**HIGHLIGHTS FOR BIG HEADS**

## ALA Winter Meeting, January 2007

From: Robin Fradenburgh, Associate Director for Technical Services

[(r.fradenburgh@mail.utexas.edu]{.underline})

# **PERSONNEL**

Anita Farber, Head of Monographic Acquisitions and UT Austin Licensing

Coordinator, is retiring after 38 years of state service on January

31\. Jill Emery, Head of Serials and Electronic Resources, will take
over

both Departments with Anita\'s departure. Another librarian on staff,

Alisha Little, is being transferred to Acquisitions to administer SFX
and

and ERM.

### RECRUITMENT

With Anita\'s departure, we are recruiting an Assistant Electronic
Resources

Librarian, who will report to Jill Emery. This position will have
primary

responsibility for acquiring and licensing electronic resources.

We are also recruiting a Metadata Librarian, who will report to the Head
of

Cataloging and Metadata, Tim Strawn. This position will have

responsibilities with the Texas Digital Library, an initiative with
several

universities in Texas. This initiative is still in the formative stages,

but many of our staff are involved in it\'s development.

Both of these positions should be posted soon.

### ILS AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

As I mentioned in my last report, we are currently going through a III

Millennium implementation. For Acquisitions and Serials Acquisitions,
this

was an upgrade from Innopac to Milllennium and they went live in

December. Staff are eagerly trying to learn the differences and
preparing

to train other staff. Training continues with other modules throughout
the

Spring with a go-live date of June 07.

In conjunction with this implementation, Jill Emery is investigating the

possibility of an adding an ERM to our suite. With two key retirements
in

Acquisitions this year, it has become painfully obvious, that we are
losing

our institutional memory and need a tool to help staff manage all the

information regarding electronic resources.

We are also watching closely what is going on with the various vendors

regarding their next generation OPACs.

### TS SPACE UPDATE

After 30 years, funding has finally been allocated for an update to the

Technical Services staff area. The update will include new paint,
carpet,

cubicle panels, additional electrical outlets and phones. Everyone has

received updated, ergonomic chairs in recent years, but, alas, other

furniture is not included in this update. We are all happy to be getting

rid of the orange and gold walls and panels.

**PROMPTCAT WITH BLACKWELLS**

We started using OCLC\'s PromptCat Service with Blackwells for
conventional

orders last summer. The numbers have been small, but we feel it has been

successful. The materials are being fully end-processed by

Blackwells. The next hurdle will be to extend this to our North American

approval plan. We plan to start with the sciences first, since we have
the

lowest returns in those areas. I have watched with much interest what
they

have done at Minnesota\....I suspect we will never be able to
discontinue

the review shelves in Acquisitions. We don\'t plan to extend the use of

PromptCat until the Fall when we are fully implemented on III.