Blog About Technical Services

It is with decidedly mixed emotions that I announce the retirements of Kay Beaudrie and Virginia Dudley from Minitex on June 5.

KAY BEAUDRIE
Kay Beaudrie’s retirement comes just one month shy of her 20th anniversary here! Her pre-Minitex career included stints in the libraries of North Park College and Rosary College in Illinois, Alverno College and Marquette University in Wisconsin, and General Mills, here in Minnesota. She joined Minitex as an OCLC Coordinator and, later, became the Manager of the Minitex/OCLC unit. Kay is renowned for her training skills and her ability to clearly explain complex systems or processes. She walked many catalogers and ILL folks through significant (and scary) changes like OCLC’s moves to PRISM and Passport for Windows with a minimum of fuss and stress. I can attest that, as a supervisor, she was supremely patient and encouraging and a textbook example of a servant-leader. In 1998, she moved over to the Minitex Contract Cataloging unit, where she has contributed significant OCLC and cataloging expertise to client libraries and continued her role as trainer and mentor to others in the unit.

VIRGINIA DUDLEY
We have been very fortunate to have Virginia Dudley as a member of the Minitex BATS unit since 2001. Prior to joining Minitex, she worked in the University of Minnesota Libraries and at Metropolitan State University. As a member of BATS, she quickly got up to speed on OCLC issues and became our expert on OCLC Authorities and all things FRBR or RDA. She stepped up to oversee the unit during my maternity leaves and has been Acting Manager of BATS since late 2007. I have greatly appreciated her dry wit, her high standards and her strong dedication to her job and her colleagues. Virginia’s plans for retirement are still hazy, but definitely include watercolor painting, volunteerism, and identifying income-generating opportunities to shore up her faltering retirement account.

Please join us in thanking Kay and Virginia for their outstanding service to Minitex and our participating libraries throughout the years and in wishing them well as they prepare for Life After Minitex. They will both be missed!

If you would like to contact them, here are their e-mail addresses:
Kay: k-beau@umn.edu
Virginia: v-dudl@umn.edu

If you have an OCLC or BATS related issue you would normally have contacted Virginia about, please feel free to send it to our BATS e-mail (mino@umn.edu) or call Minitex and ask for someone in the BATS unit.

-- Carla Dewey Urban

Posted by ring0089 at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After many years as a cataloger in Minnesota libraries Susanne Nevin retired from Minitex Contract Cataloging on April 1. Before coming to Minitex Susanne had worked at three other libraries: the University of Minnesota Law School (1982-1988), Gustavus Adolphus College (1988-1994), and St. Olaf College (1994-2005). She became a pool cataloger with ConCats in 2005 and moved to a 75% position in the next year working with a variety of materials on several projects. For the future Susanne plans to travel the United States with her husband and to write a book on book repair and book rebuilding. It was a pleasure working with Susanne. Minitex will definitely miss her and her cataloging talents. We wish her well in her new endeavors.

Posted by wilhe040 at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After 11 years working in the MINITEX Bibliographic and Technical Services (BATS) unit, Carlos Portillo has moved to a different position within MINITEX Document Delivery. Many of you have spoken to Carlos over the phone or contacted him via email as he helped you to resolve your Connexion client issues, made OCLC profile changes on your behalf, or helped get you to the right person for an answer.

In the future, please send anything that you might previously have sent to Carlos to our general email account: mino@umn.edu

Our phone number still remains the same, just ask to speak with someone in the BATS unit or that you have an OCLC related question and you will be directed to one of the BATS staff handling the phone support for the day

We in the MINITEX Bibliographic and Technical Services unit are definitely going to miss Carlos and his expertise in various areas. We wish him the best in his new position with MINITEX Document Delivery!

BATS Staff
Carla Dewey Urban, Virginia Dudley, Sara Ring, Mark Wilhelmi

Posted by ring0089 at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)