bhlstaffcallaug2014
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Dial 1-877-860-3058 and enter the passcode 961479
Lead: Bianca Crowley
Notetaker: Carolyn Sheffield
Charge: Biodiversity Heritage Library Staff share the collaborative responsibility for the daily operation, improvement, and promotion of the BHL as related to the mission and goals of the Library and its participating institutions. Staff participate in project communications, including monthly conference calls, BHL's issue tracking system, and various outreach and engagement activities. Staff are responsible for the digitization, discoverability and maintenance of content contributed to the BHL repository by its participating institutions.
Agenda
- Improvement!: Gemini issue titles now show book titles! (thx Joe & Jackie for converting existing issues)
- Gemini search tips
- BHL Tech update (Trish and William, 10 min)
- Art of LIfe stats-Pages processed via algorithms = 4 million
- Pages identified in BHL as having images =169k
- Pages classified in BHL by people = 28k
- Pages classified by people will display one or more image types: drawing, table, photograph, map, and/or bookplate. A few examples in BHL:
- Purposeful Gaming and BHL status
- Mining Biodiversity
- Surveying users for gather Requirements to support semantic searches results through BHL
NOTES
Attending
Diane Sands (CAS), Michael Neubert (LC), Matt Person (MBLWHOI), Diana Shih (AMNH), Grace Costantino (SIL), Randy Smith (MBG), Jackie Chapman (SIL), Martin Kalfatovic (SIL), Richard Hulser (NHM-LAC), Bianca Crowley (SIL), Julia Blase (SIL), Lesley Parilla (SIL), JJ Ford (Harvard Botany), Don Wheeler (NYBG), Trish Rose-Sandler (MBG), William Ulate (MBG), Marty Schlabach (Cornell), Leora Siegel (CBG), Diana Duncan (Field), Alison Smith (NHM-London), Keri Thompson (SIL), Kelli Trei (UIUC), Joe DeVeer (Harvard MCZ)
Partner Meta App update
As a refresher and for those who are new to the workflow, formerly known as WonderFetch
Updated wiki page
Alison: London IA folks say either everything or nothing will get pulled from the MARC record. They've agreed to now use what we put in Meta App to just determine if they've assigned the correct info. Bianca thinks this is how it *should* be working - that other IA scanning centers do this regularly (and have been for years) so hopefully now NHM can work without further trouble. No one else reported having problems with IA's Partner Meta App...
BIG NEWS!
Martin: We've been working with GBIF for almost a year now for BHL to become one of the nodes within GBIF. They've been working on defining their different types of Affiliation. BHL applied for Associate Member partner status. Voted on and approved by GBIF Secretariat. This puts BHL in the larger biodiversity community in an official role. We'll be working in a general role, not providing data at this point.
Matt: Are dues involved?
Martin: No. GBIF is primarily an organization of nations so to join at dues level is really only feasible as a country, not as an organization.
Grace will send around the draft press release (sent to BHL-Staff list on August 21).
ROUND ROBIN
And reminder to include updates on Conferences and Grants
AMNH (Diana Shih): Not much to report. Started next batch. Will wait to send until funding is released again.
CAS (Diane Sands): Heather Yeager met with several folks at SAA. Interesting questions about metadata. Hopefully she will join us next month. We got all of our books back. Fixing a couple of things in Gemini. There is a move in the building to buy a scanner, and the library will be contributing so there may be an opportunity to scan in-house.
Cornell (Marty Schlabach): Most of BHL related records lately have been with the IMLS grant; first shipment ready to go out the door. 4900 pages of seed and nursery catalogs that we're having done in Montreal (vendor = Trigonix). No new grant proposals in the works. No conferences related to BHL coming up but next week will be giving a presentation in the Entomology Department seminar series related to library services, one piece of which will be on BHL. We'll highlight the entomology collections scanned for BHL.
Harvard Botany (JJ Ford): 3 items in Macaw every day. Grant proposal to CLIR's Hidden Collections for 12,000 letters from Asa Gray. JJ will add to the grant list using link on the agenda (above).
Harvard, MCZ (Joe DeVeer): No grants or conferences of late. There is a shipment at the scanners and 1 is ready to go out. Working on Macaw and Purposeful Gaming, and the transcription aspect of that.
Library of Congress (Michael Neubert): We're shutting down IA scan center at LC. A few items for BHL are being done; maybe a few dozen items overall. We'll have to figure out a new workflow for contributing in the future.
Tomoko: Will be giving a presentation at a conference in Tokyo to mention BHL & big data.
MBLWHOI (Matt Person): No conferences or grants coming up. For a good number of months, send out a tweet every Friday that is BHL related. MBLWHOILibrary on twitter. Also, just sent out a small shipment.
MBG (Randy Smith): Noting new for grants or conferences. Just finished scanning Los Angeles Arboretum materials. Working on Gemini requests, seed catalogs.
NHM-London (Alison Smith): Second scanning partner staying on til next year. Scanning full tilt, mostly Gemini requests, some of our press items. Thinking about doing some field notes. We have a new catalog, can access BHL through the discovery layer.
