A Day in the Life: Robin LaPasha

White woman with gray hair in a maroon shirt, holding a book about folk dresses.
Robin holding Белорусский народный костюм, available soon at Lilly

Hello. I’m Robin LaPasha, a library associate in the Non-Roman Languages Unit of Duke Libraries’ Monograph Acquisitions Department.

From the start of college at the University of Montana, I was drawn into the hobby of ‘international folk dancing.’ I have been learning East European and Balkan folk music, dance and crafts ever since—songs, tunes, dances (and folk costumes) from Russia west to Poland, and down through the Balkans to the Mediterranean. It led me to switch my major to Russian. After finishing that degree, my spouse and I moved back to the East Coast, to Durham. I got a master’s degree in Russian from UNC-CH, where I also worked as a student assistant in Davis Library. Then I completed a PhD in Russian literature from Duke, after a fall semester of dissertation research in Moscow libraries.

I started working at Duke Libraries in 2001, in the Perkins building, Acquisitions department. I handled a wide variety of languages and materials, but later I worked more specifically with Slavic vendors, setting up Russian and Ukrainian orders and copy cataloging. We moved from Perkins to the Smith building, and Duke’s Slavic collections added a Polish approval plan, and also expanded the original Russian approval plan to also provide Russian fiction, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and some Kazakh and Kyrgyz selections.

Here at the Smith building, I order books at the request of our Librarian for Slavic, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies. As my colleagues do, I select a vendor, and place firm orders for the titles. For approval material, I review the offers from our contracted vendors (along with my selecting librarian), we usually approve (order) most or all of the titles if they are within our plan parameters and budgets, and I pay the invoices. I also communicate directly with the vendors concerning requests and problems (shipping errors, damage, etc.). On the more ordinary levels of cataloging and physical markup of the books, I copy-catalog the books (or send them along for more extensive cataloging), and I train student assistants to apply the labels and markings needed to prepare those books for use in Duke’s libraries.

A black, tan and white dog standing in front of yellow flowers
Rokka the Finnish Lapphund, essential moral support

As far as the “days” of my work, I appreciate the camaraderie in Smith. There are many kinds of good things happening, which stretch across our library’s receipts and processing areas. The first situation is obvious in a library context—every few months, someone in Smith opens a newly-arrived box in their normal receipts and finds what turns out to be a visually unusual and interesting book. Immediately we all huddle around for a few minutes to see it; the urge is irresistible. Or, a morning dog visit to the parking lot is declared, and many of us exit Smith bays 9 and 10 for puppy appreciation.

The second kind of a good thing we have in Smith building is that our teams work smoothly and generously across the departments. For example, on behalf of our selecting librarians, we in Non-Roman languages occasionally place orders with our vendors to be received by other teams (such as ERSA) or vice versa, and Resource Description team members help with original cataloging for our rush titles… it is an appreciated sharing of skills and labor across our Smith bays.

Wooden book cart full of Slavic-language books
Just a few of the books that come through Smith

For my own job in particular, although I enjoy both reviewing the orders and processing the boxes of books that follow, I most of all want to get those books ready for transport to their next library destinations—for their next reader.
Our Slavic approval plans begin with Russian, but do not end there. There are multiple vendors, plan agreements, budgets, and languages. The materials have diverse topics in most languages. Those languages are (alphabetically) – Belarusian, Kazakh, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian—and many, many more.

Check out Белорусский народный костюм : крой, вышивка и декоративные швы and thousands more at Duke University Libraries today!

Duke University Libraries (DUL) Residency Program – Information Session

Please join us next week to learn more about these positions and ask questions. We are offering an information session over Zoom where we will share more information about the university, our library, and these residency positions. No registration is needed just click the link at the listed date and time. This is in Eastern Standard Time. Participants can login as anonymous, attendee names only seen by panelists.
Thursday, April 6th at 3:00pm EDT at https://duke.zoom.us/j/95991230185
The Duke University Libraries (DUL) Residency Program will be a threeyear program providing enhanced professional development and mentorship to enable two recent graduates of an MLS or related graduate program to gain experience and expertise in a highly specialized area of librarianship. As a member of the ACRL Diversity Alliance, DUL is launching the Residency Program as part of our organization’s commitment to “diversify and thereby enrich the profession” and “to build an inclusive organizational culture supportive of Black, Indigenous and People of color (BIPOC).” Two Residents will be hired in tandem to create a cohort experience every three years.

