Review workflow for screening media
Meeting Notes
Fri 9/26 1 – 2 pm Lib 145
Present: Patty, Stewart, Maura, Joanne, Joseph W, Kellam
Very much missed: Adam and Steve
Notes: Elin – feel free to edit and comment!
Background:
Current procedure:
Film screening students check condition, scan and clean DVD’s immediately prior to screenings.
Stewart raised the question of what to do if problems are discovered outside of P&P hours.
This raised the need to revisit the overall procedure – and review how we can improve efficiencies and ensure good quality condition of screening media.
How can we ensure that screeners bring quality media to scheduled screenings?
Should we increase number of staff – especially during evenings and weekends – who can clean media if needed?
What is the procedure for media that needs rush repair on the weekends?
Preparing materials for screenings is staff intensive across several work areas.
Communication is sometimes complicated by the number of staff in the loop and by the various paths by which we receive the information about screening materials.
Films needed for more than one class, are sometimes needed at the same time by different professors – frequently on very short notice – and there is currently no simple way to coordinate/track the need to acquire additional media for duplicate screenings.
How do other schools process media for film screenings? Maybe explore further – previous research points to our situation as quite unique.
Discussion went back and forth regarding actual practice and documented procedures
It was decided that we would try to reduce the number of times the DVD’s are run through the scanner.
FMP – display so that daily print-out will show 4 days
Day 1 – day of the screening – pull all titles, verify availability, attach post-it with screening details, clean, scan and follow-up etc.
Day 2 and 3 – verify availability and follow-up etc.
Day 4 – pull all titles, verify availability, attach post-it with screening details, clean, scan and follow-up etc.
Alert Film Screening and Reserves to any problems with availability for screening
Discussion:
Is this best done 1st thing in the morning?
P&P cleans in the early afternoon.
Most screenings are at 4:30 and 7:30 but there are some in the morning.
Morning is best for Circ to process and verify availability
Can we do it late morning instead? Circ need adequate time to track down media that is lost or missing or checked out.
Should the scanning for damage – and maybe repair – be done by film screening students? (Stewart will look into budget question of adding this task)
Some film screening functions are at Circ somewhat by default but Circ does need to follow up when media is not available – definitely a shared function
Currently films are re-shelved and interfiled with reserve media after verifying condition and availability – this causes extra work and duplicates work for all staff and has resulted in problems with media condition and availability at the time of the screening
Proposal to set aside materials for the day’s screening to ensure quality and availability met with some resistance. There is concern that screening materials be available to students prior to the screening when they are unable to attend the screening. There is also concern that we are expected to ensure the availability and quality of the screening media – but that circulating the media even once after preparing it for the day’s screening can jeopardize the condition and availability. How to balance the Circ challenge of access to most users most of the time? Prioritize screening materials for the class screening? Circ cannot ensure the quality or the availability of screening media if it circulates after it has been cleaned and checked for condition – and if necessary – repaired.
Stewart will request a HD ticket to check on the RTI DiscCheck Optical Disc Inspection Station to see if we are getting false error reports. (This has been done and Dean is following up.)
Note – media with damage “bad sectors” that we are unable to repair – can be manipulated by the film screening students at the time of the screening – they are trained in this.
General questions and issues with FMP
Request to edit display options in FMP – and provide enough space to see full call # info on print-out – Nate is following up
Problem with multiple titles when listed for single screening, on a single line – increases possibility of error rate and missing 1 one of the titles when pulling films for the daily screening – this is necessary for stats and cannot be changed
Request to include episode information when listing TV series for screenings
Request to have complete and up to date information necessary for accurate processing in FMP
we have been following sending today’s and 3 days’ out worth of DVDs through the detector. seems to be going fiine
have asked nate and patty if they can skip a line after entering a sceening with more than one film involved thereby allowing us room to hand write in daily the need numbers not visible. New format is clearer but does not provide any more space for entering hadn written data
Maura – just to clarify:
This is what I have from my notes:
FMP – display so that daily print-out will show 4 days
Day 1 – day of the screening – pull all titles, verify availability, attach post-it with screening details, clean, scan and follow-up etc.
Day 2 and 3 – verify availability and follow-up etc.
Day 4 – pull all titles, verify availability, attach post-it with screening details, clean, scan and follow-up etc.
Is that your understanding?
I’ve heard from LTI and they say that a DVD can be “repaired” in the DiscChek machine on the light setting 25 times before it wears out. I also found that info in the manual that comes with the DiscChek machine and it said 15 times. I think this means that we can expect to encounter playback problems due to wear some time after 15 treatments in the machine.
I think then therefore, we need to be less liberal with our treatments and not send an item through the repair machine just because the scanner said it has a damaged section. If we continue to treat some of these DVDs as often as we have been, we’ll wear them out quite quickly and the last one we do before a screening might be the one that kills it.
I propose we send a DVD through the repair machine only:
a) when a patron reports actual playback problems.
b) when the scanner indicates a problem and a visual inspection of the DVD reveals scratches or other damage.
c) the day of a screening
and not just when the scanner says there’s a “damaged’ section because the scanner seems to be more sensitive than reality is.
Thoughts?
Addendum: both machines are called “DiscChek” and I might have confused things by calling the repair machine the DiscChek. Let’s try and call them the “scanning” machine and the “repair” machine in the future…