A major development during 2001-2002 was the planning and implementation of the RFP process for the periodical subscription contract to begin in 2003. A committee of staff members from the department and several staff from Collection Management was formed. The RFP document was drafted and reviewed in fall 2001. UNM Purchasing mailed the document to vendors in February 2002. Responses from five vendors were received by April and reviewed by the Committee. A recommendation was forwarded to UNM Purchasing in May. Purchasing and the UNM Regents approved the recommendation. The contract was awarded to Harrassowitz.

Another significant development was the training for and implementation of the Millennium Acquisitions and Millennium Serials modules. A training session taught by a contract employee of Innovative Interfaces was held on November 13 and 14. Due to lack of adequate computers in several teams of the department actual implementation did not begin until May. Staff worked on Millennium Acquisitions in May and June. Searching and Ordering Team focused on the Acquisitions Module. Implementation of the Serials Module will take place after the new fiscal year. Millennium is slower and more time consuming to use but has unique features such as remote searching that are not in the telnet version. Staff will continue to use the telnet based Innopac for many functions such as vendor and fund maintenance.

New projects involving work processes, procedures and cooperation with other departments and vendors were initiated. A second department charge card was added on the Searching/Ordering Team. Establishment of corporate accounts in place of using the charge card was implemented for such vendors as Barnes and Noble, Amazon and ABE Books. The pilot project for shelf-ready books continued. Selectors began using Gobi-Select to mark titles for normal ordering and for shelf-ready ordering. Two staff members in Searching and Ordering assumed new duties in addition to their ordering duties: monographic claiming/canceling/reordering and management of electronic journal titles in Innopac.

Chronic staff shortages continued to affect the department. Although the regular budget was reduced it was augmented by gift funds. Department staff was as busy as ever. Other departments kindly gave the use of their staff to help in Searching and Ordering and Paying during peak ordering and paying times of the year. Staff from the Mail Room began helping the Gifts Team pick-up gifts and deliver surplus.

Plans and Recommendations

Full implementation of Acquisitions and Serials modules of Millennium is planned for 2002/03. The use of telnet Innopac will decline as functionality increases on the WEB based system. Implementation of Release II of Millennium in the fall of 2002 will take place. Training session for department staff, selectors and others outside the department will be scheduled. Because Millennium is slower to use benchmarks and turn around times may need to be revised.

The serials cancellation and transfer project will take place after the beginning of the new fiscal year. Clean up of problems caused by the transfer project will be done in the coming year. More order direct titles will be moved to vendors. Vendor evaluation and updating of vendor profiles will continue. Shelf ready ordering will be opened-up to include more funds in the humanities and social sciences. We need to evaluate staffing and look into shifting work or cutting services. The department is looking at one retirement in a year. We need to look for ways to use electronic resources such as Corporate Time to streamline our workflow and procedures. The shelf reading project will be completed by January. The Bindery RFP may be done in the spring of 2003.