This program seeks to provide meaningful work placements in specialized fields of librarianship, aligning the professional goals of residents with the strategic goals of DUL. To this end, the residency program will guarantee professional development funding to Residents to fund travel, conference attendance, presentations, etc. related to skill building and their ongoing career trajectories. Additional professional development will also be offered to residents through both DUL and Dukewide programming. Formal and informal mentorship opportunities will also be provided to Residents. While an offer for regular employment is not guaranteed after the threeyear program, Residents will be placed intentionally with the goal of their positions becoming regular, ranked librarian positions if successful during their threeyear terms. The pilot years of this program (FY 20232026) will begin with recruiting two librarians, a subject specialist in South and Southeast Asian studies and a resource description librarian with a focus on specialized language cataloging.
Resident Librarian for Resource Description
The Resident Librarian for Resource Description works collaboratively with the Original Cataloging Team and with other library colleagues to assist in the creation, management, and configuration of DUL metadata for description. The Resident Librarian will gain experience in applying international cataloging standards to resources in multiple formats and across all subjects in a way that promotes inclusive and effective access, with a focus on a language or languages from the following collecting areas Middle Eastern (e.g., Arabic, Persian, Turkish), East Asian (Chinese, Korean),  Central/South/Southeast Asian languages (e.g., Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Sanskrit, Uzbek, Kazakh), or Slavic languages (e.g., Russian, Ukrainian). The resident will gain experience working collaboratively on projects and utilizing opensource tools that support better discovery of library resources.

View the job posting and apply:
https://library.duke.edu/about/jobs/resourcedescriptionresidency

Resident Librarian for South and Southeast Asian Studies

The Resident Librarian for South and Southeast Asia serves as the primary liaison for faculty and users in the interdisciplinary fields of South and Southeast Asian Studies at Duke University. The Resident Librarian develops and manages the collections from and about South and Southeast Asia, and provides specialized reference assistance and instruction. The Resident will gain experience  working collaboratively with library staff, students, and faculty through teaching, research consultations, outreach related to library collections, and other special projects. 

View the job posting and apply:
https://library.duke.edu/about/jobs/southsoutheastasiaresidency

Sí, nosaltres tenim llibres en català! (Yes, we have books in Catalan!)

Photo of the cover of a book: "El Catala, la llengua efervescent: 77 vision sobre el terreny"What language is spoken in Spain? This isn’t a trick question—or maybe it is, depending on how you look at it. Sure, Spanish (a.k.a. Castilian) is the most widely spoken language by the 47 million people who call Spain home. But a whole host of other languages is also native to the country — not to mention the hundreds of languages brought to the Iberian peninsula by immigrants from around the world.

In various regions of Spain, these languages are co-official with Spanish: Catalan, Galician, Valencian, Basque, and Aranese. Aragonese, Asturian, and Leonese are also spoken in different parts of the country. All of these except Basque, which is also known as Euskera, are Romance languages, descended from Latin, although some resemble Spanish much more closely than others.

After Spanish, Catalan is the most commonly spoken language in Spain. Most linguists agree that Valencian, spoken in the Valencian Community, is the same language as Catalan. Between the two, there are estimated to be between 8 and 10 million Catalan speakers, though it’s difficult to pin down that number because so many people report that they understand Catalan but only sort of speak it, or that they can read it but can’t write it, or so on. A 2019 Pew Research survey found that Catalan or Valencian is the primary language spoken at home in 12% of Spanish households.

If you’ve ever been to Barcelona, you probably noticed that the street signs there aren’t in Spanish – they’re in Catalan. Beyond Catalunya (spelled Catalonia in English) and València, Catalan is the official language of the nation of Andorra and is also spoken in parts of France and Italy. (The map below shows areas where Catalan/Valencian is spoken, as an official language or not, in various shades of green; the darkest green represents the core area of speakers.)