NYBG (Don Wheeler): Working on grant stuff, nursery and seed catalogs. Scanned about 1700 catalogs and need to get them loaded. Working on filling John Mignault's position. We have a candidate in mind and are hoping to hire in the next couple of weeks. Also hired part-time permanent scanning technician. Still scanning on Purposeful Gaming, and working with a volunteer to do pagination. Just received a new NY State grant to finish architectural drawing collection; not going into BHL.
SIL (Jackie Chapman and Keri Thompson): Things are well. Neither grants nor conferences. Scanning is slowing down. Gone through one of our allocations; will be picking up in new fiscal year.
UIUC (Kelli Trei): Betsy is retiring. Not sure yet who will be taking over her responsibilities. No grants or conferences related to BHL. Has questions about Macaw. Bianca recommended having follow up conversation to discuss this and other topics.
CBG (Leora Siegel): Things are good . Very busy. Writing two grant proposals. One will be for digitizing manuscripts that will go into BHL. The other one is for a digital exhibition. Just in writing phase at this point. Trying to get access to IA next week
Field (Diana Duncan): Shipment is at Smithsonian. Volunteer is working on Art of Life. Diana has been working a little on that as well. No conferences or grants.
NHM-LAC (Richard Hulser): Nothing yet. We might have one or more items that were scanned by BHL Europe that are not easily accessible. What are plans for things like that.
Bianca: Unfortunately, things in BHL Europe are not available to us to bring into the BHL portal. Duplicating scanning and loading materials via Macaw (since rare you wouldn't want to send to IA!) is quicker and easier
Richard: Also getting films digitized and getting them into IA. 2 conference coming up in October.Richard will work on those and get back with any questions or additions. Reshelving and relocating several thousand items underway at library.
Field Books (Julia Blase): Right now, BHL staff, NMNH and SIA are deep into planning for this phase of the project which will include cataloging, conservation and digitization and contributing those to BHL. Target end date for planning is in September. Sent link to Library Collective conference around to list; many thanks to all who voted. Currently within top 4 proposals for the conference.
OUTREACH and ACTION ITEMS (Grace Costantino)
List of platforms in Agenda for reference
Outreach and Communication Plan available on wiki
Action Items
Would like to include highlights from Member institutions on social media
Have done this on Twitter and would like to expand to blog
Book of the Month: Would like to highlight books contributed from each BHL institution
See Agenda for link to spreadsheet where you can sign up for a date and propose a candidate book that your institution has contributed to BHL. Grace will write the post.
Events: Email Grace for any events from your institution you would like highlighted
Check your institution is listed with an appropriate contact in the list mentioned in the agenda. If not, use the link to the form to update.
Flickr Volunteer Group
Fill out the form (linked from Agenda) with contact info for any volunteers at your institution working on Flickr.
PAN-BHL SCANNING FUNDS UPDATE (Carolyn)
Pan-BHL scanning fund are currently spent out and the workflows for those funds are closed. If you have items already listed in the IA scanning spreadsheet for your institution, you may send those items but not any new items until the sheets are unlocked for editing. New funds are in the process of being added. Carolyn will send out a notice once those new funds are available with reminders on workflows for using the funds.
SERIAL DEDUPING VIA GEMINI (Bianca)
We used to use a serial deduplication tool called the ScanList but it is no more. It wasn't working.
We'll be doing a pilot test using Gemini to facilitate serial scanning deduping and scanning workflow. We'll begin testing in a couple of months once new funds are available. Basically everything is the same except that if you want to scan a serial that's not already in BHL you need to create an issue to claim it using Gemini.
Bianca will get back to everyone at the close of the pilot to re-evaluate. Pilot to start once next round of funding released.
TECHNICAL UPDATE (Trish and William)
Art of Life (Trish)
Some of the work is starting to be displayed in BHL. IMA algorithm processed 4 million pages. 169,000 identified as having images and 28,000 have been classifed by humans as drawings, tables, photos, etc. See agenda for links to examples.
THANK YOU to BHL staff and volunteers who have helped classify!
Always looking for more volunteers so send any interested parties Trish's way.
Purposeful Gaming (Trish)
We've been holding meetings with TiltFactor. Lots of interesting ideas getting hashed out. Also work on the Brewster manuscripts
Tech Update (William)
The problems we've had before on platform have been resolved, many thanks to Mike and Joel and MBG team
So far no more problems. Issues with transcriptions FromThePage and Macaw, resolved.
The Mining Biodiversity (William)
Working with Grace on social media
Working with Manchester University on surveying users for requirements for semantic search results. The survey links for that have been sent out and we already have some answers and interest in focus group
If you know of any candidates for the survey or focus groups, please let William know.
Don't need to be proficient in semantic processing. Just need to understand what it is that users would need to query from the system that needs a semantic implementation rather than just typical search.
Send names suggestions to William
Flickr Volunteers?
Don - Someone interested in Flickr. Will be in touch with Grace
Field -- already entered volunteer into form
MCZ - will fill in form, hopefully will have someone
Gemini
Bianca will set Leora at CBG and Kelli at UIUC up when they're ready
