Minutes of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 17 October 2013
Item
1. Attendance &
Apologies
Agenda
Action
Chair: Susan (Greater Dandenong), Brandt (Port Philip) was unable to stay due to the
commitments in relation to the opening of the refurbished Emerald Hills branch.
Minutes: Teresa (Casey-Cardinia)
Apologies: Emily Braithwaite (Wyndham)
By
Attendance: Susan Thompson(Greater Dandenong), Jenny Horne (Mornington Peninsula),
Leticia (Moonee Ponds), Teresa Wight (Casey Cardinia), Naomi Barr (East Gippsland), Barb
Donelson & Tara Poussard (Kingston), Jay Robinson (Latrobe), John Radford (Moreland), Anita
Catoggio (Yarra Plenty)
2. Confirmation of
Minutes.
Last minutes were confirmed.
3. Business Arising
Guidelines/instructions for future minute taking to be discussed with PLVN Executive
Electronic copy of City Libraries JNF genre categories to be provided to Brandt for distribution
RDA discussion/guest to be carried over to next meeting
4. Feedback from
Not provided.
To be raised with PLVN
other SIGs
There was some discussion about the status of the Information Services SIG as to whether
Executive
they are still meeting. Teresa promised to check with another CCLC staff member who is
involved with this SIG – she has done this and the SIG is still live and meeting, although they
need to elect a new Convenor at their next meeting. The issue of possibly holding a combined
event with the Info Services SIG was discussed and it was agreed this was worth pursuing.
5. Annual survey – Most attendees said that they don’t have any problems with the ASR now, however Teresa
are libraries happy raised, on behalf of Pru Menzies, that there is no provision to state the number of LOTE print
with this
materials added during the year. Discussion moved on to the fact that there is a general
document in its
downward trend in loans and information enquiries. Questions now are often more of a
present form?
technical nature or IT related.
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Brandt (Chair)
Neville Hartley
Brandt (Chair)
Brandt (Chair)
Minutes of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 17 October 2013
6. Mentoring
What skills are required for a good Collections Librarian? What training can Collections
Librarians provide for fellow staff members?
A broad discussion ensued on this topic. Barb (Kingston) believes that Collections Librarians
need to work with the public to know what the needs of library users are, but a number of
others (Anita, Leticia) said they relied more heavily on data and statistics to prove what is
popular, used/not used. Many attendees said they are now encouraging branch staff to take
ownership of their collections (rather than doing it all for them), particularly in relation to
weeding. In many cases the introduction of RFID has provided the opportunity to “fine tune”
the collection. Leticia (Hume) uses ALIA KPIs quite heavily. There was general recognition that
the role of libraries’ collections was changing – there is now more emphasis on library space
and programs and on how the collection might work with these activities rather than being
the “be all and end all” as had been the case in the past.
7. Vanity Press/
”Local Hero”
All libraries have the issue of authors sending unsolicited material in the hope of the library
buying copies. While most libraries make an effort to support local authors, due to
contractual constraints it is very difficult for libraries to purchase from suppliers who have
not been approved by either the MAV or Procurement Australia contract. When Collections
Librarians are approached by individual authors wanting to sell their work, most explain the
contractual environment libraries work under, and encourage the authors to place their work
with an approved supplier so that copies can be purchased in the usual way. Often authors
are grateful for this information, and have been successful in having their work accepted,
with resultant sales to libraries.
8. Other Business
Ebooks – John raised the issue of “weeding” ebooks. He recently had a discussion with one
vendor about titles that had not circulated and they were happy to remove them from his
package but would not give any substitute titles. Another issue is the loan restrictions
imposed by some publishers (eg HaperCollins, Allen & Unwin), but generally most attendees
felt these are reasonable – after all, we have to replace and repurchase print materials after a
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Minutes of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 17 October 2013
certain number of loans (although, with ebooks that figure is far lower). The discussion
covered quite a number of related issues – the importance of selecting the right titles to
ensure maximum loans, the different purchase models available (packages, individual
selection, Freading’s only-pay-for-loans). Leticia requested that ebooks be made a permanent
agenda item at future meetings, and also requested that at the next meeting all attendees
bring ebook statistics – no of titles, loans, unique users.
