for collecting student papers or bibliographies to evaluate.
• Heather is going to be doing this for one course already this term (collecting bibliographies), so it was agreed that we would start with that.
• We will also look for opportunities to start conversations with faculty to bring up this idea and get their feedback on it.
• Augmenting Reference desk stats/observations was then discussed.
• Anne & Heather asked about the online packages to record this perhaps making this more do-able.
• Laurie indicated reservations about adding more data to collect without a clear sense of what we were trying to learn/do with the data and about what it was going to tell us about our instruction.
• Sharon indicated that she thought it could provide us with some knowledge about our program outcomes :
• Knowledge of instances when students had retained or not retained content from instruction sessions
• Knowledge of instances when instructions sessions led students to ask at the reference desk.
• Knowledge of instances where students were using tools or information provided at instruction sessions.
• Laurie pointed out that this information would be very spotty and would not be the kind of information that we could draw firm conclusions from or state any kind of across the board outcomes based on.
• Sharon agreed, but thought that it would still provide us with useful qualitative information about our instruction - we would still know specific outcomes for some students - we would not know % of students with an outcome.
• Heather pointed out that one difficulty would be knowing / asking if the student had been in an instruction session.
• Sharon agreed that this was a real issue, and that asking could disrupt the reference interview and have a negative effect.
• Heather suggested that we consider breaking down the categories of reference questions - for example were they ILL /I-Share based ; Finding materials on the shelves / etc. And that if we were to do that it would probably only work if we moved to one of the online tools.
• Sharon asked how knowing the breakdown like this would help us assess our instruction.
• Heather suggested that it would tell us areas where patrons were needing more or less help, and by viewing changes over time we could see if areas improved. That would not necc be directly tied to our instruction either of course, but it could show us places where we needed to increase instruction.
• Laurie agreed to look into what packages were out there and costs and to let us know about options.
• Sharon asked folks to indicate if they thought recording information on a computer would be easier. People responded that it would not necc. be easier to record it, but that it would be easier to collate it and report on it.

Shift is Sundays 1pm-5pm
Sharon will be working each Sunday 6pm-10pm

January
7th Betsy
14th Jeff
21st Anne
28th Laurie

February
4th Scott
11th Betsy
18th Jeff
25th Anne

March
4th Scott
Spring break
25th Betsy

April
1st Anne
8th Jeff (Easter)
15th Scott
22nd Laurie
29th Betsy

May
6th Laurie
13th Scott
20th Anne
27th Jeff