“Catalan Language in Europe” by Martí8888 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

In the past couple of years, we have been purchasing more books in Catalan here at the Duke University Libraries. Not only is Catalan fascinating to speakers and scholars of other Romance languages, and a source of some of Spain’s most interesting contemporary literature and media, the Catalonian independence movement has been a major force in Spanish politics in recent years, and a significant amount of the scholarship on this topic is written and published only in Catalan.Photo of the cover of a book: "Cata-lana-ment"

For all these reasons, we’ve decided it’s important to add more titles in Catalan to our collection. As the cataloger for Iberian languages, I have been working with Diego Godoy, our Librarian for Latin American, Iberian, and Latino studies and the staff of Monograph Acquisitions, to select, order, and catalog many unique titles in and about the Catalan language and culture. These photos show just a few of the books we have acquired recently.

Photo of several books in Catalan

If you’re interested in perusing our Catalan collections, they are concentrated in the PC3810-PC3976 call number range of our stacks. Additionally, you’ll find many of our books on Catalunya, its history, and its culture in the range DP302.C56-69.

If you want to learn some Catalan, Duolingo offers a free online course, but it’s taught from Spanish, not from English. The Catalan government’s Secretaria de Política Lingüística also offers online courses at parla.cat.

Finally, thanks to the website of the TV channel TV3, you can watch Catalan-language TV online at https://www.ccma.cat/tv3/. There are also a handful of series and films in Catalan available on Netflix – my favorite is the dark comedy Welcome to the Family (Benvinguts a la Família), which offers subtitles in English, Spanish, and Catalan.

 

Gràcies per llegir aquest article (Thanks for reading this article), and, as we often say at the end of a conversation in Catalan, que vagi bé (literally, may you go well)!

(Please note that some of the materials above might not be ready for patrons yet. Never fear – while they’re in process, check out all the books in Catalan already available!)

INSIST! – Black activist voices in Music, pt.8

Welcome back to another installment of Insist!

For this entry we’ll encounter two seminal American rock groups that were innovators, stalwarts, outsiders and disruptors of their respective scenes and eras.

Photo of Death, the protopunk band
Photo of Death, the protopunk band

First, to the Motor City, from which a trio of brothers calling themselves Death sprung in the early 70s. In a city of many musical innovations, both popular and proto, the brothers Hackney (Bobby, David and Dannis) and their power-trio hard-rock approach took their city’s sounds (like the Stooges and Alice Cooper) and propelled them even further and towards the coming punk revolution. The brothers played together in numerous groups before and after Death (including RockFire Funk Express, 4th Movement and Lambs Bread) and only released one 45 in their initial span, receiving a major reintroduction in 2009 when the Drag City label reissued that 45 (with five other tracks from 1974 as ‘For the Whole World to See’). Other reissue recordings followed, along with a reformation of the group, spurring new releases and tours. Their story is best related in the terrific documentary, ‘A Band Called Death’, from 2013.

Fast forward a few years and travel over to Washington, DC where Bad Brains were stirring up their own hardcore punk racket, influencing countless groups in the process. Starting as a jazz fusion band called Mind Power, in 1976, the classic lineup of H.R., Dr. Know, Darryl Jenifer and Earl Hudson shifted to punk and proceeded to lay waste to the nation’s capitol before relocating to New York City in 1980. Their classic self-titled release from 1982 is one of the most legendary hardcore punk recordings ever, and the group continued mutating sound-wise throughout the ensuing years, incorporating heavy metal and funk and reggae (as already evidenced from a few tracks on their debut; all members are also Rastafarians). To experience their speed, fury, intensity, power and brilliance the best place to start is probably a clip of the song ‘Big Take Over’ from a 1982 show captured on video at CBGB.

And, for more Bad Brains footage, courtesy of a documentary about the Black experience in punk rock, check out ‘Afro-Punk’.

