BHLStaffNotesMay12008

May 1st Phone Call

Draft Notes for Conference Call May 1st - 10:00 a.m.

AMNH- NY: Tom B., Matthew B; MCZ-Harvard: Connie, Joe deV; NYBot: John M., Don W.; Field: Jennifer Warwick; MBL WHO: Diane, Matt P., Jen Walton, John F.; MOBot: Doug H., Chris F.; Smithsonian: Suzanne
Note takers: Jen Walton and Suzanne

1. Updates
NYBot John M. reported back on findings of damaged materials that nothing egregious since the initial reports. Drafted memo has been sent to Susan. NYBot is still contemplating if they will send it on to IA or to whom. NYBot was contact by Robert Miller and asked to cut back to 1 cart of approximately 100 books a week. They were sending too big of books – too many pages. This is a change from what they have recently been doing - two carts with a one week turn around to one cart with the one week turn around. Seems to be a requirement for IA’s workflow.

AMNH-NY Tom B. is still “no where”. With the help of NYBot, Tom B. got hold of Robert Miller yesterday to find out that the contract was sitting on a desk at IA. Robert also asked how Tom B. felt about sending material to Boston. Tom B. shot down that idea immediately. They can not send any materials until they have a signed contract.

MCZ-Harvard Connie still has no signed contract but is sending items to Boston.

MBLWHOI Diane reported that they are back to the 600 books with a 3 week turn around. Boston has storage room for carts. Transporting the books is expensive for MBLWHOI so they try to send as much as possible at one time.

2. Partial set scanning – Items that would be very costly to scan and out of scope issue. Cathy Norton, Director of MBLWHOI, suggested not sending these items right now. Maybe come back in the future. NYBot has already decided that some volumes don’t get sent- for one reason or another - reject reasons from IA, or incomplete issues, etc. So runs are incomplete already. NYBot flags these items and does some coding to capture the volumes skipped with plans to scan these items inhouse.

3. WonderFetch ™ - A call is still being scheduled but there have been updates on the wiki for procedures etc. There is a new template on the wiki with instructions and helpful hints. IA is currently pulling the year from 260 $c. This is the year that is displayed on the title line on the IA website. There is also a date field in the metadata that comes from the picklist - this is usually the date of individual volumes. Boston scanning center is cutting and pasting the picklist date into the year field to make IA appearance of the title look better. Other scanning centers might not be doing that.

4. Some Action Item updates
Monographic DeDuping:
Everyone thinks the column headings that John F. sent out were workable.
NYBot, John M. can send past monographs to John F. AMNH-NY Matt B. can work with John F. on picklist that is waiting to be sent. MOBot was waiting until the headers were decided (now they are) and will send monographs already scanned to John F.’s deduper. NYBot and MOBot will coordinate. Some concern was raised about items that are already in the IA, that BHL may be rescanning. Some of these items were scanned with Microsoft money and are not really “open”. Additionally the IA search tool is so cumbersome that it makes searching for duplicates difficult
Once the next version of the monographic deduping tool is final, we can begin working on the next function of getting information from BHL Portal and IA interface.

Due Diligence recording:
Diane and the team at MBL WHOI are successfully WonderFetching with copy right information. It now needs to be on the public IA site (which it is not showing) and on the BHL Portal. Chris noted and is adding it to the list of BHL. We need to remind IA/ BHL Execs to push to IA that the information should show there as well.

Serial Mashup and Bidding:
MOBot is still working on finishing up bidding on serial titles already scanned.
Bernard said that he has heard that BHL Europe will be adding material. It was discussed that we should not wait to add the functions of merging until this data set is added since it could be some time from now.
Matt P. reminds everyone to check all titles before bidding to make sure that another version of the title hasn’t already been bid on.

Foldout status:
IA still has not finished their document on procedures for foldouts
Connie and Joe hope to do an intensive quality review of foldout images next week.

Collection Analysis and Collection Management of BHL:
Connie and Doug are the point people. They have contacted Marcia Adams of Smithsonian to check on what our contract with OCLC gives us regarding training.
BHL Executive committee is investigating having a collection manager type positions. Meanwhile, everyone continue to update the wiki with topics that are being scanned.

Reports from BHL Portal to local ILS:
Chris has taken care of it. John M. at NYBot says what he has gotten has worked. Others have not tested it yet

Quality control of PDFs in NH – London:
Bernard sent a note saying that Robert Miller indicated that all the titles were 100% reviewed from the problem time period. Bernard found some errors and has sent them to Robert. We need to hear more about this.

Field Museum Contact:
Jennifer Warwick has joined our call.

5. Collection recording mechanism suggestions –
How can we keep track of who is scanning what topics? Is the current system clearly understood by people; who from each member is responsible for verifying and checking this and keeping it up to date?

NYBot: Started with Caribbean and Brazilian monographs. They have been concentration on serials, but will be returning to monographs

MBLWHOI: Monographic call number ranges and serials as indicated on the wiki

AMNH –NY: Monographs of ornithology then moving to mammalogy

Smithsonian: Entomology

Executive Committee is taking this under advisement. We are all to keep the wiki up to date as much as possible.



6. BHL Standard for Quality:

Discussion on the idea of creating a document that states clearly what we agree to as basic standards. This would be for BHL member and potential new contributors Although all agreed that this was necessary, there was not much enthusiasm for conducting this work intensive project. First steps have to be that each unit does review materials scanned. So far most of us have not done a review. MBL WHOI did go through an intensive review. The results were that IA had to do some major review. Now we all need to verify that things are going well.

7. Public responses are great!
Diane reported she is getting great responses to BHL. Connie has also had positive responses. Everyone should start to collect responses if possible to be saved on the Wiki.