Library automation systems are crucial to the operation of contemporary academic libraries. They provide the searchable online catalogs; the circulation, cataloging, and interlibrary loan systems; and much more. At Temple there are twenty-three university libraries that contain over 2.9 million print volumes that need to be cataloged, shelved, searched, checked out, checked in, placed on reserve, or sent off as interlibrary loans. The explosion of electronic resources in recent years has placed an additional burden on automation systems. Since May 1999, Temple has used automation software from Innovative Interfaces Inc., one of the world’s leading providers with systems installed in diverse libraries in over forty countries.

As with any widely used computer system, Innovative needs to constantly improve, upgrade, and expand its software offerings to libraries. The Innovative Users Group (IUG) was established as an independent entity in 1991 to “serve as a forum to influence the development and improvement of Innovative products for the benefit of IUG members” (quote taken from the IUG web site). Paley Library Access Services librarian Carol Brigham has been involved with IUG since 1988 and was recently elected to a two-year term as an IUG member-at-large, an honor that indicates her high standing within the library community. Previously, Carol served as secretary and member-at-large of the (regional) Middle Atlantic IUG.

As a member-at-large Carol will represent a broad user population from diverse libraries by soliciting, elaborating, organizing, and communicating recommendations for Innovative’s continually evolving automation software, an annual cycle called the “IUG Enhancement Process”. Throughout the year, IUG members make suggestions for enhancements that are then vetted by IUG experts for feasability. The potential enhancements are then sent out to IUG member libraries to vote on. Currently, libraries are casting their ballots for the 2005 enhancements, with a deadline for voting of July 8, 2005. The winning enhancements will then be sent to Innovative for implementation. Facilitating this process takes deep technical knowledge, excellent communicaton skills, an understanding of the working milieus of many different types of libraries, and a whole lot of patience. Carol will do a great job! She will also play a role at IUG conferences and events. At the most recent national IUG meeting in San Francisco, Carol coordinated and was a panelist on two circulation forums.

Carol came to Temple from LaSalle five years ago and has made a big impact on Paley operations where she helps to formulate Access Services policies, works on special projects, and generally aims at improving operational efficiency. If you’ve ever been to the Circulation Desk in Tuttleman you’ve probably seen Carol. Take a look at her picture. She was probably moving very fast with a pen and legal pad in her hand, as she moved between problems, projects, and meetings.

BTW: The department in which Carol works, Access Services, is responsible for the following library functions:

• Circulation (checking out and returning books);
• Interlibrary Loan Borrowing and Lending (borrowing and lending books and journal from and to other libraries);
• Course Reserves (faculty members put books on reserve for classes); and
• Stacks (shelving and reshelving and shelving and reshelving…).

–Fred Rowland

As another academic year ends it’s time to appreciate and praise the work of the hundreds of student assistants who work for us in all of our libraries and make it possible to do everything we need to do to serve our Temple community.

There are students working in our libraries every hour we’re open. In the case of many of the branch libraries student assistants keep the libraries open on evenings and weekends. In Paley Library students work in every department. They performs tasks as varied as answering phones during staff lunch hours; delivering important documents to the Provost’s Office; delivering mail; helping ship items going to the bindery; staffing the help desk and installing software and hardware in the Systems and Technology department; working in the current periodicals,government documents, and micromaterials unit, including staffing the ground floor desk, processing government documents, and refiling micromaterials. With our special collections, including rare books and Urban Archives, students help with many projects to make these collections accessible to our users. In the Access Services areas of Paley – circulation/reserve, interlibrary loans, and the stacks – student assistants make it possible for us to offer such critical services as e-reserves, and PALCI E-ZBorrow, activities where we rely heavily on students to do processing and scanning. In the stacks, students shelve thousands of books a week and are involved in year-round shifting projects. In interlibrary loans, students are processing and filling requests and wrapping hundreds of books a day to be shipped to libraries all over the country.

Thank you to all our student assistants. We couldn’t do it without you.

–Penelope Myers

The entire Library Staff congratulates all 2005 graduates, especially our own Library Student Assistants. We all wish them well in finding jobs and even more for a full and happy life! The list is long; and I hope complete. These Student Assistants have helped to a great degree the successful and smooth operation of the entire library system.
We thank them again! And we will miss them!

From Access Services:

Interlibrary Loan: Levi Obonyo, PhD — Mass Communication

All these are getting their Bachelor’s degrees:

Circulation/Reserve:
Mabana Bamba–Journalism/PR/Advertising
Jessica Joh–Art History
Lindsay Keating–English

Interlibrary Loan:
Robert Baker–American Studies
Patrick McDonald–French/Spanish

Stacks:
Jeff Cafaro–Film and Media Arts
Kristin Kelly–Film and Media Arts
Katherine Westbrook–Broadcasting Telecommunications Mass Media
Stefanie Martoccio–Accounting

Ambler Library:
Rebecca Weide–CLA

Biology Library:
Wazha Mathanjane

Chemistry Library:
Cori O’Brien

Library Systems & Technology:
Emmanuel Dierisseau–Fox School of Business and Management/MIS

Mathematical Sciences Library:
Abbas Haji

Physics Library:
YiFan Huang

Reference and Instructional Services:
Lisa Hayes–School of Communications and Theater
Shirley Pegues–CLA
Autumn Raniere–School of Communications and Theater

Tyler Library:
Courtney Zeigler
Jason R. Miller
Chiayu Mao

Urban Archives:
Allistair Alves–CLA/Sociology
Kyanna Barlow–School of Social Work/Social Administration
John Pettit–SCAT/Film and Media Arts

–Al Vara

On Friday April 1 2005 Dr. Iren Snavely, the librarian for Temple’s Harrisburg campus and archivist for Temple’s Central Pennsylvania Social Work Archives, spoke about the new archives, started in 2003, at a workshop at the annual conference of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. Temple University-Harrisburg Oral History project is the Human Service Practitioner’s Oral History series, and three of its participants, Lewis Crippen, retired administrator of the Dauphin County Area Agency on Aging, Ann Lyon, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Social Work at Harrisburg Area Community College, and Theotis Braddy, Executive Director of the Center for Independent Living of Central Pennsylvania, challenged the audience with reflections and stories from their social work practice and experiences.

Larry P. Alford has been appointed to the newly created position of Vice Provost for Libraries and University Librarian.

He joins Temple from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was Deputy University Librarian. As Vice Provost for Libraries, Alford will oversee all of Temple’s 17 libraries in a federated system that includes the Paley Library, the Law Library and the Health Sciences Libraries.

Alford assumes his new position at Temple on Feb. 15, 2005. Read more about Larry Alford in the recent Temple News article.