A Different Kind of Exhibit

A new library exhibit featured in The Jerry and Bruce Chappell Family Gallery explains the work of DUL’s Collections Services division. What makes this exhibit unique is the intangible nature of most of the work done by Collections Services employees. But even though the behind-the-scenes work often cannot be seen or touched, it is crucial to the operations of the library and the services offered to patrons. The exhibit, titled, “The Library Uncovered: Behind the Scenes with Collections Services,” creatively meets the challenge of conveying all that is done to make sure patrons can find what they’re looking for in the library, whether it is a book on a shelf, an academic journal article online, or a streaming video.

The exhibit team worked hard to show the processes that take place every day to cycle resources through the libraries’ collections. Exploring the exhibit gives viewers a sense of the routine operations of the division through various display cases highlighting some of the materials that move through Collections Services on their way to library shelves, as well as an animated overview of the complex processes required to deliver the millions of items in the library catalog.

From the exhibit’s conception, the team grappled with how to represent Collections Services’ work that doesn’t neatly fit into an exhibit case. How can we convey manipulating the metadata of millions of library records? What items can we display that represent the countless hours of budget planning that go into creating and maintaining collections? Like most exhibits, The Library Uncovered just scratches the surface of the complexities of Collections Services. But it does serve as great starting point for sharing the often overlooked and always vital work that goes into keeping the library up and running.

The exhibit opened on Jan 10, with a small celebration and opening remarks from Joe Salem and Dracine Hodges. We invite you to visit the exhibit before it closes on Jun. 4, 2023.  More information can be found here.

 

Introducing Collections Services

Duke's blue devil reading a book - the library iconEarlier this year, the Collection Strategy & Development department was added to Technical Services.  After his arrival, Joe Salem, the new Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs, affirmed that this organizational change, which mirrors existing structures at many of Duke’s peer institutions makes strategic sense moving forward. It brings together collection strategy and stewardship around the lifecycle which is now wholly represented in the division. It is important to mark this change to update the framing of collections holistically.

Since its inception, the modern Duke Libraries as part of a comprehensive, research institution grows daily as scholarship continues, formats change, and culture evolves. Our work is supporting the full resource lifecycle which enables a range of scholarly pursuits. The six departments in the division (Collection Strategy & Development, Conservation Services, Continuing Resource Acquisitions, Metadata & Discovery Strategy, Monograph Acquisitions, Resource Description) are responsible for overarching collections stewardship – strategy and analysis, licensing and acquisition, access and description, and preservation to extend the life and reach of Duke University Libraries’ (DUL) collections.

Within this division, it is important to highlight that we are tasked with working across the collections spectrum. We provide support directly or indirectly for nearly all collections-related programs. We support general and special collections, in English and on average over 80 non-English languages. Of course, we support all formats – physical and online. We provide collections management and/or cooperatively work with all Duke affiliated libraries, and we keep DUL’s collections networked through extensive engagement with its many consortia partners.

With these things in mind, I wanted to note two changes that are effective immediately. First, the Continuing Resource Acquisitions department will now be called Electronic Resources & Serials Acquisitions (ERSA) to provide a more overt understanding of that work. And finally, Technical Services is now named Collections Services. It is a good amalgamation of where we’ve been as well as where we are now. Updates to the directory, website pages, org chart, etc., will all be made in the coming weeks.

Happy National Book Month!

Books on ShelfIn honor of National Book Month in October, DUL Technical Services was surveyed about our favorite books, as well as our favorite book formats. The survey was sent to staff who work across the Technical Services workflows, including collection development, ordering and receiving, cataloging,  bindery, conservation and preservation. Their work involves a variety of materials in a variety of formats. The list of favorite books (below) is a fascinating mix of fiction and non-fiction genres.  We bet you’ll add several to your to-read list!

 

 

 DULTS Staff Favorites

DULTS Format Preferences

Pie chart of format preferences noted below

  • Print–64.71%
  • eBook–23.53%
  • Audiobook–11.76%

 

 

 

 

 

Survey Notes

One colleague enjoys all three formats interchangeably, while another colleague doesn’t have just one favorite book. (So many to choose from, right?!) Yet another colleague listed a favorite book included in the list above, but added that their all-time favorite was the Cradle series by Will Wight.

