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. At Cornell, all ordering staff also receive some material but not all staff who perform receiving also perform the ordering 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 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.
Issues to explore:
- Might Cornell be able to use its corporate Amazon account to order materials for Columbia?
- Might Columbia selectors be able to better streamline the ordering process by making better use of the POOF interface?
- Might the two institutions be able to share one ordering specialist for more difficult/challenging-to-obtain items?