Katy Rawdon (Librarian and Coordinator of Technical Services) in the Special Collections Research Center initiated an assessment project in the technical services area of Special Collections. Assessment Librarian Nancy Turner asked her about this project.
NT: What were you trying to accomplish?
KR: I’ve been here at Temple University for 1 1⁄2 years and when I came there wasn’t a systematic method for tracking the work of processing and cataloging special collections materials . I wanted to make sure that we were capturing numerically all that we are doing. I felt it was important to define which pieces of our work we are measuring and then define how we are measuring it.
To address this, I created a spreadsheet with tabs for each staff member in the SCRC with responsibility for any technical services work. The spreadsheet has columns for the different activities we do: from accessioning new materials to archival processing and the creation of finding aids and bibliographic records, to book cataloging and clean-up of legacy data. We’re also now surveying all of the archival and rare book materials in our collection – sort of a retro-active accessioning, and we’re tracking that work, as well. Since this was a new tool for tracking work, I met with each staff member individually to review
the definitions, procedures and how they would contribute to the spreadsheet. Periodically, I remind staff to record their statistics but in general the system is working well.
NT: Tell us about your results
KR: It’s really fun to see the numbers and it is encouraging to staff members to see this impressive (and accurate) documentation of their work effort. It’s motivational. Having these numbers is great for planning and prioritizing our work.
NT: How are you using your results?
KR: We have the goal of completing the survey of our collections before we move any into the planned new library building. We need to know what we have, and we need to provide housing for some materials before we move them. Pretty soon I’ll be crunching numbers to learn whether or not we’ll need to step up our pace. In general, the spreadsheet helps us understand how our time is spent in different types of activities.
One question I have is whether at our current rate of processing and cataloging, we will be able to keep up with incoming new collections. What adjustments do we need to make to our staffing levels or the way we’re processing collections in order to keep up with our work? To avoid increasing our backlog? Should we process collections at a less detailed level, allowing us to make more collections available? And if we need more staff resources, this kind of data will help us to advocate for those.
NT: Is there anything you’d do differently?
KR: Overall, I’m pretty happy with how I set up the spreadsheet. And I’m really happy that we had the system in place as we started the survey project, so we could track it from the beginning. The spreadsheet is pretty flexible, so I can add or refine categories as needed. I only wish I started the project earlier!
For more information on Katy’s assessment of technical services work in the SCRC, contact her at krawdon@temple.edu.