April 28, 2009 BHL Executive Conference Call

BHL Executive Conference Call April 28, 2009
1. BHL Europe --Tom, Graham and Chris will talk later. Chris is not on today's call.

2. Component leader meeting (Tom): Component leader meeting focused on more coherent information technology plan. Computer support needed from Bioinformatics group (BIG)--submission process for support. Nomina meeting, end of may--improving name recognition and reconciliation at Woods Hole with BIG, BHL and others. Chris and Tom and BIG are planning a workshop this summer for do-ers of automated markup, joint sponsorship of BHL and BIG. Push by funders to develop a Product manager position for EOL--will be concerned with coordination of software deliverables and ability to meet requirements of users. Report to Jim and live at the Smithsonian. High level, not clear how they will relate to BHL. A small amount will be taken from each component's budget to support the position for 3 years. BHL will contribute about $120,000. Not a deputy director but product management for all components. Graham will contribute to the job description. Marie Studer and others met with Arne Duncan (Sec of Education). This led to possibilities for stimulus funding for education. MacArthur Foundation is concerned about EOL sustainability. To give us more time, they have decided to extend project to 2012 (no extra money). Thus budgets must cover Aug 2009 to July 2012. Tom will prepare a revised budget and revised deliverables for BHL.

3. EOL Steering Committee meeting (Graham): Useful presentations. Lunch with Arden Bement, Cora Marrett - NSF, EPA – Pai-Yei Whung and Jane Lubchenco from NOAA. Sustainability is still under discussion and budget changes. MacArthur thinks EOL not well organized enough yet to be fully sustainable in 2 years. Discussed governance regarding sustainability. There will be a governance advisory meeting in the fall. Graham will chair an EOL SC subcommittee to develop some options for presentation – subcommittee is Cristian Samper, Art Sussman, Rodrigo Gamez, Richard Lane. Will meet at e-Biosphere and then October. Need to look hard at where the component groups are and can anything be placed in different locations for cost savings. What is sustainable and what is not? Options include mothball, a bit more care, and running more as less as we are, and full blast. Could learning and education be self-funding? Governments may be very interested in buying into an education API. We have been urged to apply for "Race to the Top" grant from the Department of Education. Update on Chinese and Costa Rican EOLs. The Chinese are moving fast and are running EOL software on servers in China and teaching themselves. Costa Ricans have put out a proposal for CR to set up a regional (in Spanish) EOL ($20K) that will likely be funded.

4. The IMLS planning grant meeting in Philadelphia was very productive. A few highlights include plans to develop a mobile scanning unit, establish a presence on Library Thing and Open Library to test tagging possibilities for unusual items, and to enhance (or make) book pages on wikipedia for important BHL works. see wiki: http://bhlimls.wikispaces.com/2009.04+Notes (If you would like to see more details, Connie can invite you to join the wiki).

5. Quality Control workshop: BHL has a little money to cover.

6. Cathy vacation schedule: April 30-May 5 to Breakers in Florida; July 16-25 to Maine; September 1st weekGraham: Aug 21-Sept 8Connie: Aug 15-22 Maine 7. Membership documents--Tom has some edits and one issue to discuss. We need to deal with the governance issue. 8. Chris and Anthony (Woods Hole) have been working on mirror sites. Phil Cryer has been working on this. Cathy bought 2 servers. 9. Graham met with a scanning vendor called Apex, near Dulles, will contact Tom. Next call: May 5 11 AM EST, 10 AM CST, 4 PM GMT