BHL Membership Committee Minutes

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Conference number: 1-866-890-3820
International: 334-323-7229
Passcode: 86126755#



Minutes February 28, 2014

1. Susan: CBHL? this is a consortium: Susan and Connie will bring up with the executives. Once affiliated, how do we deal with individual members- if they have contributions (money or stuff). Annual meeting in April. If everyone agrees to use dues money for the purpose of joining the BHL as a member --what does that mean as individuals. What do the individuals get if they join as a group? Mutual benefits, Collectively CBHL could decide who gets what? CBHL needs to decide how to use the member benefits.

Jane noted we needed a formal representative (board member designee)
Affiliate? Dues paying member?

2. UIUC--recommend that they should be members. We would like to know more about collections

3. We need to develop a strategy and targets for increasing membership. India: Jane has some contacts who said that institutions are hierarchical and we need to understand chains of command; To whom do we apply? Action plan requires knowing the cultural approach and how to approach. Jane will talk with colleagues about approaches.
New Zealand: approached at VALA and in past.

4. Connie will set up a doodle to identify a monthly meeting time for this group.

Minutes BHL Membership Committee January 17, 2014

Conference number: 1-866-890-3820
International: 334-323-7229

Passcode: 86126755#

Review of Singapore application
recommend membership (qualified by what it means to be a node and document the expanding international membership within membership; collection numbers)

Brunei approached Tomoko about being member. (institute)

Connie will ask about a press release promoting benefits of joining info, contact info

announce that BHL is open for membership at meetings: need text with benefits,

Meeting I Council for Scienitific Information: Tokyo coming up in April

Any one else in pipleline? Tomoko will be at Berkeley next week.

Connie will write to Ivy Anderson about membership in BHL.

Library Digital Leaders in Gutman, Harvard meeting in March.

BHL Membership Committee December 6, 2013 11:00 am EST


Connie Rinaldo kicked off the first official meeting with a welcome to the members: Tomoko Steen, Jane Smith, Susan Fraser. Judy Warnement was unable to attend.


A. Member and Affiliate applications and updates


We received 2 official applications: from Chris Freeland Washington University applied to be a full $10,000 member and Richard Hulser, Natural History Museum Los Angeles County applied to be an affiliate.


1. Based on the application and previous discussions with Richard Hulser, we recommend adding Natural History Museum Los Angeles County as an affiliate because they have content and knowledge that will positively impact BHL. We expect that as the Museum becomes more involved in BHL and the value of the association is shown, the Natural History Museum Los Angeles County may decide to become a full member.


2. We felt the Washington University application did not provide enough information. We would like to ask for clarification on Washington University’s interest and potential contribution to the biodiversity focus of the BHL. (It would be great to have a statement that Washington University is interested in contributing to the technical advisory group or that they have specific content that they feel could enhance BHL collections.) Of course, contributing the membership fee is wonderful but we did not get a sense from this application of why Washington University is interested or if they have anything beyond the fee to contribute.


3. We are all excited about the Singapore membership but would like to see the paperwork before making a recommendation. A question that came up--why are they joining us and not starting a node in SE Asia? Is this the way we want to proceed with other potential global members? We also need written description of member vs. global member as well as each region for those who are new to BHL and members’ committee to fully understand.


B. Membership criteria


We all agreed that the membership application is important as a way to document decisions and ensure that members meet basic criteria beyond the membership fee. We discussed contributions that we consider important--collections, technical expertise, biodiversity interest/focus. The Washington University application highlighted that we need to see that there is information describing the technical or collections (or other) contributions of potential members, or potential users in the organization.


C. Discussion about reaching out to potential members


Susan suggested that we consider a letter template that we can use to approach likely candidates. We will set up a google document for contributing ideas for the letter and ideas for contacts. Jane talked about UK additions--Oxford, Cambridge, Tomoko has many contacts nationally and globally--UC Berkeley, Univ. Glasgow, Edinburgh U . A question is --should we be reaching out globally for BHL or just BHL global? Tomoko asked if she can see the list of both BHL members and Global participants.


D. We said we should approach leaders of a certain group of universities such as: California system, research triangle in North Carolina, U. of Florida and U.Miami etc.



E. Philadelphia Academy and Field Museum
We recommend that we grandfather these 2 institutions as affiliates. Christine expressed some optimism that in a few years, FMNH might be able to join as a member. We wondered if we should approach Drexel (again?) about membership.


F. It might be good to approach academic societies and other amenable publishers (both domestic and internationally) in order to add copyright/new items in BHL collections. Jane also mentioned JISC as a good organization to approach.


G. Jane talked about the case of CERN and open access of high-energy physics papers without cost for anyone. She suggested that BHL can try the same approach.


Next call will be the second week of January. Connie will send a poll.