BHL Institutional Council Conference Call June 10, 2009

BHL Institutional Council Call June 10, 2009

Danianne Mizzy, Judy Warnement, Graham Higley, Connie Rinaldo, Tom Garnett, Chris Freeland, Doug Holland, Diana Duncan, Jean Farrington, Larry Currie, Cathy Norton

Allocations for scanning budget—Tom is nearly done with two or three alternatives and will send them out and schedule a phone call later in the month or wait until July call.
E-biosphere meeting in London was attended by CR, GH, CF and TG. Biodiversity Informatics was the topic; it was global with 483 attendees. About 50 posters about biodiversity informatics projects around the world were exhibited and there were many booth exhibitions (EOL, NHM, GBIF, Zookeys, Lifewatch, Species 2000/IT IS, VertNet, Consortium for the Barcode of Life…..are examples. If anyone would like to see the program, go to http://www.e-biosphere09.org/http://www.e-biosphere09.org/ BHL was mentioned in 11 sessions. Chris noted that he was pleased with BHL being considered part of infrastructure although still more is desired, especially more current information.

BHL-Europe is underway—working out relationships and technology. There was a signing ceremony at the House of Lords between China and EOL. China has allocated significant funding for China EOL and China BHL. Atlas of Living Australia is very well-funded and has received additional, unexpected funding (Joanne Daly, Director and Project Manager is Donald Hoburn). DH is interested in creating an Australian node for BHL and ready to work on functionality as well as gather content through Australian institutions. Henning Scholz (Project Director for BHL-Europe) told Tom he needed to develop a document for the Global BHL. Tom has sent a draft of a document for external distribution—please comment so that Tom can complete the document and get it out as soon as possible. University of Tokyo and India have expressed interest in providing content. Things have moved forward more quickly than we anticipated at our March IC meeting. We will reach the Global BHL by Fall 2009, probably, thus governance needs to be addressed. We are looking at a more consortial arrangement. But there is still a lot to do in our own backyard with the MacArthur money including content and services.

Reactions: awesome!; technological issues are mind-boggling; BHL-Europe needs to work on infrastructure!; coordinating these new opportunities will take extraordinary technical powers—mirror sites, searching. We need to reduce technical barriers and make sure that searching is seamless no matter where in BL you are searching from. The model we have been using for BHL (external foundation funding for digitization) the European model is local funding for digitization and outside funding for infrastructure. One of the models, being reviewed by BLC, is to look at acquisitions budget and setting aside 1% for scanning instead of asking for new funding. Also need to look at grants like the IMLS special collections planning grant moving to a full proposal. We can consider projects as a whole or by some of the institutions. Tom suggested a brainstorming session for pursuing funding—put on agenda for July or August.

Will need to discuss relationships, MOUs, Tom has a draft MOU for China underway that he will send us for comments.

Graham met with the Science Museum and NHM and the Science Museum have agreed to develop a data center in Swindon, This will be funded by BHL Europe as a BHLmirror site. Working on the feasibility plan. Arcadia Foundation discussions are underway with Graham. He is pursuing preservation of historical artifacts—boutique scanning. They also fund advocates—could be helpful to have a centralized group that advocates to governments. Graham also met with Canon managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Canon might donate Canon hardware or work with BHL and possibly supply equipment to some members of the BHL consortium. Internet Archive uses Canon cameras.

Harvard may be getting one scribe in Imaging Services with the understanding that anything scanned on this scribe would be sent to Internet Archive. Judy will let us know when this is finalized.