Minutes of the Circulation Committee Meeting of January 18, 2006

Minutes of the Circulation Committee Meeting of February 21, 2007 Alice Moulton Room, Gerstein Library

Present: Neil Allen (Chair) (Engineering and Computer Science), Terence Correia (Robarts), Joy Shanfield (Consortium/Toronto Rehab), Lisa Doherty (Architecture), Erin Anderson (Trinity), Jan MacLean (Music), Linda Oliver (Vic-Pratt), Thomas Chan (ITS), Eric James (Earth Sciences), Peter Gurney (Gerstein), Lari Langford (Robarts), Patricia LaCivita (Scarborough), Kate Van Dusen (St. Mikes)

Regrets: Helen He (Dentistry), Lynda Hayes (VUEM), Mike Hamilton (Media Commons), Lorna Young (Regis)

1. Minutes of the previous meeting: Accepted as read.

2. Business arising:  Neil Allen reported there has been no response from the Sirsi discussion lists regarding how other libraries charge for lost books.  The RSSC updated the “request item” section of their ILL FAQ pages. See http://content.library.utoronto.ca/services/loans/request-item-faq#request

3. Report from ITS (Thomas Chan): We are still waiting for Sirsi to provide a ‘fix’ before we can upload the latest Sirsi upgrade to the test server.

Regarding the January STL problem; as this was the second occurrence it was much easier to correct. Everything was reverted to the previous status very quickly. The problem occurs when a report being run takes up more disc space than available. Tom has arranged for this report to be run when he is around and able to monitor the issue.

4. LIBQual survey (Lari Langford): ARL has been using this survey widely in the US for 5yrs (LIBQual is the brand name). The stats committee of CARL wanted a select group of consortium libraries to use this survey to provide comparative data across CARL. It is not a ranking system. It will measure library service quality and best practices. The questions will gage the minimum level of service acceptable, the perception of what level of service is being rendered and what level of service patrons would really prefer. It will expose gaps in the 3 areas being measured – the library as place – the affect of service – and access to information (the collection itself is essentially a service). Are patrons getting or even perceiving they get the level of service they need, giving us a chance to examine how patrons see us. It will also provide a benchmark to compare future improvements.

The survey is being pushed out to a sample group only. St George will contact directly (randomly chosen) 600 faculty, 600 staff (no library staff/faculty), 900 undergrads and 600 grad students. UTM & UTSC will include all staff, faculty and grad students and 900 undergrads. These numbers meet the recommended sample sizes for this survey. March 5 the select will receive an email including a URL for the survey. The closing date will depend on how quickly the responses are received and the selected will receive email reminders. There is an incentive to filling out the survey in form of a draw on each campus for a Nano Ipod and two Chapters-Indigo gift certificates. To enter the draw the patron will have to provide their email address but this is collected and separated from the questionnaire by the LIBQual company for submission to the draw to maintain anonymity.

There will be an FAQ page made available to the sample group and to the entire community. The entire community will be made aware there is a survey being conducted but that it is sent directly to a randomly chosen group. Anyone else who would like to fill out the survey may do so by contacting Lari Langford, whose contact info will be made available on the FAQ page. These results will be collected and analyzed separately but are still quite valuable.

The individual results can be available a week or two after the survey closing, plus a little extra time for our own survey working group to analyze the data. We may have some preliminary idea of our success by May. The comparative results of the consortium as a whole must wait until all Universities have closed their survey. .

Question: Is there a minimal acceptable return rate to provide accurate data? Some have seen as little as a 25% return rate but the data collected was still of great value. The return rate of each group, FA/ST/UG/GR, will not effect each other.

Comment: When it comes to the questions about hours of access, it will be a difficult question to analyze as we all have such varied hours here at UTL.

5. Waiving or renewing one’s own material:

This is a reminder to staff to not abuse your workflows access or privileges. Do not leave your personal access to Sirsi available to others. Do not do your own loans, renewals etc. act as a patron in these matters. Do not add improper notes to a patron record.

6. Other business:

 The ILL FAQ sheet was reviewed and “Item may be requested” was suggested as an additional request location as this is what it shows for the Downsview location. It was also noted that a patron can not cancel an inter-campus loan after it has been shipped.  Are email notifications sent to every patron type? Tom thinks yes except maybe “carrel” as a patron type. The patron may have a security feature in their email system blocking our deliveries, which they must fix themselves or they may be using one of the commercial services such as hotmail or yahoo which often blocks or sends our deliveries to junk mail. Patrons should use their utoronto email for best results.  Downsview usage in brief: approximately 200 items circulated within UT and 38 circulated to non-UT (ILL) users since June 2006.

The next meeting will be held Wednesday, March 21, 2007, 2:15 pm, Alice Moulton Room Gerstein Library.