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lauren.brown@yale.edu. Access Services coordinator coordinating ‘Place Request’ and Call Slip problem resolution (September 2005) thank you for your help. How Can We Improve Service in OPAC. Provide more / better information on the OPAC front-end
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lauren.brown@yale.edu Access Services coordinator coordinating ‘Place Request’ and Call Slip problem resolution (September 2005) thank you for your help
How Can We Improve Service in OPAC • Provide more / better information on the OPAC front-end • Resolve Database (bibliographic) inconsistencies
Selection Display • In this case, there is only one BIB for the title (so the ‘selection screen’ is bypassed)
Place Requests for Library Materials • ‘Request staff search or delivery’ is one of several wordings…..
This item is not available for Call Slip requests • Other wordings include Call Slip, Eli Express, Paging, LSF Retrieval • There is NO information about why the request could not be processed
The Place Request full screen as it appears to many readers • The SEND button is placed before any guidance…
Place Requests come in via Email • All PR emails are sent (via filters) to a common inbox
Place Request Email • Every email must be looked at individually; there is no way – as of yet – to separate workflow
Place Request Response • Typical response: reserves
PR Entry - Weekly • Daily ‘tick’ sheet of Place Request causes
Monthly PR Excel Stats • Daily tick sheet is accumulated into monthly spreadsheet (with comments)
PR Trend Graph Average = 169 per month over 28 months (Trend is upward with 06-07 average of 194) • High and low months are as one would expect
Fiscal Year Comparison Graph • Fiscal year comparison validates numbers
Resolution Analysis • ‘modified’ responses are those that go beyond canned cut and pastes… • Over approximately 20 months, categories of errors have been developed, tested and refined through daily testing • ‘USER ERROR’ – enough information exists that the user could choose the correct option • Is the information provided to the user? Is it clear? Is the correct choice encouraged?
Resolution Analysis ‘User Error’ = 69% • ‘User Error’ is by far the greatest category of cause of Place Requests • And it is the category that presumably can be most easily resolved (working with PIC) • Remember: Place Request form indicates a failure in the request of some kind
Categories of User Error – Monthly • Month to month analysis of ‘User Error’ shows the categories are consistent across months (with reserves not applicable July and August) • ‘Recalls’ consistently account for approximately 15% of ALL Place Requests (or almost 20% including ‘in process’ recalls) • Requests for Course Reserves account for 16% of ALL Place Requests (not including July & August)
Typical User Error – A&A • A significant number of requests for A&A material have comments similar to this reader’s
System Liability Other includes ‘no items’, visitor recall of bindery item, insufficient ORBIS info, and overlaps at times into cataloging deficiencies • System Liability: Not a User or Cataloging error; Voyager software may not be sophisticated enough to handle without manual intervention • ‘Transit discharge’ items are in transit to owning library • ‘On Hold’ items are on hold for a patron and cannot be recalled or held in the Public module
System Liability – Missing or Lost • Items with status of ‘missing’ or ‘lost’ can only be handled manually • We try to provide alternates wherever possible • They are followed up with searches and replacement referrals
Bibliographic Problems • The valid BIB does not have the item attached; the item was found with an old GEAC BIB using a keyword search
Search Form • Lost, missing, split set items, items that have been in transit for a while, are placed on a search list • Also, items that reveal questionable cataloging data, items ‘out on retrieval’ from LSF, purchase requests, and other items
Follow up - internal The item is part of a partially analyzed set (and had been mistakenly marked missing); search on the cover record reveals a ‘split set’ • In addition to tracking individual requests with the patron, follow-up includes resolving cataloging confusion or errors (with the help of catalog.problems), consolidating split sets, emailing departmental pseudo-patrons about recalled items, identifying need for additional reserves material, identifying high usage materials to transfer back to CCL, notifying other libraries of cataloging problems, and more.
Current entry to Request Form • There is no indication why the request could not be processed in ORBIS
Proposed Entry to Request Form • Assumption 1: Users would prefer to receive their material as quickly as possible • Assumption 2: In order to receive material more quickly, they will use the system as efficiently as they can
Current Request Menu Inconsistently framed Does not apply to all above
Call Slips • By default, Call Slips that can not be fully validated are routed to the SML Call Slip Daemon
LSF Call Slips Reports Batch Incomplete Report (3 per day) Items Requested from LSF but Unavailable Report (3 per week) • Also, Call Slips that can not be resolved in the LSF Call Slip Daemon are sent via two reports to Access Services • Access Services removes the Call Slips from the LSF Daemon/s and prints them • ‘Batch incomplete’ Call Slips do not have barcodes
Call Slips Processed Graph Average = 158 per month
LSF v Non-LSF Call Slips 62% of Call Slips Processed are ‘failed’ LSF Call Slips
Enumeration / Drop Down Menu Error • LSF can only process items via barcode; no barcode is provided if the patron neglects to use the ORBIS drop-down menu
Request Staff Search or Delivery- proposed - Using this area may increase response time (especially for LSF items) – please use the ‘select an item’ drop-down menu when possible May add processing time ? Possibly disable when item loc = LSF?
LSF – Not on File • LSF ‘Not On File’ are items that are not accessioned in the LSF/GFA software; most often they are items within a split set where the MFHD location is LSF
Call Slip Categories Analysis • ‘Drop-down menu’ reason accounts for 36% across all call slip ‘failures’ • The next biggest categories are ‘split sets’ (13%), other LSF (19%), item-type mismatch (lsf location ‘flip’ failure – 8%), and requests for non-circulating material (7%).
Split set & item-type mismatch • If there are discrepancies of any kind between item-type, item location and holdings location, the call slip request will require intervention
Bibliographic data errors • In this case, the problem appears to be a split set but the BIB reveals it is a monograph…
SMLBAB Call Slip Failures • Requests for Babylonian collection items account for 7% on average, with spikes of up to 20% • The first item in the drop-down (and the default item when the drop-down is not used) is the non-circulating Babylonian copy. • Even if the patron wanted to use the drop-down menu, there is no correspondence to the search results
Enumeration / Chronology • Many of the items have no enumeration or chronology • Holdings record indicates the volumes are published monthly, (and indicates we have the year 1992) but there is nothing that indicates how the reader can request this • Additionally, the items that do have enumeration are not sequenced properly (so sequencing does not help resolve this request either)
LSF Request for use at…? • Not only is the wording ambiguous, not all restricted collections are represented • And not only is the user frustrated, collections (such as AOB) are not able to offer the service they would like to
AOB request • What does this instruct the patron to do? • The collection is not represented on the drop-down ‘library location’ list
AOB online request form • AOB, for example, would benefit by a direct link to their online request form
The investigation continues…. Patterns continue to emerge: Bindery, Carrel, Cover Records, non-circ charged items, ‘in-transit’ status, ‘in process’ inconsistencies…
How Can We Improve Service in OPAC • Provide more / better information on the OPAC front-end • Resolve Database (bibliographic) inconsistencies