Selected Links about Books

Selected Book-related Bibliography from the DUL Catalog

 

E-Resource Database Trial Accessibility Evaluations

Overview

Over the past few years, Duke University Libraries have been making efforts to consider additional ways to incorporate DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) principles into our daily work. In Technical Services, one example of this work is advocating for strong accessibility language in e-resource license negotiations. This is a high priority, because accessibility compliance is inherent to complying with civil rights law. Prioritizing accessibility language in DUL licenses lets providers know that the library’s willingness to acquire e-resources is compromised when accessibility needs are not met or prioritized. Inclusion of strong accessibility language also codifies content providers’ acknowledgment that the e-books, e-journals, and online databases they are selling for inclusion in the library’s collection should be accessible according to national and international standards. It also ensures that the library has the right to modify material as needed when resources do not comply with patrons’ accessibility needs.

To build on this existing accessibility work, the DUL E-Resources Management Team is piloting a database accessibility evaluation project to more closely assess e-resources under consideration for acquisition during trials. E-resource trials are a common way for subject selectors to review e-resources before committing to add the material to the collection, typically via a temporary gratis access period of around 30 days. By testing databases on trial for a few key accessibility elements, we hope to provide additional useful information for our colleagues’ consideration as they build the library’s collection.

Designing a Template

Barb Dietsch, ERM Specialist, and Abby Wickes, ERM Librarian, based the pilot on the Library Accessibility Alliance E-resource Reports (LAA) which are highlighted in detail in an incredibly informative ASERL webinar, “Accessibility of Research Library E-resources”. Using the LAA model, Dietsch and Wickes developed a local Accessibility Evaluation Template for testing with a variety of free tools and manual testing methods according to the POUR rubric, which is adroitly described in the 2020 NASIG session, “Designing for Accessibility”.

Perceivable (can be accessed with more than one sense)

Evaluate for captions, alternative image text, screen reader success

Operable (provides flexible navigation options and can be accessed with a variety of input methods)

Attempt to navigate website using only keyboard

Understandable (behaves in an intuitive, logical, and predictable way)

Attempt to intuitively navigate website, looking for usability issues (e.g., help or documentation, clearly labeled links)

Robust (works across browsers and devices, follows standards)

Attempt to navigate website in multiple browsers, devices; attempt to zoom in to resize text

Using POUR as a guide, the evaluation template also incorporates data from free tools including the NVDA Speech Viewer screen reader and the WAVE online web service and browser extensions.

Additionally, the template includes the option to link to existing accessibility language and/or a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, describing providers’ compliance with accessibility standards), if the library has already negotiated a license with the content provider. (These licensing additions to the Accessibility Evaluation Template were incorporated after learning more about a similar evaluation process at the University of Washington through another very helpful and informative Library Accessibility Alliance webinar, “Accessibility Committees: Cultivating Cultures of Accessibility at Your Library”.)

Sharing Findings

After testing the Accessibility Evaluation Template with multiple databases and soliciting feedback from colleagues, we will be launching the project for all database trials going forward. The findings from the evaluations will be shared with both DUL colleagues for incorporation into acquisition decisions, as well as content providers in the hopes that they will remedy any accessibility problems the evaluation uncovers. As part of our local evaluation process, we also plan to try to reproduce results from existing LAA E-Resource Reports whenever a database has already gone through their more detailed review process. If LAA reports are not yet available for the database in question, we will typically use the form on the LAA site to suggest the more extensive LAA review.

Helpful Resources

In addition to the resources linked throughout this post, we also found these tools, webinars, and websites incredibly helpful when learning more about this topic:

Future Plans

We expect to learn a lot more after launching the pilot evaluations, and we have a few ideas on how to potentially expand our efforts in the future.

  • We’ve learned a lot from other organizations undertaking similar efforts, and it would be beneficial to figure out a way to share our local evaluations more broadly so peer institutions can incorporate findings into their own acquisition decisions.
  • It could also be helpful to more quantitatively assess the resources to come up with a score or color-coded range for easier comparison with other databases under review. However, since online databases can differ greatly in content and format, we anticipate this would be a challenging metric to quantify.
  • Finally, we hope to continue incorporating additional and emerging accessibility tools and resources. In the future, incorporating content’s availability in the FRAME repository of adapted, accessible materials could also be helpful information.

