The following anecdotes and tips are provided to give insight into the good, the bad and the ugly of joining a consortium.
1. How was your library’s overall experience in going through the process of joining Minerva?
2. What things went well as your library went through the process of joining Minerva?
3. What did not go well as you went through the process of joining Minerva?
4. Please provide your top 5 tips for libraries considering applying to join Minerva.
1. How was your library’s overall experience in going through the process of joining
Minerva?
We went through the process of joining Minerva we were also renovating and expanding our library. It was a bit chaotic. We joined just over 10 years ago and Minerva was going through some growing pains. Support was given kindly but there was no real structure and training was a bit chaotic. All in all – I am very glad we joined. The resource sharing is wonderful for our library and our patrons.
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The process went pretty smoothly for us. Minerva was just starting, so we didn’t have the issues of fitting in with a large, already functioning organization. We were in the first wave, all figuring things out together.
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We struggled with records that were not loaded correctly. This meant thousands of records that were attached to titles that weren’t in our collection. Our price fields were corrupted, I think because dollar signs in the price field weren’t recognized correctly upon downloading. We lacked support for training. Ongoing problems were not addressed quickly. Far too often, a request to address a problem was met with silence or a suggestion that the problem must be ours. We were fortunate to have a staff member who was persistent in looking for answers. It would have been much worse if we hadn’t had that rare experience factor, and a strong confidence factor that weathered the sometimes disrespectful (my perspective) response to questions. We more recently learned that our circulation statistics were not being recorded correctly for our self-check unit. We vastly misreported our statistics in state reports for several years. This problem took more than a year to resolve. We were surprised to learn that we would have to pay for scoping. The original contract which we were offered did not make that clear. The impact of the increase in materials traffic was never discussed with us. We invested significant funds to redesign our circulation and delivery area following our first year. We were very fortunate to be able to do this because the increase was significant.
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I think that our overall experience was quite good and positive. I am happy that we joined. As a cataloger, there was a learning curve but the Millennium software is such an improvement over the Winnebago software that we were using previously that I can’t say enough positive about it. I am able to get so much more work done in much less time.
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Could have been better if we (and the then Minerva team) had a better understanding of how our existing records needed to be improved so that they would import correctly into Minerva.
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Having waited for many years for this opportunity, there was great enthusiasm about joining Minerva on the part of the staff, Board of Trustees and community. The overall experience was positive. There was a significant delay between our acceptance and our start date (7 months), in large part due to a major library building repair that took 3 months to complete. It would be helpful to have a flowchart that would describe key steps and provide a timeline for getting steps accomplished. Knowing what comes next is important when you have no idea what should come next.
2. What things went well as your library went through the process of joining Minerva?
We made it through and we are glad we did. Support from directors of other Minerva public libraries was helpful. It was also nice that other Minerva libraries were open to having us come to their libraries and shadow staff.
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The circulation part of the transition from Follett to III went mostly without a hitch.
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The contract was easy and the money was deposited quickly.
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We did a large weeding project before we sent out items out to Marcive so that we would not be paying for items that we would discard soon after joining. Our staff kept in close touch with the staff at Maine InfoNet in order to learn about how we would be setting up for joining Minerva and what we would need to do set up/use the Millennium program. Our staff talked to other librarians who were already in the Minerva system to learn tips and ideas to keep in mind as to what we could expect when we joined. We decided that we would completely cover our old barcodes so that there would be no question which barcode to scan when we went to the new Minerva system. We are so glad that we did this. Some libraries did not do this and I find that it is sometimes difficult to know, without first scrutinizing the labels, which barcode is the Minerva barcode and which is the old system barcode, when we receive an item from another library through interlibrary loan. Our staff attended/attends Minerva Roundtable meetings to keep up on what was happening in Minerva.
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We were well prepared from the physical standpoint– we had the appropriate computers in the circulation area and plenty of catalog lookup stations throughout the library. We had appropriate barcode scanners that I could re-program for 14 digit barcodes. We had receipt printers at checkout. We sent our records to Marcive to create “Smart” barcodes for each item in our database. By the time we joined Minerva we had a professional cataloger on staff. That was essential.
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We closed the library for four days and re-barcoded about 80% of the collection. We had over 50 volunteers join the staff in doing this. The remainder was completed in the following week, just prior to the conversion. We weeded extensively prior to this. Visiting other libraries was helpful. Lynn provided webinars and on-site support and was accessible for phone calls to help us through the first several weeks.
3. What did not go well as you went through the process of joining Minerva?
We had some technical issues with our retrospective conversion and barcoding. Communication with Minerva leadership and technical support was chaotic. In my opinion, that has improved greatly.
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People doing the cataloging here did not have sufficient training and were more or less winging it for a long time. Staff did not understand how to add “on the fly” items (material being checked out that somehow was not in the Minerva catalog yet) in an efficient way and so the items would not remain as “on the fly” items upon return. We definitely did not understand how to compile statistical reports.
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Minerva staff transitions at the same point our cohort was joining the system. Perhaps a poor working relationship with III was a friction point that affected resolution of our problems.
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1. We discovered that we had a partial bad backup and some of our items that had actually been purged from our database were put back in in error. This was our error. These were then sent to Marcive and had barcodes printed for items that we no longer owned.
