August 3, 2010 BHL Executive Committee notes

• BHL Executive Conference Call August 3 at 11 a.m. EDT
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• Tom Garnett, Connie Rinaldo, Graham Higley, Chris Freeland, Martin Kalfatovic
• 1. Tom has combed through budget spreadsheets. His concerns were misplaced and we will be able to allocate about $140,000 as planned. How will we allocate. Along those lines, the Collections group has made progress on identifying priorities. Sources for priorities include permissions journals, gap fills, user requests, core texts. Bianca will identify which libraries have the important core items and then money will be allocated according to these priorities.
• 2. Tom spoke with Doug about Cornell and Nancy and Jean Farrington will be speaking with him soon.
• 3. Chris: Doing literature section a t TDWG--has taxonomist, librarian, publisher and informatician to speak. Doug Holland, Dean Pentchess, Lubo Penev are set as speakers. Diane Reilinger has noted that the Global tech, TDWG and their medical informatics session are still going. Matt Person is taking on the Global Tech meeting
• Interviewing 3 candidates for Data Analyst position. Hope to make decision soon. One with strong library background, others from publishers. Good candidates.
• Chris will be meeting with JSTOR (Deirdre Ryan and a developer) next week to further discuss interlinking with plants database. He will also meet with Tom B. and the Herbarium team at NYBG (linking with EMU). ACTION: Chris should let Tom know about the JSTOR discussion before Tom goes to China.
• 4. Tom B. would like to use some of allocation to buy a camera to facilitate in-house scanning. Smithsonian is building something that won't create an orange bag problem. There was general agreement that the allocation is for scanning, not equipment and discussion about how to prioritize.
• ACTION: Tom will draft wording for the scanning allocation requests including how to "count" what is done and the requirement that libraries have a process that will work with direct deposit to IA (avoiding the orange bag problem).
• 5. Connie noted that the pdf generator is frustrating to use at the moment for BHL content such as Breviora and Postilla that have multiple issues bound together with each item beginning at page 1, because issue numbers are not associated with content in the pdf generator.
• ACTION: Chris will talk with Mike.
• 6. Chris, Martin and Tom were reflecting on long term ideas--a biodiversity literature/digital literature conference as a response to the library and laboratory conference with scientists, amateurs, students, artists, computer scientists....a public event that would be supported by external funding. Fall 2011 is the target, maybe in Chicago. Ebiosphere model might be fruitful--a big publicity and outreach. Maybe could fund life sciences grad students. Chris talked with Cyndy Parr because she was involved with Ebiosphere planning. Eb was conceived as biennial--maybe this could be ebiosphere for 2011. Fits with release of eol version 2. Biblioteca Alexandrina as a venue? Must be bigger than BHL. Many seem to want to learn about us. EFF, Open Knowledge, Chris's TDWG panel on steroids. ACTION: start planning; identify funding sources this autumn.
• Chris will contribute substantially. Graham will speak with Bob Corrigan shortly and will send a note to Jesse Ausobel.
• Tuesday Aug 10 next call 11 AM EDT
• Dial: 1-866-921-2213
• Enter the “Meeting Room Number”: *2105306* (make sure you enter the star key before and after the numbers)