LCCN, January 23, 2013
ISSN 2324-6464
A Day in the Life of a Section Head:
Bob Morgan, Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Division, Eastern
Central Europe Section
I normally arrive at work about 8:30 a.m. This morning, as always, I
enter the division and pick up mail before heading to my workstation.
On the way, one of the acquisitions specialists from another section in
the division speaks to me about his need for $900 from my section's
approval plan accounts to pay for material sent by two of his vendors
which is above the limit budgeted. I reply that I am reasonably certain
that I will be able to authorize the transfer of unobligated funds from
my section's accounts at a meeting with an employee of the Acquisitions
Fiscal Office next Monday morning.
I tape an announcement about an upcoming concert in the Coolidge
Auditorium to the outside of my workstation, which is on the main aisle
in the room, visible to staff members passing by. I glance at the
Register for Accountability of Hours Worked to see which members of my
section have already signed in to work.
The Automated Operations Coordinator for my division stops by. We talk
about the planning process for renovating our division's workspace.
Movement of our operations to a temporary swing space may occur as early
as November. I summarize for her my section members' reaction to draft
plans prepared by the Office of Facilities Design and Construction. We
talk about several problems relating to software installation. I offer
to provide front-line user support while she takes some leave during the
next several weeks and will complete an inventory of PCs in the
division. This will be required prior to the move. Later, my Chief
suggests that I delegate this inventory task.
There is not much email this morning. My teleworker has checked in and I
send the usual acknowledgement. My electronic calendar for next week
looks relatively uncluttered. Only one instance of a meeting conflict
that can be resolved later.
Another acquisitions specialist stops by to ask me to supply
instructions for shipping material from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev. I'm
able to quickly copy and paste that information into an email response
from our standard business guidelines for vendors.
A technician stops in to ask whether the Library should keep a second
edition of a book when the first edition was processed using
minimal-level cataloging (MLC) procedures. I decide to leave that
question up to the Recommending Officer, and insert a printout of the
bibliographic record for the first edition with a note pointing out the
situation.
I forward an announcement about providing statistics on the amount of
material acquired through exchanges and as gifts at the end of the
quarter. I make a mental note to train a member of the section to be the
backup inputter this time around. Build redundancy into our operating
systems and document our procedures-- my mantra.
The clerical assistant who labels books in our area asks me about
routing of MLC out of the section. I point out the book truck which we
use for that purpose.
Since my section does not have a staff member who does original
descriptive cataloging of serials, I consult with an expert in another
section regarding a possible title. This Ukrainian serial contains
articles in Ukrainian and Russian. Earlier issues have used a Russian
title and now I have three issues with a prominent Ukrainian title.
After researching the publication pattern via the publisher's website,
she recommends not treating it as a new title. Good, I can approve
payment for those issues today. I dive into the task of preparing more
invoices, checking that all items have been received, searching them in
the system, creating the line items to attach to the invoices, and
finally approving payment. I have gained a lot of experience doing this
work in the last eight months; I've prepared 75 invoices and approved
many more. The rules for payment have become more complex in the last
several years, especially when applied to the payment of invoices for
serial issues. On one invoice, I find three errors in listing the
numbering of serial issues. I send a letter of concern to the vendor's
representative. She replies later in the day, indicating that they had
identified the cause of the problem, promising that their staff members
would correct past errors and perform a more rigorous quality control
check on future invoices before sending them out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In our next posting, Bob will get to finish his day, in which he
accomplishes an even greater variety of work...
Melanie Polutta
Library of Congress
/LCCN/ Editor
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