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Session Recording
How the make-up of a Collection differs by job description: Updating and future proofing a fund structure from the perspectives of a Librarian and Accounts Payable Recording
In FY18 the library had reworked the fund structure in our ILS Sierra. Our Acquisitions librarian retired at the end of 2018 and a new Budget Specialist was hired. Once a new Acquisitions Librarian was on board in 2019, both the Budget Specialist and Librarian started noticing discrepancies with fund codes and university account lines. At first we thought we were just speaking different languages since one of us had more experience in accounting, while the other had been brought up in libraries. In FY20 we started to meet to run through invoices and work on our jargon. It wasn’t just our words that were mixing us up. When the fund structure in Sierra was redone the underlying university lines were not properly assigned. The university lines themselves were a bit outdated and inflexible, aligned to Books, Video, Subscriptions & Periodicals, Database fees. Almost all of the heavily used funds in Sierra were being coded as books, even the electronic subscriptions. Our lightning talk will cover how we worked within the limitations on the university funds lines to overhaul our fund codes to fit administration and collection development needs. As well as discuss the unexpected collaboration between the library and University Accounting during FY21, which ultimately yielded a better more flexible system that satisfies both the Library’s and University Accounting’s needs. We implemented this new structure beginning in FY22 and completed the bulk of our cleanup by the end of that fiscal year. Cleanup involved the Acquisitions Team and the Budget Specialist working together and updating over 150,000 records. Which brought us down from 1,302 funds to just over 300. A much more sustainable number. Moving forward the new fund codes and the university lines will help create budgetary visualizations and more stable projections year over year.
Cara Calabrese is the Acquisitions & Access Librarian for Miami University Libraries (MUL), where she acquires content and supports electronic resources. She is a current member of the ALA CORE's Technical Services & Systems and the Diversity & Inclusion committees. Previously she was an ERM Librarian for UW-Madison and is a former Resident Librarian.
Elissa Martin has worked with the Libraries as the Budget Specialist for almost 4 years. By preparing budget reports and projecting spending, she is able to help tell the story of how the libraries function to both internal and external stakeholders. Elissa is also a 3 year member of the Libraries' DEI Committee and within the committee serves on the DEI Textbook on Reserve taskforce. Prior to working for the Libraries, she spent several years working in retail as a department manager and finally a store manager.
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