REPORT - PHASE 1: Team's investigation includes the following seven action items:
1. Compiling an inventory of all policies, practices, and workflows related to monograph ordering at both institutions, focusing initially on print items, but thereafter extending to the ordering of material in physical formats other than electronic resources and print serials.
Both Columbia and Cornell keep careful documentation of their practices and workflows. Columbia maintains their documentation on a Wiki and Cornell maintains theirs on the department website. Each institution keeps its documentation and procedures up-to-date and available for the Ordering staff in the respective institutions. After 2CUL Monograph Ordering Team members were appointed, they shared procedures and documents as they prepared to meet in person to examine more closely, how the function of ordering is handled in each place.
2. Summarizing staffing and expertise at Columbia and Cornell, including a comparison of current job assignments.
At Columbia, the ordering and receiving functions are performed by the same staff.
2CUL TSI Monograph Ordering Working Group
Summarize staffing and expertise at Columbia and Cornell, including a comparison of current job assignments.
Investigation: Members of the Working Group shared respective inventories of ordering staff and expertise and discussed details of staffing, expertise and job assignments in phone conversations, email correspondence, and a face-to-face meeting.
Please see "Columbia - Order Unit Staff Expertise" and "Cornell - Order Unit Staff Expertise."
Columbia has 4 FTE in the Order and Receiving Unit (OAR) who place firm orders and receive firm ordered material. One FTE in the OAR Unit is assigned 35% cataloging duties. OAR staff possess language skills at a sufficient enough level to place orders, correspond with international vendors, and catalog some firm ordered material upon receipt. The OAR Unit does not firm order Chinese-Japanese-Korean-Tibetan (CJKT) material as the processing of material in CJKT languages occurs in the technical services department at C.V. Starr East Asian Library. At Cornell, all ordering staff also receive some material but not all staff who perform receiving also perform the ordering function. Add more???
Summarize reporting and decision-making structures at Columbia and Cornell.
Investigation: Members of the Working Group shared respective organizational charts and discussed details of reporting and decision-making structures during phone conversations, email correspondence, and in a face-to-face meeting.
Monographs Processing Services (MPS) has a Divisional Director that includes a copy cataloging department which consists of three individual units, and a monographs acquisitions department (MAS) with two individual units. Decisions affecting policy and procedure within MAS are discussed between the department Head and the Order Unit Librarian and brought to the larger division as information sharing. Policy and procedural decisions affecting the MPS Division are discussed and agreed up in consultation with the Division Director and all unit Librarians. Changes to policy and procedure that affect other acquisitions and cataloging divisions are discussed at the Print & Electronic Resources Coordination (PERC) committee. Fiscal and budgetary issues and possible policy and procedural changes affecting acquisitions and Collection Development are discussed at Materials Budget Group (MBG) meetings. Issues regarding selection, collection, and budgets with regards to selectors are discussed at the Selectors Discussion Group (SDG) meetings.
Acquisitions and Automated Technical Services (AATS)is directed by Boaz Nadav-Manes, and consists of Copy Cataloging/Inputting, Ordering and Gifts, Receiving and Documents, and Batch Processing and Metadata Management. Procedural decisions are made by the administrative supervisor or coordinator of that unit in consultation with the director of AATS. Policy decisions are made by the director of AATS who consults with one or all of the appropriate unit supervisors or coordinators as needed.
Columbia and Cornell appear to have similar reporting and decision-making structures. At Columbia, MAS is a department with two individual units (BIH and OAR), an OAR Unit Librarian, and a department head, whereas Cornell's AATS is divided into individual Units with supervisors or coordinators.
Summarize significant similarities and differences between policies, practices and workflows in the Ordering Units at Columbia and Cornell.
Investigation: Members of the Working Group shared and posted respective documentation on policies, practices and workflows on Basecamp and the 2CUL wiki. Details regarding these documents were discussed in phone conversations, email correspondence, and in a face-to-face meeting.
Please see "Inventory of Policies, Practices & Workflows - Columbia," "Inventory of Policies, Practices & Workflows - Cornell," and "Significant Similarities & Differences."
The OAR Unit at Columbia ingests order requests from selectors by email, the Pre-Order Online Form (POOF), GOBI, and drop-offs in the Selector Review Area. Columbia processes "Priority 1" orders (patron requests, course reserves, regular rush) first before other orders. A majority of the orders are submitted with vendors pre-assigned by selectors and in the case of selections made in GOBI, are ordered with Columbia's main domestic vendor YBP. Order requests submitted without an assigned vendor are assigned vendors based on country of publication, or language. Cornell receives orders from selectors through World Cat Select (WCS), POOF, email, and drop off/order tray. Cornell processes orders within a 24 hour timeframe. Vendors are assigned by WCS, language, type of material, or type of order (rush, Inter-Library Loan, reserve).
Both Columbia and Cornell handle similar material, process priority and non-priority orders, and receive them in similar ways. However, there are significant differences in policies, practices and workflows between the two institutions and some of these are inherent in the systems utilized to ingest and place orders. Columbia utilizes GOBI as its main discovery, selection and ordering tool for domestic and UK imprints that are not specialized material, e.g., fine art and architecture and music scores. The POOF is primarily used by selectors to submit orders and OAR staff enter the orders directly into Voyager after ingesting the record using WorldCat's Connexion. OAR Unit staff are authorized to approve purchase orders in Voyager and are reviewed by the Order Unit Librarian or Head, MAS before they are forwarded to vendors. Cornell does not use GOBI in the same manner as Columbia. Cornell's primary discovery, selection and ordering tool is WCS. The use of WCS at Cornell informs their practices and workflows. Cornell's ordering staff do not approve POs in Voyager; supervisors of ordering staff approve POs on a daily basis. Cornell's ordering staff create new orders using the POOF whereas Columbia enters them directly into Voyager.
Summarize dependencies and limitations in working with other functional units at Columbia and Cornell.
Investigation: Members of the Working Group shared and posted respective documentation on dependencies and limitations on Basecamp and the 2CUL wiki and discussed details during phone conversations, and a face-to-face meeting.
Please see "Dependencies & Limitations."
Columbia and Cornell's ordering units depend on external departments such as collection development, Information Technology (IT), and accounting which can sometimes inhibit their ordering processes. Columbia cannot conduct business with a vendor until they have been set up by the University's Vendor Management team. Cornell is a bit more lax with regards to doing business with new vendors. Credit cards are strictly controlled at Columbia and only the Order Unit Librarian and Head, MAS possess credit cards for firm ordering. Cornell's ordering staff have their own credit cards. Both Columbia and Cornell rely on their respective collection development departments whenever an order is submitted on an overspent fund. Columbia must ask for collection development's permission to proceed on orders over $500.
Summarize available baseline productivity numbers in the receiving departments at Columbia and Cornell.
Investigation: Members of the Working Group shared and posted respective documentation on baseline productivity numbers between fiscal years 2009 and 2012 on Basecamp and the 2CUL wiki. The productivity numbers were discussed in detail during phone conversations, email correspondence, and a face-to-face meeting.
Please see "Baseline Productivity Numbers - Ordering Group."
As mentioned in the summary of staffing and expertise section of this report, the processing of CJKT material takes place in C.V. Starr East Asian Library which is physically and organizationally outside of the Monographs Processing Services Division at Columbia. Cornell processes materials in CJKT within their central Library Technical Services division. This organizational difference explicates the three distinct groups of baseline productivity numbers displayed in our reports: Columbia, Columbia-Starr (C.V. Starr East Asian Library), and Cornell. The overall numbers show a steady decline in the quantity of firm orders for Columbia and Cornell, while Starr's productivity numbers have stayed relatively the same over the same span of time. Cornell's numbers with CJKT are higher than Columbia's without CJKT. However, Columbia's productivity numbers combined with Starr's CJKT numbers are higher overall than Cornell's.
functions. Job assignments are included at Columbia - Order Unit Staff Expertise and Cornell - Order Unit Staff Expertise.
3. Familiarizing itself with the theory and practice of monograph ordering at both institutions;
The four Monograph Ordering Team members met at Columbia in late February and spent several very productive hours reviewing the workflows and customs for the basic ordering practices for each institution. The inventory of Columbia’s routines is at InventoryPracticesPoliciesCOL-Final and Cornell’s similar document is at InventoryPracticesPoliciesCOR-Final. Cornell's workflow procedures are available at Cornell Ordering Procedures.
4. Identifying dependencies and limitations inherent in working with other functional areas in Columbia and Cornell technical services, as well as with other divisions (e.g. collection development, IT) at the two institutions;
When the Monograph Ordering Team met in February, we examined which processes at each CUL will limit ordering staff being able to share processes. Though our user populations and our collections share many similarities, there are also limitations at each place, some of which might be able to be eventually handled by the other institution. The document which identifies the dependencies and limitations by institution is at Dependencies & Limitations-Final.
5. Reviewing policies, practices, and workflows related to monograph ordering at both institutions to identify points of harmony and points of discord;
The team developed a list of points of similarities and differences in Order Unit processing techniques, to keep track of where we can make early impact and where we will have to invest more time and resources to bring our tools, policies, and procedures together. The document focuses on the common tools we use and the basic procedures which are executed to the same end and yet with a very different approach. The document points out issues like CJK materials being handled centrally at Cornell, but in a separate library at Columbia and is at Similarities_Differences-Final.
6. Establishing baseline productivity and staffing at each institution to allow for future assessment of changes and development associated with 2CUL TSI;
We queried the Voyager database to obtain numbers of orders placed for both institutions for three fiscal years. The results are posted at a simple spreadsheet at 2CULOrderingStats. Cornell's numbers include CJK materials, but Columbia's do not.
7. Recommending Recommendations regarding a work plan and critical issues to explore in Phase 2 of the group's assignment.;
The ordering function is an area where it's more possible to imagine an integrated environment than many other technical services functions because of the nature of an order as opposed to actually handling a physical piece. For example, Columbia could order books for Cornell, and have them delivered to Cornell, especially when we get to the point of using the same library management system.
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