Annual Report FY2008
Acquisitions
Horizon System Administration
This has been a very eventful year for the Horizon System Administrator. The City of Victoria decided in the spring of 2008 to dissolve the Victoria Shared Library System Consortium, which has shared an integrated library computer system since 1983. The actual split between the systems will occur in December 2008, but the planning and organization of resources which will be retained by each library has taken a good deal of time this year.
The VC/UHV Library will retain the Horizon Integrated Library System which has again remained relatively stable with no upgrades and no new equipment purchases. The system administrator did a very large retrospective project with OCLC for Victoria Public Library to verify their holdings. The Victoria Public Library has also continued to do Inventory based on the new inventory devices and more conventional inventory based on lists created by the System Administrator, in order to prepare for the migration of their data to the new Symphony system.
Acquisitions
The Acquisitions Department welcomed a new library assistant, Yolanda Perez, in June in 2008. Yolanda previously worked for Victoria Public Library as an Acquisitions Assistant so her integration into the Technical Services team was smooth and she is proving to be an asset to the department.
In 2007-2008, the Acquisitions Department ordered and processed 1768 books at an average cost of $29.55. 25 Reference Books were purchased at an average cost of $73.62. We are continuing the processing of the Miller gift collection from 2006-2007 and also added 1655 new gift books this fiscal year.
We received extra funds this year for the digitization of various Media materials and purchase of streaming video licensing. Replacements of materials were as follows: 201 DVD items to replace VHS materials, 43 audiobooks on Audiocassette or older single audiocassettes were replaced by Audiobooks on CD or DVDs, and a total of 57 Licenses for Streaming Video access were purchased.
Over the course of the year, due to the absence of a Media Librarian, the department did most of the collection development in Media, particularly Nursing materials. A total of 318 AV items were purchased at an average cost of $127.16. This collection development activity was a significant additional work flow process as we have, in particular, worked to purchase in DVD format as many of the American Film Institute list of the top 100 movies of all time. These movies are used by both institutions for classes in popular culture and philosophy.
In order to enhance our collection of electronic books, 286 electronic books were purchased. Most of the ebooks were purchased as part of Netlbrary bundles of records:
- 22 titles under on the subject of IT (Gaming, Multimedia and Graphics in Computer Science)
- A basic teacher's resource bundle with 26 titles
- 35 titles on the subject of learning various languages
- 50 titles in Leadership and Management, and a Ready Reference bundle with 141 titles.
- 12 ebooks were purchased as individual titles.
Collection Development activities by the Head of Technical services this year included weeding and replacement of dated materials in Law, Communication, Nursing, and Language and Linguistics subject areas.
Submitted by Gail Crockett, Head of Technical Services