BHL Institutional Council Conference Call May 2009

BHL Institutional Conference Call May 19, 2009


Topics for BHL IC conference call.




• New membership approval process Approved




• Current new membership applications from the Academy of Natural Science, Philadelphia and the California Academy of Science. (Connie Rinaldo will send a separate email with related documentation for this). Both Approved



• What about BHL Europe and China? (Jim E. asked): Henning Scholz will sit on IC as Ex Officio member; China was ok with this, too. Graham will be ex officio on BHL Europe, too.



• Allocation process for scanning funds among the BHL libraries. We won't be able to decide this today, but need to begin discussion. Chris Mills noted that they could delay but has some grants in . Elizabeth also noted that they haven't started and could delay. Judy also noted that we should keep the operational scanning centers going and seek other funding (e.g. IMLS). Doug wondered if anyone feels like they will run out of material? Yes.....but as we obtain more journal permissions, more material opens up. Martin noted that as part of the IMLS grant, we are looking at what has been done and what gets rejected--so what the rejection rate and pull rate. Judy asked if BHL money might be available to test the portable boutique scanning solution? In theory yes, but not necessarily depending on how far out we are talking. Keeping the IA scanning operations going is a factor but not the only one. Not all of the centers may be supported. Graham noted that we are a year or so away from the low-hanging fruit public domain material. Hard to predict 18 months out where we want to put the money. We need to submit a formal plan but budget allocations may be reviewed as frequently as every six months. Jim E. noted that we don't need to be explicit about who gets what money for scanning.






Jim E. asked what approach we are taking for the post 1923 literature? Orphan works? Cathy noted that oceanography orphan works have been done at MBL. Connie noted that while we did a project to identify orphan works, the Harvard lawyers said we should not scan these. Martin noted that the google book settlement may give some clarity. Graham noted that there is work being done in Europe to clarify options for orphan works--take it down if asked.





Tom noted that Bianca (collections coordination) is keeping track of requests for non-public domain material. We can approach publishers on a case by case basis. BHL Europe will be tackling publishers, as well.





Cathy noted that we need to have a de-duping process because Europe has done a lot of scanning. Tom reviewed BHL Europe meeting. They are coalescing right now. They have not had the luxury of a long term discussion. But they will be working on software for deduplication and redundancy. We will participate. Graham noted that the process might be hosted in Europe, too. Bernard Scaife is one of the leads on this project. BHL Europe will post documents on BHL wiki.





Next step: Tom will send drafts of 2 allocation proposals for review by IC by June 8. We can discuss further at the June conference call.





Next call June 10 at 10 EDT