9. Site Reports
Moonee Valley (Leticia) – Junior NF will be separated from Adult NF collections. Sam
Merrifield Library will now house a meeting room, impacting on the Adult NF collection,
which will be reduced by approximately 25%. Newly acquired ebooks are being used well.
The library service is investigating shelf ready services. A small staff restructure has taken
place ; a new “Reader Services” team has been formed, who will be utilizing a lot of the
principles from the SLV Frontline program.
Greater Dandenong (Susan) – Primarily focussed on working towards the opening of the new
Dandenong Library branch in March 2014. Extra stock is being purchased.
Casey Cardinia (Teresa) – Axis 360 went live in September, with a few technical teething
problems that are now resolved. Loans low at present. Bolinda ebooks, eaudiobooks and
Zinio emagazines all going well. The print budget is suffering a little from the diversion of
funds into eresources.
Mornington Peninsula (Jenny) –Technical difficulties have held up the launch of Zinio. Going
well with ebooks but a little uncertain about which vendors to go with as they sometimes
double-up. (eg both Bolinda and Wheelers offer Pan Macmillan)
Yarra Plenty (Anita) – YP is opening a new small branch within a new community centre hub.
It is at the site of a past mobile stop and will have a collection of about 15,000 items. A new
formal service agreement for collection and cataloguing services has been signed with
Murrindindi Library and a library coordinator has been appointed. A new Information
Services Strategy is being written and will go to the Board by December. A new “Make a
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Ebooks to be made a
permanent agenda item
Bradt (Chair)
Attendees to bring
ebook stats to next
meeting
Everyone
Minutes of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 17 October 2013
space” NBN hub will be launched at Mill Park, very high tech. A new program “Reading
Rover” van is being introduced, which will visit disadvantaged areas and concentrate on preliteracy programs.
Moreland (John) – There have been delays with the Brunswick Library redevelopment; the
library will not be back in the refurbished location until June 2014 (at present it is in a temp
building). There have also been problems with getting Collections HQ up and running – data
extraction from the LMS Libero is difficult. Have introduced “Indieflix”, an online streaming
service of independent films, but only for home use, not in the library. Teresa (CCLC) raised
the issue of some materials being unclassified, which John was not aware of and will take up
with the vendor. A new position “E Learning facilitator” has been introduced, focussing on
training in use of eresources. The appointee is not a librarian, but has an IT background.
Latrobe (Jay) – Continuing to weed prior to the future introduction of RFID. Jamie’s Ministry
of Food Caravan visited and was very popular. Latrobe users are reluctant to place holds so a
promotion of placing holds has begun to encourage them to do this more often. Have
purchased over 1,000 Axis 360 ebook titles and are investigating Freading ebooks.
Kingston (Barb) – Ready to launch Axis 360 ebooks. Have signed with Freegal downloadable
music and will launch to the public by Christmas. Have separated JNF from ANF and put into
genres, at Parkdale branch, which has been so successful it will probably be rolled out to
other branches. JNF loans went from 1.3 turnover to 3.6. Are now looking at introducing
genres into ANF. The public Internet network has had a major upgrade and is now much
faster. Wireless will be going into the last 2 branches without this service. There is a proposal
for a new “Community hub” in the Westall area near Clayton Road, with other services there
such as after day care, maternal and child care health. The Warrigal Road branch land will
probably be sold (it has been closed for 4 years)
East Gippsland (Naomi) – Most activity has been focussed on the new Bairnsdale branch,
which is scheduled to open in April 2014. It will be much bigger but will not have any extra
staff or stock. Another new branch is being proposed for Mallacutta but will probably open
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Minutes of Meeting of Collections Special Interest Group held on Thursday 17 October 2013
much later. At the moment the town is serviced by an old mobile library parked there.
Problems with WIFI have been so serious recently that the library has suspended the service,
in the hope that this will prompt some action when users complain to the Council. The launch
of Bolinda ebooks has been delayed due to technical difficulties.
10. Next Meeting
The next meeting will be on Thursday 19th December. An early finish will be followed by a
Christmas lunch. Details to be confirmed closer to the date.
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