Agenda

Meeting Notes--Bill

• Usefulness of fines and fines collection
• Proposal from Collections Committee

• What library directors might wish for in the way of information about invoices for electronic (or other) big ticket items
• Announcements
  • Next meeting June 20
  • Electronic classroom matters
  • Preliminary seat sweep results
  • Other

Meeting Notes

Presiding: Flo Wilson

Recording: Bill Hook

Attending: Martin Cerjan, John Haar, Bill Hook, Juanita Murray, Tracy Primich, Holling Smith-Borne, Sharon Weiner

Usefulness of fines and fines collection

Tracy raised the question about the usefulness of collecting book fines, and proposed that we consider eliminating overdue fines for books. The discussion of the various experiences with fines across the system led us to reflect back on a prior consideration of these same questions. It was quickly seen that various categories of materials (reserves, laptops, CDs, recalled books) would not be amenable to eliminating fines. But there seemed a consensus around the table to consider eliminating overdue fines for ‘normal’ book loans.

John recalled more about the prior discussion in the Library Management Council and a joint meeting with the Circulation Advisory Committee than did Bill or Flo. We agreed that John and Bill would attempt to dig out, if possible, files or notes from those prior discussions. Tracy will have this as an agenda item for the next CAC meeting, to provide an opportunity for their input, prior to this returning to the LDC agenda, at our next meeting on June 20.

[Subsequent to the meeting, we uncovered from the archived minutes of LMC and CAG these minutes on the staffweb.

The October 6, 2003 minutes of the Library Management Council http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/lmc/031006m.htm

The November 13, 2003 minutes of the Circulation Advisory Council [appended at end of minutes] The December 15, 2003 minutes of the joint LMC/CAG meeting [appended at end of minutes]

Many of the issues discussed today, were raised in the earlier conversations as well. The group agreed to table the issue pending an opportunity for all to review the prior discussions, and hear from CAC.

Proposal from Collections Committee

John reported that the Collections Committee has developed a fund structure for electronic resources. Currently all book funds for electronic resources close to a single account (74530). It was noted in the committee that by doing that, we would have some e-books and monographic materials closing to the same account as e-journals. Would we want to consider separating those, and seeking a second account to differentiate between monographic and serial e-resources?

The committee’s recommendation was to close all of them to 74530. The LDC members agreed, and approved that as the way to create these new book funds.

Big Ticket Invoices

Bill asked the group what their preferences would be about receiving more information about invoices, particularly the ‘big deal’ electronic resources invoices, which can take several months to work through. Several directors expressed concerns about how late in the fiscal year some of these wind up being paid, and the difficulty this places on them in managing their materials funds.

John indicated that Elsevier, Wiley and Springer are multi-year contracts, where an agreed upon maximum increase is already known. From that it should be relatively easy to give an indication to directors early in the year what those amounts are likely to be (probably the prior year’s expenditure + the maximum increase allowed in the contract).

Bill noted that what he has learned so far is that there is substantial detailed review of these invoices for errors, as one of the reasons why it takes so long to get them paid. We will need to change the way that review is done, since John tapped Central staff to help do that. Perhaps libraries would be interested in participating in the review and correction of these invoices, for their own titles? Several directors expressed interest in that possibility.

The discussion broadened a bit to include major periodical vendor invoices as well such as Harrassowitz, Swets, Ebsco. There seemed to be interest in obtaining earlier information about those invoices as well, which might be addressed in the meetings Roberta and Techforce are having with the library directors.

Announcements

• Unordered list
• June 20 will be the next meeting
• John discussed the draft proposal for revising the e-classroom reservations policy, distributed to directors earlier that day. Several questions were raised about items that might need to be explicitly addressed in the policy, such as the status of repeated (weekly) reservations for classes, and what about the availability of the laptop carts for faculty use when library instruction is not involved? It was agreed the draft would be revised to try to clarify or explicitly address these issues.
• Distribution of preliminary Seating Sweep data. Flo indicated that more detailed data for each library is available from the various members of the committee. More work is needed in analyzing the data.
• Flo gave an update on the Central Library Director search. Phone interviews with three candidates were held, and the committee is now working to bring two candidates for on-campus interviews in the first several weeks of June.
• Bill Hook announced that Chris Benda had accepted the position of theological librarian.
• Flo announced that Celia Walker has agreed to fill the role of interim director for the Peabody Library after Sharon leaves.
• John announced that the new 3m self-check unit is installed and working in the Central lobby now.

The meeting adjourned at 2:10pm.

