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

Requests come in through OPAC

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 - WeeklyPR Entry - Weekly Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri

DateStd Mod Std Mod Std Mod Std Mod Std Mod

USER ERROR

A&A Eli Express not offered

Already Charged to patron

Already Requested (already recalled or on hold)

Call Slip Request (inc LSF)

Course Reserve

Course Reserve - alt available for request

Do not own

Film Study Center

Micro or non-print media

MSSA - alt available for request

Non-Circ / Alt available for request

Non-Circ / Current Journal

Non-Circ (alt may be offered)

On Order or Purchase request

Patron privilege constraint

Preservation / RaMP / Unavailable

Recall

Recall - IN PROCESS

Recall / queue

Request data error

SYSTEM LIABILITIES

Non-circ; must page

Non-circ or non-eli; charged

No Item Record

On Hold (recall)

Status = Missing or Lost

Status = Missing or Lost / Alt offered

Transit Discharge or Transit Hold

LSF Transit Discharge within 7 days

Temp Loc

Timing

Other

SYSTEM ERRORS

Cataloging error

Item-type error or inconsistency

MFHD has inconsistent info

Not (fully) suppressed or withdrawn

Split set or MFHD/LOC mismatch

PATRON REQUESTS

faculty reserve

request search or special processing

MISC / OTHER

PATRON RESOLVED

user either selected wrong BIB (e.g., for non-circulating copy), or used web address for form

includes all types (24-hour, 3-day, other libs)

same title and year available with alternate BIB

information is available that item is not owned by libraries

same title and year available for request with alternate BIB

same title and year available for request with alternate BIB

includes all non-circ types, inc reference, divr, etc; alternate edition or year may be offered

patron should use appropriate forms in ORBIS

exceed book limit, or insufficient paging privileges, etc

place hold and send stationery to David Walls

charged to pseudo-patron; place in pending file; follow up with email to dept as necessary

drop-down menu misuse or inconsistent/insufficient info

charged to pseudo-patron or A&A patron, etc, but non-circ; reader needs to get hold somehow

create item and call-slip; sometimes a ghost record

item is requested for hold or on hold; reader can not reserve it w/o intervention

place on search list, and in pending file

if recent (non-LSF) a 'hold' may be sufficient; place in pending file and follow up. If older (inc LSF), place on search list or contact LSF; also heavily used during beginnings of semesters for reserve processing

track reshelving time at LSF

CCLTRAN, PRES, etc

timing issue (was transit discharge, or in process, or on hold at time of request; now can call slip or recall)

empty BIB, relink, other

item-type does not match up with location

does not match up with item enumeration, or difficult for patron to determine if owned

including SMLGEN or SMLCOFF, ORBIS use response, other

•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

Place Request Trend

0

50100

150

200

250300

350

Nov

-04

Jan-

05

Mar

-05

May

-05

Jul-0

5

Sep

-05

Nov

-05

Jan-

06

Mar

-06

May

-06

Jul-0

6

Sep

-06

Nov

-06

Jan-

07

Mar

-07

May

-07

Pla

ce R

equ

ests

PRs

Average

Fiscal Year Comparison Graph

•Fiscal year comparison validates numbers

Fiscal Year Comparison

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Pla

ce

Re

qu

es

ts

2004 - 2005

2005 - 2006

2006 - 2007

Resolution Analysis

Place Request Resolution AnalysisFiscal Year 2006 (July06 - June07)

0

200

400600

800

1000

US

ER

ER

RO

R

SY

ST

EM

LIA

BIL

ITIE

S

SY

ST

EM

ER

RO

RS

PA

TR

ON

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ES

TS

PA

TR

ON

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LVE

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OT

HE

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ests

Modified

Standard

•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?

