BHL Institutional Council Conference Call January 2011

BHL Institutional Conference Call January 20, 2011
Present: Tom Garnett, Jean Farrington, Doug Holland, Judy Warnement, Martin Kalfatovic, Christine Gianoni, Nancy Gwinn, Susan Fraser, Connie Rinaldo, Cathy Norton, Tom Baione
A. Long Range planning documents, especially revised governance sent out on 12/30/2010
Spreadsheet for Hibernation, Maintenance and Growth scenarios document with assumptions. These are 3 options depending on resources and funding. Tom incorporated comments in latest version.
Global BHL--suggestions for changes have been incorporated. Administratively independent projects with "local" funding but will have a coordinating body ("Global BHL") with representatives from each project. There is no jurisdictional power for this committee because each project is separately funded. This committee will meet at least once every 2 years--low key governance and then see going forward. Eventually there could be an actual MOU, but not immediately.
Governance revision for BHL Classic: Original MOUs have an end date of summer 2011. We need to amend these and if we do this, we should revisit governance as well. Jean asked if institutions' commitment of resources has to be all of the suggested types or could be one of the suggested. Tom said the intent was 1 of the choices and Connie and Cathy agreed that this is the case. Cathy noted that we need to change the $10,000 is a minimun for support of the Secretariat, not just by funding local work. Tom noted that we need to define what the duties of the Secretariat are. Susan and Nancy noted that we need a communications plan to get development offices to work on this.
Cathy noted that Noha Adly had a great handout for BA projects. Cathy will send a copy out to all.
Nancy noted that we need a new logo for the brochure. Connie noted that there is a global group to address a global logo off of which local (or nodal) logos will hang off. Tom noted that we should move ahead with a brochure that uses the current logo or some interim logo that can be changed later. The new governance proposal gives us a vehicle to go to places like Cornell and invite them to join if they can provide resources. This needs to be approved at a face to face meeting. Nancy suggested that Tom develop a draft MOU for March 8 meeting. This will help clarify the requirements.
ACTION: Tom will develop the draft MOU
ACTION: All should respond to governance document with comments
B. Life and Literature Conference proposal and need for a planning task force.
Lounsbery proposal. Bigger than BHL, agenda for future: publishers, educators, scientists, librarians, bioinformaticians will be attendees. Should know if we get the funding by early February. Who can be part of this planning task force (not nuts and bolts but program committee): Cathy Norton, Doug Holland, Connie Rinaldo, Nancy Gwinn. Brief meeting in the next week.
Lounsbery wants us to use this as a way to find additional funding.
Chris noted: need 3 committees: content, administrative and local (EOL Biosynthesis Center is local committee) November 14, 2011 is the target.
Cathy noted SPARC is planning a meeting in DC around BOAI at about the same time. Cathy is on their program committee.
ACTION: Everyone should come up with ideas and suggestions.
C. Planning for March IC meeting: Formal invitation went out in the last couple of days. Must book through Smithsonian. Room rates must be within per diem. Jayna will help with the hotels for that meeting.
Doug noted that several of us are heading to Webwise and a planning meeting for the IMLS field note grant (Connie, Doug, Judy)
D. Chris gave a BHL presentation to JSTOR global plants initiative. Chris focused on being able to create pdfs and have content move to Citebank.
E.Chris is working on a meeting with Bibliotheca Alexandrina. BHL-Europe is meeting with them in January and then BHL later. Replicating content in BA
F. Banner for fundraising along the lines of Wikipedia.
Seems easy and could go through Smithsonian. But could be complications with Smithsonian and reviewing how development office sets this up and credits donations. People will want a charitable deduction. Jean noted that it raises the issue of being a 501 3 C. SI can't do paypal but can do credit card donations with a separate website for BHL. MOBOT could set up through razors edge but again disbursing the funds is an issue. SI has documented, auditable procedures. These are solvable problems. Everyone agrees we should pursue this.
G. Judy reported that she sent a service agreement to IA and Robert has it and is reviewing it. Cathy noted that Robert is in China because he has a couple of extra scanning stations for the Chinese operation.
H. Jan 14 is Cathy's last day as Director of MBL. Cathy is now a "Library Scholar" and after a few weeks off she will work on grants and fund-raising part-time. Library is a research center--for library and informatics.
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