Database Accessibility Evaluation Template

Download the template

Please take a look at our template, and thank you for any feedback on this pilot project! If you’d like to hear more, Barb Dietsch and Abby Wickes will be presenting on this project at the upcoming November DUL First Wednesday presentation.

Database Trials Accessibility Review:

[Provider: Title]

Resource

Provider:
Title:  
Access URL:
Test search term:
Example page used in testing:
DUL Tester:

Overview Summary

[Paragraph and quick bullet points providing general overview]

Library Accessibility Alliance (LAA) Evaluation

Manual Evaluation according to POUR Rubric

(Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust)

Perceivable (can be accessed with more than one sense)

Evaluate for captions, alternative image text, screen reader success:

Notes Screenshot(s)
·
·

Operable (provides flexible navigation options and can be accessed with a variety of input methods)

Attempt to navigate website using only keyboard (tab and shift tab to go forward and back):

Notes Screenshot(s)
·

 Understandable (behaves in an intuitive, logical, and predictable way)

Attempt to intuitively navigate website, looking for usability issues (e.g., help or documentation, clearly labeled links):

Notes Screenshot(s)
·

Robust (works across browsers and devices, follows standards)

Attempt to view website in multiple browsers, devices; attempt to zoom in to resize text:

Notes Screenshot(s)
·

High-level WAVE findings:

Notes Screenshot(s)
Errors

·   []

Alerts

·   []

Notes

·   []

Communicating Findings

Stakeholders Item Status/Notes
DUL Colleagues BTAA Evaluation or,

High-level summary of CRA Accessibility Review

Content Providers BTAA Evaluation (or flag that we have submitted to BTAA for review) or,

High-level summary of CRA Accessibility Review

Licensing

Link to License Accessibility Language Link to VPAT

 

A Day in the Life: Adam Hudnut-Beumler

A man and woman stand in front of a pale green lake surrounded by rocks and trees.Hello! My name is Adam Hudnut-Beumler, and I am a Serials Management Associate in the Continuing Resource Acquisitions Department. When not at work, I love going to bar trivia, playing sports, binging podcasts and hiking. But how did I get to Duke?

In 2017, I came to Durham right after college to start a PhD in American Religions at Duke’s Graduate Program in Religion. During that time, I got a summer job as a student assistant working in the stacks and at the desk at Lilly Library. Somewhere along the line, I realized I liked contributing to the library more than studying critical theory, so after three years I pivoted my career aspirations to the library. Gratefully, in February 2021 I started as a Serials Management Assistant with CRAD. I am also thankful for the support of the department as I also attend the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science. My coursework allows me to acquire data science skills of use to academic libraries and our patrons.

I began my current responsibilities around the start of May 2022. Placing orders, paying invoices, and handling vendor communication make up the core of my job. I also copy catalog and manage the receipt and labeling of Duke’s Government Documents collection. Working constantly between DUL’s order, subscription, item, and holdings records in our current ILS Aleph, the job also requires a diligent eye to ensure our periodicals and serials data and metadata are correct and up to date for our users. As our department looks to the transition to FOLIO next summer, I attend weekly meetings with my Serials Management Team members to advocate for greater serials and periodicals acquisitions functionality.  Screencap of a spreadsheet describing claimable issues of periodical orders.

Recently, I brought my library school learning into my job for CRAD’s annual subscription renewals review project. Starting with the spreadsheets of our open orders provided by our major vendors, I added a column that lists all past-due issues aligned with each order row. I used the principles of database querying I learned in a course this summer to develop a working knowledge of the Aleph Reporting Center. I created a report of all periodicals with elapsed expected arrival dates, and then read that data as a .csv into a Python script which could combine multiple issues’ data into single lines for each order number. After transforming the data, I read the .csv back into Excel and used the VLOOKUP function to join my claimable issues table to our renewals spreadsheets on the order number. With this data readily available, we can identify our problematic subscriptions at a glance and achieve a thorough claiming of the materials DUL promises to provide its patrons.

