SEMLS News

SEMLS Support E-mail Addresses
Need immediate assistance from SEMLS?

Sending an e-mail directly to a SEMLS staff person may not be the best way to get a quick response because that person may be on the road or on vacation. To ensure that your message gets to a staff member right away, use one of our support e-mail addresses below.

delivery@semls.org – Use this e-mail address to report delivery problems or to report a library closing that will require a stop or change in delivery.

ce@semls.org – Use this e-mail for any registration questions or to cancel participation in a class.

helpdesk@semls.org – Use this e-mail for any database troubleshooting or access questions, including IP updates.

info@myowncafe.org – Use this e-mail address for any My Own Cafe questions or to request admin status for a teen volunteer.

semls@semls.org – Use this e-mail for any other general questions.

As always, you can also contact us by phone at 877-923-3531 (members only) or 508-923-3531.

The Spring Delivery Survey will be conducted the week of March 24 through March 29, 2008. Forms and instructions have been sent out through delivery and should be received by the week of March 10.

The Southeastern Massachusetts Regional Library System is seeking proposals for delivery services for its member libraries. Proposals are due at SEMLS by 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29th. The SEMLS Delivery Request for Proposal - 2008 is now available at http://www.semls.org/what/delivery/rfp2008-semls.htm.

The SEMLS Delivery RFP Questions and Answers and Spring 08 Delivery Survey Results are now available at http://www.semls.org/what/delivery/index.html.

On Friday, October 16, a statewide delivery group met to discuss the work and recommendations of three delivery work groups.

The Ergonomics Working Group has created a training workshop to help libraries deal effectively with the ergonomic issues around delivery and delivery volume. Workshops have been and are still being held across the state.    Part of the presentations is available for use in any library at: http://ergoworkgroup.pbworks.com/FrontPage.  Thanks to Tracy Swaim (MVLC) for his work on this presentation.  

The Packaging & Labeling Working Group presented a series of recommendations and a policy.  The recommendations on delivery routing slips were adopted as amended and the recommendations on virtual catalog materials were adopted as amended.   Packaging Policy (2009-10-16) and Labeling Recommendations (2009-10-16) are at: www.nmrls.org/msdc.

The Automated Sorting Working Group by presenting a recommendation to issue an RFP for statewide delivery and sortation and presented a summary of potential benefits, issues, and responsibilities and costs.  The full group voted to pursue the RFP and to fund a consultant to assist with this work.

The Fall 2009 delivery survey has been compiled.  There were 152 public libraries, branches, academic, special libraries, school libraries, 3 networks and the regional office that took the time to report thier activity. There were a few libraries that conducted their delivery survey another week.  We had 100% participation from our members on delivery.  The results of this delivery survey will also be made available to the MBLC, that directs these delivery surveys be conducted twice a year.

The current delivery survey total was 72,309 items delivered.  The amount of bins used were 2,256. Comparing the current survey with the previous Fall totals, we noticed an increase of 9.9% of items (72,309-65,150) or an increase of 7,159 items.  Delivery bins decreased by .8%  (2,256-2,274) due to the non-packaging of AV materials.

Annualized this translates into 3,867,344 items traveling through delivery. The amount calculates by adding the current survey of 72,309 with the previous Spring delivery survey  of 76,435 items  and multiply by 26 weeks. The busiest days for delivery continues to be Tuesday (15,400) and Monday (14,584).  On an average (6day sort) the delivery courier handles 12, 051 items each day.

We want to thank our members for taking the time to make this current delivery survey possibile.

If you would like to view the entire current survey please click on the following to view by network the full report.  Thank you.

http://www.semls.org/what/delivery/website%20report.xls

The  Spring Delivery Survey will be conducted the week of March 22-27, 2010.   Please remind your circulation staff of these dates.  The delivery survey forms will be sent out by the end of February.

There is a change in how this delivery survey will be done. 

1.  Please report the amount of books and AV materials placed into delivery each day, a separate space is  provided for each item each day.

2. Please report the amount of incoming bins and outgoing bins.  Again a separate space for each day is  provided. (Do not include any empties in your count)

3.  Do not count empty delivery bins picked up by the driver.

4.  Answer question on the backpage of the delivery survey each day.

5.  To provide the best delivery service, we are also asking that  your library hour be reported on the form each day.

When you have completed the delivery survey, please send it through delivery by April 1, 2010 to the SEMLS office.

This may be the last delivery survey that SEMLS will supervise.  Thank you for all of your help in making this information available.