BHL Institutional Council Conference Call July 9, 2009

I don't seem to have Don's email





Judy Warnement, Tom Garnett, Chris Freeland, Graham Higley, Connie Rinaldo, Elizabeth Babcock, Diana Duncan, Doug Holland, Don Wheeler, Danianne Mizzy, Larry Currie, Jean Farrington, Tom Baione, Nancy Gwinn, Cathy Norton, Chris Mills








UPDATES


1. San Francisco visits (Tom G and Chris):





CDL agreed to allow harvest and ingest of files into the portal. Selection criteria being refined. Process already underway.





Clarified new ways to get files into IA and update IA files. Mirroring and sharing content are issues for them as well. IA realizes the impracticality of moving terabytes of data around physically. Files need to be in sync. Problem not solved but we all need this.





Also met with program officer from Moore Foundation--no new proposals being funded but the vision of the global BHL was of interest and this is encouraging. Jim Omura pleased to learn how BHL has been globally of interest and thus wants to find a way to continue to support. This brings storage, archiving and other projects together in an exciting way. Nancy asked about automatic markup for serials--Tom noted that he will try to fit this into the document he is preparing for Moore. BHL-Europe will not be funding this work from the best-practice project underway now but there are other European institutions working on this. Tom has also been in discussions with the new Library Dean at ASU for an NSF proposal that includes automated markup of serials. Graham noted there is a related grant from JISC in the UK. Still looking for additional funding sources for BHL, including direct scanning.





2. MacArthur approved EOL funding and this includes 3 million for 3 years for BHL.





3. Succession in BHL. Cathy noted that we need to have a Deputy Director in case of Tom leaving and she will step down at the end of the summer and that Martin Kalfatovic be appointed Deputy Director.





ALLOCATIONS





Tom G would like more feedback on the scenarios. MOBOT has in-house scanning operation with the ability to handle oversize and delicate materials that IA can't do. Doug thought maybe BHL could be funded to handle this material.





Tom G noted that not all libraries are doing quality assurance to the same level. IA' sQA could be improved. It is necessary for all to do this. Tom is concerned about funding scanning if QA is not going to be done. Guaranteeing the baseline QA should be a criterion for funding. Tom B asked if there was some additional funding from Sloane. Tom G noted that the funding that is available is what is from MacArthur. Elizabeth asked for explanation about differences between allocations 1 and 3. Tom G explained that 100,000 was "lent" by Smithsonian and must be returned. Also, botanical funding was lower than zoological in the first years. If we can get materials to funded libraries, could that be part of the BHL expenses. That is definitely a possibility. Judy noted that we had discussed sustaining current operations and if a scanning station is going away, then shouldn't we fund the libraries near that station while it is a going concern. NHM needs to send 60,000 items or more to keep scanning station going. Is the New Jersey station in danger? Robert Miller says they are doing every thing they can to keep NJ going but he acknowledged that the Boston center is more economically robust. We need to figure out what is unique and make sure that stuff gets scanned before a scanning center shuts down. OCLC World Cat Analysis didn't work as we had hoped but BHL Europe is working on more robust de-duplication (by Christmas!). Don noted that if the NJ center is open, they can send materials. NYBG is also working with Kirtas and could switch easily if they had funding (23 cents a page). Bianca has visited NYBG and discussed the selection of monographic materials for scanning. NYBG can get family and genus specific. NYBG has not been able to keep up with QA but maybe someone funded through Smithsonian could come to NY and do QA in NY. Tom G noted that this works in principle but not sure about reality and funding stream. Can we share QA? How? Definitely worth looking into. Cathy noted that we need to weave BHL into the fabric of library work, it can't be separate. Chris M noted that the small slice of the pie scenario is not the best, although without funding Kew will have trouble contributing. We need to keep the NHM facility in service because they are pivotal. Judy noted that the position that was approved to manage BHL work at Harvard Botany has been frozen and so not sure if Harvard Botany can participate. Tom G will use these comments and develop some new scenarios for us to review by next week. Graham suggested that Tom G present a recommendation.





Connie noted that Harvard MCZ library has an opportunity to hire a cataloger to work on metadata issues.