I feel blessed to work with such a talented team. Our department head, Virginia, and our team leaders, Bethany and Abby, promote open collaboration and communication. We always have each other’s backs in CRAD. The other great thing about working in Technical Services broadly and CRAD in particular is the breadth of materials and areas of the library our work touches. Digital and print, humanities and sciences, East and West Campus,all corners of Duke University Libraries and its offerings intersect with CRAD. Getting to know colleagues across DUL divisions is an added bonus of that variety. With that variety comes a lot of complexity, and the job forces you to have a good memory for DUL’s many codes and abbreviations. SMT work takes you across Aleph modules—Acquisitions, Cataloging, and even Circulation regularly—and requires learning of multiple vendor websites, Caiasoft for LSC records, and external programs like WinSCP and OCLC Connexion. It is work that turns you into a jack of all trades (and master of some). Using those skills to work with colleagues in other TS departments is always a treat—Smith Solidarity! No one does it quite like TS.

 

TRLN Annual Meeting Report

This year the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) annual meeting was held on July 11th and 12th, and some of our very own staff presented.
Below, please find summaries and slides for two of the presentations we were proud to give and watch!

Integrating FOLIO into ERM workflows at Duke University Libraries (presentation slides)

Continuing Resource Acquisitions colleagues Bethany Blankemeyer, Virginia Martin, and Abby Wickes presented on integrating FOLIO into existing e-resource management (ERM) workflows at Duke University Libraries. The presentation kicked off with an overview of the FOLIO library management system and the workflow improvements the department has experienced after implementing the Licenses and Organizations apps in 2020. Because DUL did not have an ERM system before implementing these FOLIO apps, the department benefited right away from centralized places to manage this data. The department uses the Licenses app to store data about e-resource license agreements, and the Organizations app stores information about providers and vendors the library works with (which had previously been tracked in a variety of spreadsheets.) The structured records for Licenses and related documents make it much easier keep track of information about them, including related Organizations and Amendments, term start and end dates, and various coded terms such as inclusion of confidentiality or ADA language. The department has incorporated these apps into existing Trello workflows to ensure the FOLIO records are kept up to date. In the near future the CRA department also expects to implement the eUsage and Agreements apps, which will also provide workflow efficiencies. Currently the department supports routine and ad hoc cost per use analysis by manually gathering COUNTER reports for major content providers on a quarterly basis. When the eUsage app is implemented, the majority of the usage stats will be gathered automatically and more frequently via SUSHI, which will be much less work. The Agreements app has functionality unique to FOLIO; it’s a place to store information about deals that also acts as a connecting hub for many different components of provider and vendor relationship information, such as relationships between licenses, holdings, and Acquisitions apps. DUL is planning a full FOLIO implementation in July 2023, at which point apps including Orders, Receiving, Invoices, and Finance will replace the current Aleph ILS. This will be a big change, but some benefits include a cleaner, more modern user interface, templates for order creation, improvements exporting acquisitions data, and more robust options for moving POs between instances. Overall, the department is looking forward to having acquisitions and e-resource management data in one system.

Change Management – A Microcosm (presentation slides)

The Monograph Acquisitions Transition Team (Stephen Conrad, Bronwyn Cox, Sara Biondi and Fouzia El Gargouri in absentia) with Bill Verner and Natalie Sommerville reflected on the process of change in libraries, and how their experience ingesting and adapting to a new workflow might translate to a larger stage.
In January 2021, physical processing workflows from one department were relocated into Monograph Acquisitions. In order to facilitate this reorganization, planning was done by the heads of the original and destination departments, and a transition team convened to learn the workflows, describe them in documentation, and train their peers in executing them with a minimum of disruption or dissatisfaction.
This was a successful change for the department; it originated with a clear destination, grew out of a strong sense of established trust in Monograph Acquisitions, fundamentally empowered staff to guide the change on their own, and was fully supported beginning to end by management. These strategies, and others that were based in deep respect for the expertise and knowledge of staff were crucial, and shed a little light on how larger-scale challenges and changes might be managed successfully across the library.