06222017 Members Call

June 22 Conference Call

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Attending:

Regrets:

AGENDA and NOTES

• Secretariat Update (MRK)
  • Library of Congress Presentation and Demo. MRK and CAS gave a presentation to 12 LC staff members on general BHL overview and demo of the website (with searching tips) on 1 June 2017. The audience were primarily reference librarians in the Science/Business Reading Room. Thanks to Tomoko Steen for organizing this event.
  • Sponsorship of the Xth International Conference on Marine Bioinvasions. BHL was asked to provide sponsorship for the conference in the form of BHL swag to be given as prized for papers and posters. In return, BHL will be listed as a sponsor and the BHL logo will be included in conference materials. Swag to be given is a tote bag, stainless steel water bottle, notebooks, a mousepad, and BHL cards to be distributed. Approved by the EC on 26 May 2017.
  • iDigBio Meeting Report. MRK reported on the recent Biodiversity Data conference. There is a BHL blog post shortly on the topic.
  • LC Meeting report. MRK reported on the recent BHL presentation for LC staff on BHL that included a demo by Carolyn Sheffield. Thanks to Tomoko Steen for organizing.
  • Smithsonian Libraries Mini-Workshop. Secretariat staff did a BHL mini-workshop/update for Smithsonian Libraries staff; about 10 people in person and 5 people online (including all the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Library staff).

• Technical Update (MRK)
  • BHL Tech Slack Channel. The Tech Team will experiment with using a Slack channel for general in-team communications.
  • Full Text Searching. Full text servers are now being installed at the SI Data Center.
  • Database performance. Recently there have been some brief periods of slow responsiveness from the database, picked up by site monitoring tools. This has (so far) only happened outside of regular U.S. business hours, and may be related to a user harvesting name bibliographies via our APIs. Nothing actionable right now, but worth keeping an eye on. Joel and Mike have discussed setting up some additional monitoring tools at SI.
  • BHL API updated.
    The BHL API will be updated on [INSERT DATE]. The current Contributor element in the result sets of API methods will be replaced with HoldingInstitution. See example below:
    Current API Response:
    <Contributor>MBLWHOI Library</Contributor>
    <RightsHolder>MBLWHOI Library</RightsHolder>
    <ScanningInstitution>MBLWHOI Library</ScanningInstitution>
    New API Response:
    <HoldingInstitution>MBLWHOI Library</HoldingInstitution>
    <RightsHolder>MBLWHOI Library</RightsHolder>
    <ScanningInstitution>MBLWHOI Library</ScanningInstitution>
    Detailed documentation for the BHL APIs is available at http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/api2/docs/docs.html. It will be updated to reflect these changes after they are moved into production on 12 June 2017.
  • BHL Tech meeting. Planning for the 2017 BHL Tech Meeting (St. Louis) is starting. Also includes NSDR meeting for Residents to report status and current results.

• Topics from the Chair (Connie)
  • BHL Au and BHL SNG call. Connie will report on the call with Ely Wallis and Wai Yin. Notes from the call here.
  • Strategic Plan Timeline. Jane and Carolyn will prepare draft for EC by mid-late August. EC will then review the draft and present to the Members for comments at the end of the September; then a small committee of Members will complete the penultimate draft by February in time for a final discussion at the March meeting. Need to identify and cost out specific objectives of plan, technical, user interface etc. This will better inform the membership on making strategic decisions. Also a tool to look for new strategic partnerships and funding.
  • Call for report from CBHL. Connie will call for a report. Mariah Lewis, Susan Lynch also attended. CBHL and EBHL will be having a joint meeting in NYC in 2018. BHL should strive to be included in the program.
  • NDSR Survey. The NDSR user survey will be going out soon.

• Planning for 2018 Annual Meeting (MRK/Connie/Carolyn)
  • No news.

• Recent/Upcoming Conferences/Meetings (Connie/All)
  • Open Repositories. Ely Wallis will attend and present. Meeting in 26-30 June 2017.
  • JCDL. Patrick Randall will be here and giving a demo. 19-23 June 2017
  • ALA Annual. Martin is at ALA. Ari R. will be present an NDSR Poster. 22-26 June.
  • SPNCH. Carolyn Sheffield is there 19-23 June 2017.
  • LIBER Conference. Jane Smith will attend and present. Meeting is 4-6 July 2017.
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• Additional Comments
  • Tom reports donors at AMNH noticed condition of field books after scanning for CLIR grant and offered money to conserve field books.
  • MBG's grant proposal to work on IIIF image tools for BHL will not be supported by BHL because it is not currently a core activity and BHL cannot devoted the needed resources to the grant should it be awarded.