Hi, Bobby--

Technical services at the University of Pittsburgh library system has been off site for over ten years. We are in a building four miles from campus.

Since I am a cataloger, I will address cataloging issues.

The situation is manageable. Because of the availability of reference sources on the internet (in addition to all of the major cataloging tools) being away from the reference collection isn't as big of a problem as it would have been pre-internet.

The main problem in terms of cataloging relates to situations where an earlier edition or earlier volume needs to be consulted to resolve a cataloging problem. In these cases, either the cataloger needs to go on a "field trip" to campus, or have the volume sent to him/her.

Probably the biggest inconvenience involves meetings with people who are still on campus. We have an hourly shuttle between our facility and the campus, so transportation problems are minimized, but in traffic, the trip each way can take almost 1/2 hour. So that means that an hour of the work day can be spent traveling to/from the meeting. Many of our meetings, but not all, are broadcast in Microsoft Lync, so that off-campus staff can participate remotely.

Please let me know if you have specific questions.

Best wishes,

Faye Leibowitz
General Languages Catalog Librarian
University Library System
University of Pittsburgh
frleibo@pitt.edu

Date:    Wed, 2 Apr 2014 07:26:42 -0400
From:    Bobby Reeves <reeves@AMERICAN.EDU>
Subject: example of off-site technical services?

Hello all,

Technical services at our library has been told we will be moving off-site in the future and we're interested in hearing from folks at other libraries that have a similar arrangement.  We're particularly interested in hearing from anyone who works at a single academic library with off-site technical services; we don't have multiple branches with centralized tech services, which, I understand to be much more common.

Thank you in advance for any information and insights you can provide.

Best,
Bobby

- - -
Robert K. Reeves | E-Resources Applications Administrator American University Library | Washington, DC  20016
phone: 202.885.3167 | email: reeves@american.edu

***********************************************
* You are subscribed to the SERIALST listserv (Serials in Libraries discussion forum)
* To unsubscribe, send an email to the server address: LISTSERV@LIST.UVM.EDU .
    Do NOT include a subject line. Type as an email message these two words: SIGNOFF SERIALST
* For additional information, see  the SERIALST Scope, Purpose and Usage Guidelines <http://www.uvm.edu/~bmaclenn/serialst.html>
***********************************************

***********************************************
* You are subscribed to the SERIALST listserv (Serials in Libraries discussion forum)
* To unsubscribe, send an email to the server address: LISTSERV@LIST.UVM.EDU .
    Do NOT include a subject line. Type as an email message these two words: SIGNOFF SERIALST
* For additional information, see  the SERIALST Scope, Purpose and Usage Guidelines <http://www.uvm.edu/~bmaclenn/serialst.html>
***********************************************