Attachments

Circulation Advisory Group Minutes November 13, 2003

Present: Bill Hook, Ann Carey, Dale Poulter, Chris Benda, Janet Thomason, Anne Martin, Debra Stephens, Scott McDermott, Celia Walker, Barbara Clarke, Rodger Coleman, Sue Davis, Marie Swearingen, Yolanda Campbell, Clint Grantham.

Agenda:

Discussion of fines proposal from LMC/SQIT Notification of divisions for patron annex requests Discharging items from messenger to hold shelf Overdue threshold limits Button linking to ILL for lost, missing, billed item Posting circulation policies on CAG web pages Course reserve form change request Can renewal warn if loan period shortened due to expiration of privileges?

Bill opened the meeting asking if everyone was comfortable with the language Sue had come up with for Baker holds. It was unanimously approved.

Fines Proposal: Bill gave some background on the formation of Fines Committee and on LMC's discussion of the committee's proposal. That proposal, which came about through many discussions and compromises, included removing overdue fines, changing loan periods, and instituting a 30 day grace period at the end of which an automatic bill would be generated. Automatic billing would necessitate a standard fee that would include the cost of the item plus a processing charge. LMC could never get a consensus on this point despite a variety of proposals. They did however, recommend extending the 21 day loan period to 28 days. They now would like CAG to discuss the proposal and recommendation.

The first item touched on was what would be a fair standard fee to charge if we do away with overdue fines. Rodger said that MIT charged $126 for all lost books, but it was agreed that putting a set amount on all books wouldn't work. Some books that go out of print can only be replaced for a very high cost. Conversely, how could we charge over a hundred dollars for a lost Leisure Reading book? There was no consensus as to whether overdue fines were effective in getting books returned in a timely manner. Some felt there has to be some kind of incentive to make a patron return an item, but others felt that due to the backgrounds of most Vanderbilt undergrads, 20 cents a day was of little consequence. The question was raised as to whether this policy would include all patrons; Bill said it would. Also questioned were the reasons behind SQIT's recommendation to eliminate overdue fines. Scott, a member of SQIT, said one overriding factor was the amount of staff time spent on small, inconsequential fines, many of which are forgiven anyway. Length of loan periods was discussed, particularly the 21 day period. Nobody had any objections to extending this to 28 days for all categories affected. This, along with an increase in the grace period would substantially raise the minimum fines. It was also thought helpful to increase the renewal limits. All these things put together would allow an undergrad to keep an unrecalled book for a full semester.

The final recommendation of CAG is to: 1. extend 21 day loans to 28 days 2. extend the grace period to 28 days for all patron categories 3. increase all renewal limits by 1.

Discharging Items to Hold Shelf: Peg Earheart of the Annex has been receiving lots of overdue notices lately for books charged to the various "messenger" numbers. Clint wanted to know if there was any uniformity in how divisions handle arriving Annex books. It seems some discharge the incoming books and then charge them to a "hold shelf" number. Others put them on a hold shelf but leave them charged to the messenger. Since none of the libraries want to change their policies, the best solution, suggested by Anne, is for the overdue notices for items charged to "messenger" go to the destination library instead of to Peg. This will be initiated by Anne.

Overdue Threshold Limits: There was discussion about changing the number of overdues a patron can have and still renew their books online. As Scott pointed out, we want to encourage patrons to renew online and yet, if they are at their limit of overdues, even though it's a small percentage of what they have charged, the system will not allow them to renew. Most of the complaints come from faculty and grads. The charge limits for various categories include: Alumni-50, Undergrads-150, Grads-300, Faculty-500. The overdue threshold currently is 25 for most categories. It was proposed by Bill that we set the limit to 25 for all categories. No consensus was reached on whether to change this number or what to change it to so discussion was tabled until next month.

Button Linking to ILL for lost/missing/billed Item: It has been asked that if an item shows as lost, missing or billed in WebCat, there be a button added that would link to ILL. It was agreed that this was a good idea and Dale said he would look into implementing this.

Posting Circulation Policies on Web Pages: Anne will consult with the different libraries and do this. Course Reserve Form change: LaRentina asked if we would consider making some fields required that currently aren't. These fields include call number for Print Reserves and ISSN/ISBN, copyright year, journal issue and pages for Electronic Reserves. It was generally agreed that these changes weren't necessary so no changes will be made at this time.

Warning for Shortened Loan Period due to Expiration of Privileges:Dale said he would work on this and get back to the members.

Other: Ann Carey asked if the recall due date be set to not be later than the original due date. Anne Martin said others had inquired about this and that currently, the system offered no solution.

Dale announced that there would be an upgrade to the Acorn server on Monday, the 17th. (This was subsequently changed to the 24th.)

