With the closing of our kardex last July and much more processing being
done on NOTIS, we begain offering a series of training sessions for all
public services staff in the library system.  The first two in the series
dealt with public mode and then searching in staff mode.  This past summer,
I and a colleague presented 5 sessions on interpreting NOTIS serials
records--copy holdings, volume holdings, and OPRs--in staff mode but from
the public services perspective.  The sessions were designed by a training
committee and all participants received copies of the transparencies used
for a training notebook as well as some sample questions to do later.
Each session lasted 1 and 1/2 hours and included a range of staff from
clerical to professional from all different areas within the library
system.  The challenge was to design a session that was basic enough and
yet relevant without getting bogged down in serials details (easy to want
to do if you're a serials librarian).  Feedback from the sessions was good.

                                Jean Farrington, Head, Serials
                                University of Pennsylvania