Technical Services At The Law Library
by David M. Turkalo, Assistant Director For Technical Services, Moakley Law Library, Suffolk University Law School
The Technical Services Department is a mostly behind-the-scenes entity playing numerous critical--- but not always obvious--- roles in the daily operations of the Law Library. While most students and faculty find that most of their interaction with library personnel occurs with those who are members of the Public Services Department staff (Reference Librarians, Circulation staff members), they would probably be quite surprised at the level of work and professionalism that goes into procuring, maintaining, securing, and giving access to, the many titles and the multitudes of formats of materials in the modern law library collection. Here at Suffolk, the Technical Services Department is divided into four units, each reporting to the Assistant Director For Technical Services. These units are Acquisitions, Cataloging, Serials, and Systems.
ACQUISITIONS
The Acquisitions Unit's primary responsibility is the ordering of materials for the Law Library's collection and for the faculty. The Unit is supervised by Christopher Chiofolo, Acquisitions Manager. He is assisted by two full-time staff members: Sarah Bezanson Rizzitano, Senior Acquisitions Assistant, and Christopher Balzano, Acquisitions Assistant. Among them, they are responsible for thousands of new book, journal, microfiche, video, audio, and computer-based titles which are ordered and the maintenance of those titles, most of which are updated by the publishers on various timetables. Besides the placing of the orders for the Library and faculty, they must monitor the progress of the order, receive it when it comes in, claim it when it does not, and return it when it is wrong, arranging refunds, credits, and/or replacements as needed! They make sure invoicing and billing is correct and send it on for payment. Their jobs require them to work closely with nearly 300 different vendors. As well, this unit of the Department compiles and produces the monthly document
Law Library New Acquisitions, which is accessible on the web at the Law Library's homepage. Most titles are added to the Library's collection (or in some cases, discontinued) after discussion at the monthly Collection Development Committee meeting. The Committee is composed of all the librarians, including the Director, on the Law Library staff. Suggestions by patrons for purchase can be made via the Archer Online Catalog, by clicking on Library Information and then Purchase Requests, and filling out and submitting the form provided.
CATALOGING
I once overheard my former boss, the venerable and legendary Librarian of the Social Law Library, Edgar J. Bellefontaine, describe the cataloging process to wit: After you spend the money to buy something, you've got to be able to FIND it! The Cataloging Unit, under the able direction of Julie Ann Hogan, provides the "roadmap" around the Law Library's collection. After the Acquisitions Unit receives a new title, it comes to Cataloging where Julie searches a national database for bibliographic and call number information, which she then edits and exports into Archer. Our call numbers are based on the system developed by the Library of Congress and used by most other large law and academic university libraries. All the pieces of the cataloging record follow a uniformity in how access points (author, title, subject, etc.) are handled, allowing the patron to do very specific or very general searches. Julie's job is to make sure the right record for a title we have purchased is located, edit it to conform to our cataloging standards, and to make sure its call number fits into our collection (while many books share the same call number, the letters and digits after the decimal point should be unique to each title). In addition to this new title activity, Julie also adjusts records as needed of titles already in the Archer system and oversees the Library's retrospective conversion projects as they arise due to shifts and other factors that constantly arise. She also prepares paperback titles for the bindery process, supervises our student worker corps, and has numerous other duties as well.
SERIALS
Under the direction of Jeff Flynn, Serials/Bibliographic Control Librarian, the Serials Unit comes into contact with approximately 85% of the titles the Law Library has, post-purchase. This means that once we have purchased and cataloged a title, we are, more often than not, NOT done with it: it is serial in nature, meaning parts and pieces of it will come to the Law Library at differing times to bring it up-to-date. Jeff and his two staff members, Senior Serials Assistant Jessica Camelio and Serials Assistant Paula Jordan, ride herd over this daily deluge of first-class mail and packages. They check in nearly every piece of mail that has a place in the Law Library's collection: from popular journals to pocket parts for books to free-standing supplements to replacement volumes to continuations to looseleaf paging. They process all volumes that come to the Library as part of ongoing subscriptions, do the same for law journals that have been bound at the bindery we do business with, and claim issues and other supplementary material when it has not arrived from the publisher. Jeff also maintains the licenses to the Library's ever-growing collection of electronic titles, making sure that we are in proper compliance with the varying requirements of the publishers. Serials Unit staffers are also responsible for picking up the mail twice a day, processing it, and delivering it not only to various parts of the Law Library but to all Law School offices as well. It is a very BIG (and time consuming) job!
SYSTEMS SERVICES
Systems primary concern is the efficient running of ARCHER, which allows one-stop searching for materials purchased by ALL of the Suffolk Libraries, a major boon to research and scholarship activities throughout the University. The ARCHER catalog is a product of Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (III) of Emeryville, California. It is the online catalog of choice among many of the top academic general and law libraries in the country, including locally BU, Yale, New England, Uconn, Vermont, Roger Williams, and Western New England. Maintaining the integrity of ARCHER requires the performance of upgrades, fixing glitches, and teaching staff how to better utilize the system. Numerous reports can be run off of the ARCHER system to assist library administrators in their planning, and in gathering the statistical information that entities such as the American Bar Association require of an institution to maintain its accreditation. The Systems Librarian must maintain in close contact with other libraries using the III system, as well as with III itself, vendors that we contract with to maintain up-to-date control of all headings used in the catalog, and with the University MIS Department.
So, that is a brief look at the many facets of work that make up the Law Library's Technical Services Department. Much gets done "behind the scenes" by my Department that contributes to the efficient running of the Law Library and a stellar staff is employed to get the numerous tasks done efficiently and well.