LIBRARY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL

December 15, 2003

Absent: Frances Lynch, Deborah Sommer, Celia Walker

Attendees from CAG: Chris Benda (Peabody), Ann Carey (Biomedical), Rodger Coleman (Music), Sue Davis (Technical Services), Clint Grantham (Annex), Michael Jackson (Law), Anne Martin (LITS), Scott McDermott (Divinity), Dale Poulter (LITS), Debra Stevens (Science & Engineering), Marie Swearingen (Management), Janet Thomason (Central).

Fines Proposal: Bill Hook

This LMC meeting was held jointly with the CAG members to further the LMC discussion of fines on December 1, 2003. The LMC meeting on December 1 concluded with the decision to extend the loan period to a minimum of 28 days for all patrons and to allow for the number of renewals to increase by one. No consensus was reached on the fines or on the grace period, and those points were deferred to this joint meeting.

Bill Hook said the previous conversation in LMC was more about loan periods and recalls, rather than discussing fines. He observed that there does not seem to be a strong push towards changing fines, as opposed to how best to service our patrons with loan periods and recalls. Paul Gherman said the SQIT committee brought up the issue because fines are seen as punitive. He said the Library strives for getting the right person the right materials at the right time and we use fines to make that happen. Rodger Coleman said we cannot assume the patron does not want the book because they do not recall it. Janet Thomason said that less than 500 books were recalled per month. Other services have already been added ? such as e-mail notifications to patrons and the ability to renew a book online. Janet said complaints regarding fines were around 2 per month at Central. Marshall Breeding asked if complaints were higher prior to those services being established. Janet said yes and that notices to patrons have significantly dropped the amount of fines that are collected by around 50%.

Scott McDermott stated that Divinity does not receive very many complaints, but a lot of staff time is used to collect the fines from patrons. If staff did not have to spend so much time on this, they could focus on other aspects of the LibQual survey and customer service improvements. Janet Thomason said by increasing the patron borrowing time, this can free up staff time.

Sherre Harrington said she researched library literature and could not find any evidence to support that fines work as a method to get books back from patrons. Rodger Coleman asked if fines do not have any effect, why have any fines on reserve or recalled items? He said he does not think we want to do this, but why have fines at all? Dale Poulter asked what percentage of overdue fines reached their maximum fine. Bill Hook stated that we do not know because the data currently does not show this.

Marie Swearingen stated that consistency is the key word. Many libraries have different forgiveness methods for fines. She used the Management Library as an example; Management almost always forgives fines, whereby other libraries may not. Anne Martin said between libraries for undergraduates and graduates, the consistencies can be difficult and how do we be consistent for each group? Marie stated Owen’s Dean does not want their students to be charged fines, since they are paying a lot for graduate school tuition.

Sherre Harrington asked what is the outcome we want to achieve, how much borrowing time should be allowed, and how much money do we feel we should collect for late items? Sherre said she remembers that LMC and CAG came to an agreement on this for those patrons unwilling to return the book(s). Bill Hook said it was 30 days plus a $15.00 billing fee, but said we never really settled on this amount. He stated that the CAG proposal is a good incremental step to see how much work is involved for staff members.

Paul Gherman said this is a customer service issue on one level regarding consistency and complacency. He said the majority of patrons comply when sent the reminder notification. On another level, we have abusers that consistently incur fines and they need penalties. We should be able to use the established automated system to identify the abusers and hit them hard with a penalty. Janet Thomason said that would help, and in addition we could modify the tone of the patron notices to be more customer service oriented or friendly (i.e. using “late fees” instead of “fines”).

Sherre Harrington commented that what we really want is the book back and that the focus is not really the dollar amount of the fine collected. Scott McDermott said an effective method for him was to call the patron. He said he would like to see circulation staff getting out of the business of “nickel and dime-ing” people and how do we go about freeing ourselves from that role? He said the beauty of the CAG proposal was a way to do that.

Paul asked if there were any objections to the Library adopting a 28-day grace period. Sherre said she agreed if there is consistency throughout the Library system. She said LMC needs to make a commitment to actually charge the fines or they might as well say Library X is not going to charge fines at all.

Dennis Clark asked if we set this up now, will it reduce staff time and is this what we will be measuring? Janet Thomason said we will also be able to measure how many overdue notices go out, how many bills, etc. Bill Hook asked if we can measure how many 1st, 2nd and 3rd notices have gone out in 2003 in order to have a comparison between this year and last.

Bill Hook suggested there be a CAG subcommittee established to look into the ancillary circulation issues surrounding these changes. LMC agreed that on January 1, 2004, the loan period would be extended to 28 days for all patrons and to allow for the number of renewals to increase by one. Beginning summer 2004, the committees agreed that a 28-day grace period would be added.

There were no announcements. The next LMC meeting would be held on January 5, 2004