Managing our resources
Library objective:
Effectively manage human, physical and financial resources
Technical Services' Developments
Technical Services' Developments
Serials Solutions 'Article Linker' open URL linking solution was purchased
and deployed by the Library in the latter half of the year allowing
cross-database linking to resources, irrespective of search entry point.
Technical Services applied, and received permission from Financial Services
Division, for 3 Divisional procurement cards (MasterCard) with online payment
authority. These cards are being used by the Acquisitions Officer, Mackay
Library Campus Manager, and the Document Delivery / Course Resources Online
Officer.
There were a number of ongoing technical services issues with Virtua which were
investigated by Systems and VTLS including:
- difficulties in accessing the 008 fixed field in the holdings screen,
- problems with the 9th character in a search becoming the first character retrieved. This occurred only in the client, not the gateway, and
- split records with no item screens.
The Virtua upgrade was abandoned due to major bug in Vload, Virtua's record loading facility.
Serials Solutions are now providing the Library with brief e-journal MARC
records from a variety of sources when no full CONSER records are available.
This means that there should effectively be 100% access to all e-journals by
title in the catalogue as well as via the web interface. MARC files are also now
being received monthly, instead of bimonthly, again increasing the currency of
the catalogue data.
The Library received the green light to recommence set text and recommended
reading ordering only for Fiji after nearly a year. Sending resources to Fiji
also re-commenced on this advice from the Chancellery. All items
temporarily held by the Library were all sent by the start of June.
CQU Library reaffirmed its status as a 'Free Issue' library for AusInfo material
and not a 'Legal Deposit' one. This therefore means that the Library is not
required to account for or keep any government publications that are not
required for the collection.
All the background cataloguing and other administrative tasks emanating from the
2003 Reference serials relocation to Store were finished. Similarly, the mop up
of cataloguing and administrative tasks from the extensive 2002 serials
withdrawals project also came to an end.
The Course Resources Online (CRO) integration project was finalized in the
second half of the year, with all current CROs now in the catalogue and being
managed and loaded through VTLS' Metacat module. CAL audit reporting
requirements were revisited as part of the integration project and incorporated
into the data entry form as required.
After lengthy discussions with Financial Services a global exemption from the
University's purchasing policy for the Division’s acquisitions and subscription
purchasing, became permanent from 16th September, 2004
At the request of the University’s Copyright Officer the Library developed
processes and procedures for registering copyright permissions obtained by
staff, utilizing the Division’s existing Central Registration of Copyright and
TRIM systems. A trial with the Faculty of Education was started mid-year and
envisaged to run until the end of the year. However, only one permission was
received and processed before the trial went into abeyance with the resignation
of the University’s Copyright Officer shortly after its start. It is hoped that
this trial will be revisited / restarted when this position is filled in 2005.
Document Delivery trialled unmediated document delivery via the CISTI interface
in November 2004 with 32 researchers from the areas of Engineering and Science
availing themselves of the opportunity. Unfortunately more than half the
articles requested were held in the CQU collection in either print or full-text
databases, so this was not found to be a resource efficient option.
New PDF compression plug-in software for Adobe Acrobat - Apago ImageAlter was
purchased and installed. This software compresses CRO files from ˝ to 1/3 rd
their size and has sped up download times. It was purchased in response to
the increasing file sizes of CROs.
The lack of Library’s acquisitions and subscription commitments in the
University’s Finance system was identified as a significant issue. Processes
were developed in 2004 to create standing orders for the major acquisitions and
subscription vendors to address this problem. This is still yet to be done for
major Document Delivery suppliers.
A project to catalogue CQ Portraits was undertaken using the Metacat module of the Library’s Information Management System, Virtua. As a result 437 individual portrait records were added to the catalogue. The addition of links to the digitized images for these records is planned for 2005.
The following tasks were undertaken during the year to enhance the library’s catalogue:
- The old h[computer file] gmds (general material designations) following the title proper were converted to [electronic resource]. This means that a keyword search can now include ‘electronic resource’ in the title field, and thereby limiting results to software, e-journals, e-books, and CROs.
- Removal of duplicated subject headings resulting from the subdivision ‘periodicals’ occurring with both subfield x and subfield v.
- A further 28 subdivisions were also identified and were being progressively changed to enhance the catalogue further, e.g. Congresses; case studies; handbooks; manuals; etc. All these subdivisions revolve around the’ form of the material’ which now requires the subfield v.
The extensive project of checking all course profile reading lists against
the Library’s holdings, which started in 2003, was finally concluded at the end
of April, 2004
The checking and ordering of prescribed texts and recommended reading in this
manner was a very time consuming process as there was no easy way of identifying
changes to texts / readings on course profiles. To address this, a number of
initiatives were investigated throughout the year to try and streamline the
process. These included:
- Discussions with Division of Teaching and Learning Services (DTLS), resulted in the setting up of a new site for Library copies of course profiles. This allows access to course profiles as soon as DTLS get them rather than when they are ready to post them to the web. These copies will be password free and it will be up to us to check for new additions.
- Negotiating with the CQU bookshop to obtain the prescribed text lists for all of the faculties as they receive them. This has improved turnaround times significantly and reduced complaints from staff at other campuses and students alike.
- Acquisitions secured a commitment from the Faculty of Business and Law to receive their prescribed texts list for each semester in a timely manner.
- The University's new Content Management System was scrutinized, but unfortunately it does not help in identifying changes to Course readings.
A review of departmentally funded subscriptions was undertaken with a number being cancelled after liaison with the relevant departments. Streamlined processes were developed to deal with the few remaining titles. Similarly the renewal process for electronic subscriptions was reviewed to minimize confusion and overlap in tasks between Serials, Reference Services and the Electronic Services Librarian.
The Serials Section spent some time in 2004 mopping up a small number of
outstanding subscriptions from the Divine/Ebsco transfer in 2003. The Library
finally received a payment from the liquidators of RoweCom. A dividend at
the rate of 30 cents in the dollar was been declared for the company. The
University received a cheque for $888.99. This was calculated on a debt of
$2963.30'.
Budget Summary
|
Item |
Actual |
Budget |
Performance |
|
Revenue |
|
|
|
|
-Grants |
3,641,991 |
3,639,711 |
-2,280 |
| -Other Revenue excluding Transfers on Closing old Projects | 851,553 | 940,017 | 88,464 |
| Total Revenue | $4,493,544 | $4,579,728 | $86,184 |
| Expenditure | |||
| -Salaries | 2,995,819 | 3,205,107 | 209,288 |
| -Operations excluding Depn, Loss on Sale of Assets and Transfers on Closing old Projects | 608,859 | 711,836 | 102,977 |
| Acquisitions | |||
| - Books | 460,733 | 330,820 | -129,913 |
| - Electronic subscriptions | 628,963 | 686,967 | 58,004 |
| - Print subscriptions | 290,519 | 369,180 | 78,661 |
| Capital | 67,300 | 52,000 | -15,300 |
| Total Expenditure | $5,052,193 | $5,355,910 | $303,717 |
| Net Surplus/Deficit | -$558,649 | -$776,182 | -$217,533 |
The Library's operating result was again very close to Budget. The deficit
calculated after capital expenditure was $217,533 under the budgeted amount
after adjusting for Losses on Disposal of Assets of $932,605 and Depreciation of
$2,110,666 both of which were not included in the original forecast. the
Division's savings came mainly from Salaries.