Beginning this month we will include contributions from the Assistant Deans in addition to the Dean. This month we are glad to have Sheri Downer start us off. The technical services and systems departments are making some major physical moves which will eventually lead to changes in the policies and workflow which we believe will lead to faster, more efficient delivery of materials to the reference floors. The acquisitions and cataloging departments have absorbed the ordering and cataloging of serials so that the purchasing and cataloging of library materials, regardless of the type of materials, will be done within those two departments. The systems and automation departments have been merged, providing more training and support for the staff of both areas and working toward more efficient use of the personnel.
Plans call for finishing the physical moving of offices during the next few weeks.
One of the goals we have had during the past year is to look at our services and support systems, evaluating them to see if there are better and faster ways to make library materials available to the library patrons. Many of the technical services and systems librarians and staff have been involved in task forces to make recommendations, and implementation committees which have made the plans to move forward with the recommendations. In January we will begin receiving the university press materials shelf ready, which means the materials will be ready to go immediately to the shelves upon receipt. As soon as we have this working efficiently, we plan to receive all the approval plan library materials shelf ready. This should make a significant difference in the amount of time it takes to receive materials and make them available to the library patrons.