Technical Services

The Technical Services Department at the Morton R. Godine Library purchases, makes accessible, and preserves or repairs a variety of library materials including books, videos, DVDs, CDs, CD-ROMs, and periodicals. The department is responsible for a variety of library operations, as well as overseeing the library’s automated systems.

Acquisitions

This entails searching for, ordering, receiving and paying for new material, as well as receiving and processing donations of books and videos. Students and Faculty are encouraged to make recommendations for new purchases of books, DVDs, periodicals or other media either in person at the library, by using the Online Purchase Request Form [click here] or by sending an email to the acquisitions librarian or the department's liaison librarian.

Gifts

The library welcomes donations of books, periodicals and videos. They can be left at the Circulation Desk or for special arrangements contact the acquisitions librarian. Gifts may be accepted only without conditions. Donations not added to the collection are either made available to students or offered to other libraries.

Cataloging

Once materials arrive in the library, we catalog them to make them accessible to the public. The first step of cataloging is creating a record for each item which includes title, author and subject information. This record is put into our online public access catalog (OPAC), which allows our patrons to search the library’s collection from any computer. The item also gets a call number so once a patron identifies a book of interest in the catalog he/she can then go find the book on the shelf. Finally items get labels and barcodes so that we can track them.Sometimes books have to wait in our backlog before they are cataloged.
If you find a record that says “MCA: IN PROCESS” for an item you would like to use, please ask us about it because often we can arrange to expedite the item’s cataloging.

Serials

Technical Services manages all aspects of the serials collection which consists of periodicals, journals and magazines. We order the serials and maintain both print and online subscriptions. New issues are entered into the online catalog, and catalog records are kept up to date. We also maintain the periodicals shelves. We keep track of missing issues and try to find replacements. Technical Services also binds the serials. This keeps issues together and protects them from damage.

Bindery and Repair

All damaged books are reviewed by Technical Services staff. Some books are sent out to a commercial bindery. Some simple repairs to books are also made in-house. If books are discovered to have been damaged, such as pages razored-out or falling out, bring them to the Circulation desk, where they are collected by Technical Services. Patrons should not attempt to repair items on their own, but instead notify Library staff.

Missing

Library staff regularly searches for missing and lost items. If the works are not found or accounted for, the titles are brought to the Collection Development Team to determine if they should be replaced.

Systems

The librarian for systems maintains and upgrades the automated systems in the library. When possible she resolves problems by troubleshooting, but with more complicated problems she acts as a liaison to MassArt’s Administrative Computing Department or the central office for Fenway Libraries Online.

Contacts: