Response to Baker & Taylor

[Pat Wallace <DENWALL@AOL.COM>]

Message  forwarded by Patricia Wallace
Chair, Hawaii Working Group
American Library Association
Social Responsibilities Round Table
Alternatives in Print Task Force
denwall@aol.com

More input relevant to Baker & Taylor's recent claim that past problems
in implementing their contract with Hawaii's Public Library System
are "all fixed"  due to the formation of a Selection Advisory Committee,
among other things.

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From: A Branch Library Manager in Hawaii
To:   Patricia Wallace <denwall@aol.com>
Subject: Cataloging and Selection Committee in Hawaii


Selection Advisory Committee [to Baker & Taylor] consists of the following:

        Caroline Spencer - in charge of the 49 libraries
        Diane Eddy - Project Officer of the B&T contract
        Claire Ikehara - Branch Manager of Salt Lake PL
        Brenda Freitas-Obregon - Children's Librarian of Kalihi-Palama PL
        (Until "re-engineered," she was head of YA programming development
        services.  She went from a Lib V to Lib III position)

Two members of this committee provide direct customer service everyday.

My understanding is that B&T sends the committee a list of anticipated
buys. The committee then has a week to review it and inform B&T of their
decisions.

Is it working?  Beats me!  We received FY 95-96 (FY starts 1 July)
materials until the end of December 96.  It doesn't  take a great
mathematical genius to figure out  that we got an awful lot of junk  for
six months after the new FY began.  B&T just started  expending FY 96-97
funds.  I have seen little change in materials we have received [since Jan
1].
Too many things are still coming in that I would not waste limited resources
on.

Our lack of cataloging and lack of bibliographic control is a major
problem for us.  The original "re-engineering" plan was to let B&T do it
all.  All people in CPC (Central Processing Center) were deployed to
public service positions.  All selection, acquisition, cataloging, and
processing people left CPC in November 1995. The B&T contract kicked in
in March 1996.  We, technically, had no cataloging done between December
1995 and July 1996.  I say technically only to illustrate the far  thinking
of our
leaders.  Actually, four of the deployed catalogers provided some cataloging.

An additional part-time cataloger does only government docs.  Those four
brave souls were told that their primary duties were providing customer
service
in the new re-engineered libraries.

Just last week - the powers to be decided to add a full time cataloger.

The contract says that B&T would provide cataloging for 200 books that
were not purchased directly by and from B&T per year. I think the powers
to be miscalculated the number of donated items that could or should be
added to the catalog.  Very little cataloging was done prior to this year.
We sent in our requests for cataloging as needed.  We seldom saw anything
come out of this deep dark hole.  I think everything was stacked up on
someone's desk waiting to see how much came in.  Then a decision could be
made about whether to send it to B&T per the contract or catalog it in
house.  The super powers finally decided that something needed to be
redone.  There had to be well over 200 requests for cataloging.

The quality of our records is deteriorating  rapidly.  B&T does too many
 "quick and dirties."  Video cataloging, as  specified in the contract, I
think,
is a major disservice to our customers.  Bare minimum information is given
 -- Title, publisher, and Dynix #.  It really makes finding new non-feature
films
next to impossible.  Too many portions of the collections are getting scattere
d.
Under the old CPC, we had the ability to keep subjects together in spite of
revisions in LC or Dewey decisions.  It looks as though we will be doing a
lot
of physical and mental gymnastics just to locate materials in the same
subject
groupings.This cataloging problem with Hawaii outsourcing deserves a great
deal more attention than it's getting.

These opinions and observations are strictly my own.
Aloha
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"Don't be afraid to go out on a limb.
                 That's where the fruit is."
                                        -Anonymous