The Materials Management Unit (MMU) is the beginning point of the cataloging supply chain and Marking is the end. MMU captures and sorts material into multiple workflow categories, differentiated by language, material type and/or type of cataloging requested.
I. Material Comes to MMU from:
• Bindery/BPD
• WorldCat Cataloging Partners (WCP) (formerly PromptCat)
• Mail (e.g., from subject libraries)
• Materials Receiving Unit (MRU)
• Gifts and Exchange
• Serials Check-in
• Documents
• South/Southeast Asian Library
III. Material that has already been cataloged (e.g. shelf ready WCP materials from Yankee) are routed to the appropriate shelving location (i.e. Subject Specialty Library or Main).
IV. Material that needs cataloging is placed in the workflow described below. Every 2 weeks MMU moves material to the next phase of the workflow. At the point an item is cataloged, it drops out of the workflow and is sent to Binding (if needed), next to Marking and then on to its shelving location.
- Weeks 1-2: Material coming into the department is “captured” by MMU on trucks. Main material is separated by language. Subject Specialty Library material is kept on separate trucks
- Weeks 3-4: First Search students copy catalog material they can off the trucks collected in Weeks 1-2 Material that needs higher-level work is subsequently sorted based on whether it next moves to Copy Cataloging (e.g., added copies, item needs classification) or to Original Cataloging (e.g., subject headings need to be created)
- Weeks 5-6: Copy and Original Cataloging works on the materials provided to them from the previous two weeks
- Weeks 7-8: Copy Cataloging gets materials that the Original Catalogers could not get to in weeks 5-6
- Weeks 9-10: Main books not cataloged by the Copy Catalogers in weeks 7-8 have Level 3 IP (In-Process) records created for them. We have not yet had to implement this phase, but will if/when it is needed.
Statistics are recorded through out the process for material captured, material remaining at each point and material moved from point to point.
Armanda Barone
May 17, 2010