2. Many libraries have multiple copies of items and we do as well. One problem that we had was that when the folks who were re-barcoding our books came to these they sometimes placed the wrong “smart barcode” on the wrong item. In this way, what would happen was that when we had two copies of a book sometimes they would mis-matched the barcodes on the two books. It is especially a problem if they are both different publishers or editions of the book.
3. Sometimes the person would work too fast and not make sure that the new barcode would be put on straight and therefore not completely cover the old barcode. This causes a big problem at the circulation desk as the barode does not scan correctly because the barcode scanner picks up part of the old barcode as well as the new one.
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We still don’t know what happened in the upload process, but hundreds of our records matched up to incorrect existing Minerva records. (Mostly to Maine Historical records, for some reason.) I think, 5 years later, we have found all of them! If a price had 4 or more digits (ex. 75.00) first digit of those prices were dropped, so that the price became 7.50. We’re still correctly those problems! We were led to believe that if we had electronic records we were good to go. Consequently, some 39,000 of our records did not match any Minerva record. We had to go through each record and manually match to an existing record or improve it by manually importing a new record and then match to an existing record. Not true. Consider that your records may NOT be good to go. especially if you don’t employ a professional cataloger, or your database has a lot of vendor created records (Winnebago, Baker and Taylor, etc.) We were not given a list of every CIRC function that we could customize in our profile. Example: we just learned 2 weeks ago that Minerva staff could set the Scarborough profile so that the CIRC module would remember our printer settings when we logged in.
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Never, never have your day #1 be the day after a Maine InfoNet server conversion. This was a very stressful way to start off. Not sure we would have been as comfortable with the ILL process if one staff member had not previously worked at a Minerva library. Being the only library joining in this round, there was no other place to turn for the stupid little questions. I strongly recommend that Maine InfoNet consider offering a coach for new libraries. This coach could be on-site on day #1 and stay for up to one week. And be available after that for questions and support. The Best Practices handout was helpful but needs more information.
4. Please provide your top 5 tips for libraries considering applying to join Minerva.
1. Weed, weed and weed again. There is no point in migrating records for books or other items that you no longer want or need in your collection.
2. Think about the fact that you are joining a consortium – not just getting an ILS. You will need to give up local control in some areas. However, the benefits are enormous.
3. Belonging to Minerva is not an opportunity to cut your collections budgets. Every library needs to pull its weight for the consortium to work.
4. Plan for staff time for daily / weekly / monthly functions that as a member of the consortium, your library is required to do.
5. Be prepared for a HUGE increase in ILL activity.
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1. Be ready to run the necessary reports daily.
2. Anticipate a huge increase in ILL activity! Be ready to reallocate staff time and to find a space for sorting books and packing the totes for ILL.
3. Understand that there will be a commitment of staff time and travel to meet continuing education requirements that go along with being a member of a consortium.
4. Know that some local policies might have to give way to Minerva-wide policies.
5. Realize that by joining Minerva, you will be gaining easy access to a statewide collection of over 7 million items. What a great service to your community! Your patrons will love it!
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WEED FIRST! Plan for a drastic change in book circulation and delivery. Identify one person on the staff who will be the contact with Minerva for trouble shooting. Be ready to give up some “sacred cows” in procedures and policies for the good of the whole system. Be sure you have a competent cataloger who is learning RDA and can do original cataloging.
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1. Weed your collection.
2. Have a good backup.
3. Do cover your old Barcodes and make sure that the people who are helping you to re-barcode are well trained and understand the reasons why this is so important.
4. Have staff attend Minerva Roundtable Meetings to learn about Minerva Circ and Cataloging and join Minerva listservs.
5. Keep in touch with the Maine InfoNet Staff.
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We already had electronic records provided by Winnebago from a print shelf list, so we did not ask for our records to be converted. Our records contained thousands of vendor-supplied records from multiple vendors and we didn’t take that into account either. We simply had 14 digit Smart barcodes created for each item. I strongly recommend doing an inventory and then sending your records for an actual conversion to improve all of your records before uploading to Minerva. While the Smart barcodes allowed us to do a rough inventory, we were left with hundreds of “lost items” that then had to be deleted from our Minerva holdings. Do not use volunteers for your re-barcoding unless they are trained librarians. Volunteers do not always understand the complexities of call numbers, multiple copies, and sets. Examine the local fields you use in your existing records. Pay close attention to the local fields used in Minerva. They will probably not be the same and may need to be mapped specifically to accept your information. ( See our price problem above.) Understand that as part of a consortium, any customized info you have included in MARC records (aside from local 852 fields) will be lost when your item is matched to an existing record. Make sure your upload includes the old barcode in a local field as well as the new barcode in the appropriate barcode field, so you can easily compare records to correct loading problems. Find a way to keep your old database accessible. You will be correctly problems in your Minerva upload for years to come. We have our pre-Minerva database in a searchable text file that contains our old barcode and our new 14 digit barcode, so we can clear up problems if we need to.
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1. Weed your collection thoroughly. 2. Barcode the collection. 3. Have your complete staff trained including substitutes and send staff to other Minerva libraries not only to observe but work alongside their staff if possible. 4. Get your finances in place. 5. If you are doing a new library card drive at the same time (which is what we did) be sure to have satellite stations set up with trained staff/substitutes so that the circ desk doesn’t get jammed.