•‘modified’ responses are those that go beyond canned cut and pastes…

July 2006 - June 2007

  Standard Modified Total

USER ERROR 1176 240 1416

SYSTEM LIABILITIES 353 96 449

SYSTEM ERRORS 31 17 48

PATRON REQUESTS 8 28 36

PATRON RESOLVED 107 1 108

OTHER 18 13 31

2088

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

Place Request Resolution PercentagesFiscal Year 2006 (July06 - June07)

69%

21%

2%

2%

5%

1% USERERROR

SYSTEMLIABILITIES

SYSTEMERRORS

PATRONREQUESTS

PATRONRESOLVEDOTHER

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)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%Ju

l-06

Aug-

06Se

p-06

Oct

-06

Nov

-06

Dec

-06

Jan-

07Fe

b-07

Mar

-07

Apr-

07M

ay-0

7Ju

n-07

User Error Analysis

Other User Error

Non-Circ*

Call Slip

Reserves

Recall-in process

Recall

A&A

Typical User Error – A&A

•A significant number of requests for A&A material have comments similar to this reader’s

System Liability

•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

Liability Breakdown (3 month)

11%

22%

18%20%

4%

9%

16%

Non-circ

Transit Discharge

On Hold

Missing/Lost

Temp Loc

Timing

Other

Other includes ‘no items’, visitor recall of bindery item, insufficient ORBIS info, and overlaps at times into cataloging deficiencies

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

Today's Searches

2/2 Brian, 2/5/07

Author Loc / Stat Title Call #Barcode39002---

VOLSearchNotes

FOS/NOS PatronFollow-up

Notes

Trumpener, Katie CCL / THBardic nationalism : the

romantic novel and the British Empire

PR868 N356 T78 1997

39002018479965 FOS

agruss

Ekman CCL / L Micro expression training tool BF592.F33 E45

2003 (LC)39002069019660 CD NOS purchase request

CCL / LMiracle mirrored : the Dutch

Republic in European perspective

DJ155 M57X 1995 39002034047135 NOS

lindsay

BoxerIsaac Commelin's 'Begin ende

Voortgangh' E230 +C65 1646B 39002037410462

please discharge (it will go to

MUDD)FOS NOS at MUDD

SML Beyond coercion DS39 N34 1987 39002014753124please bring to

my deskFOS alston BIB? Vol?

Taylor, Deems (LSFMUS) Walt Disney's Fantasia ML2075 T239

W2+ Oversize39002045319507 NOS

gardella

sent to SML 12/11/06 -

charged as of 1/29

Follow up - internal

•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.

The item is part of a partially analyzed set (and had been mistakenly marked missing); search on the cover record reveals a ‘split set’

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

Does not apply to all above

Inconsistently framed

Proposed Request Menu (kinda’)

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 Slip data collection

Call Slips Processed Graph

Average = 158 per month

Call Slip Failures Processed

0

50

100

150

200

250

Jul-0

6

Aug

-06

Sep

-06

Oct

-06

Nov

-06

Dec

-06

Jan-

07

Feb-

07

Mar

-07

Apr

-07

May

-07

LSF v Non-LSF Call Slips

62% of Call Slips Processed are ‘failed’ LSF Call Slips

LSF and Non-LSF Comparison

0

50

100

150

200

250

Jul-06 Aug-06

Sep-06

Oct-06

Nov-06

Dec-06

Jan-07

Feb-07

Mar-07

Apr-07

May-07

Jun-07

Non LSF

LSF

Major LSF Categories

Major LSF CategoriesJuly 2006 - June 2007

56%

16%

7%

5%

4%

12% Drop Down Menu error

MFHD mismatch or split set

Out on ret or not on file

Other lib

Analytic v cover

Other

FY06-07 1735  

LSF 1095 63%

Drop Down Menu error 604 55%

MFHD mismatch or split set 175 16%

Out on ret or not on file 87 8%

Other lib 62 6%

Analytic v cover 38 3%

Other 129 12%

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- current -

Request Staff Search or Delivery- proposed -

May add processing time ?

Possibly disable when item loc = LSF?

Using this area may increase response time (especially for LSF items) – please use the ‘select an item’ drop-down menu when

possible

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

Call Slip Categoriesnot including LSF

13621%

9214%

437%41

6%538%

6410%

21634%

Item Type Mismatch

Non Circ

MFHD ploc mismatch

Misc cataloging problem

User Error

Split Set

Other non-LSF

•‘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%).

Call Slip Major Error Categories(including LSF)

8%

13%

5%

2%

2%

36%

19%

15% Item Type Mismatch

Split Set (inc LSF)

Non Circ

MFHD ploc mismatch

Misc cataloging problem

LSF Drop Down Errors

Other LSF

All Other

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

•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)

Enumeration / Chronology

Ambiguous Instruction

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, for example, would benefit by a direct link to their online request form

AOB 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