BHL
Archive
This is a read-only archive of the BHL Staff Wiki as it appeared on Sept 21, 2018. This archive is searchable using the search box on the left, but the search may be limited in the results it can provide.

bhlstaffcallmay2016

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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.

Attendees (All) - Now you can LIVE TYPE DIRECTLY in the google doc


Agenda

Notes

Anyone new?
Barbara Ferry, Natural and Physical Sciences at SIL

Michael Cook, Head of Collection Development and Digital Collections at Mann Library at Cornell University

Daniel Euphrat, Scanning Technician at SIL

Experiment for OCR and sideways oriented charts
At SIL, we were scanning a serial with a lot scientific name and tables, often oriented sideways, so a lot these sideways charts included names. Could shoot a second version oriented to work with OCR, turns out that OCR is not simple. Sometimes this works, more often than not, it did not work at all. Sometimes it would even pick up in original orientation and not in re-oriented version.

So wasn’t worth the extra time and effort.

Goal had been to handle like a foldout, where you’d see one version and then you’d see a more readable version. Seemed promising but unfortunately did not work out.

Michael at Cornell -- I'd like to see an example.
Keri will create a wiki page with links to examples, an explanation of what trying to do and link from this page.

Committee Reports

EC & Members' Group (Martin)
Not too much to report. The minutes from the BHL Members' Business Meeting are available, linked from the meeting page (and linked from bottom of agenda on this page). We're working on a couple of new membership opportunities. Canadian Museum of Nature was officially approved as an Affiliate and we'll be making formal announcement next week.

Tech Update
Move (Joel)
Still in a holding pattern on move.
All integrated external and/or related services/tools (Admin Dash, AddThis, Blogger, several others) needed to be reviewed for compliance with SI privacy requirements. Being reviewed now, once approved we can move forward. Date still TBD.

At MBG, we've been holding off on server maintenance until move. Might not be able to hold off much longer so we may be looking at some down time coming up. Mike L. to keep us posted on this.

Diacritics (Susan)
When we have records with diacritics (e.g., from French, German, Spanish and other language materials). Issues when uploaded to IA and subsequently harvested into BHL, diacritics get garbled at title level. Started noticing about a year ago. Many have been resolved and we have a better understanding of the nature of the problem.
If your records are MARC 8 encoded, when processed by IA scanning center, we see this problem. Please look out for this!
If you're uploading materials that are not English and includes diacritics, please monitor title and author fields. If you encounter issues, please contact Susan and Bianca and they'll help you work through it.

SIL has had some experience with this outside of BHL, too.

Marty -- given it started a year ago, how to handle records with problems already in IA and BHL.

Susan - my hope is that they'll be fixed. At the moment, my focus has been on preventing any new problems. We will have to go backwards to clean things up but that hasn't been discussed yet.

Bianca -- corrections in BHL will require manual editing.

Volume Sequencing (Mike)
One bit of news in last month's email highlights about volume sequencing. BHL Ingest process modified slightly to put new serials at end of volume at the end of the list. In past automatically thrown into sequence according to specific protocol. Now automatically at the end. Great news, and really helps with moving walls titles for example.

Diana Shih: Is there a difference between those sequenced as 1000 or 1001? Noticed both numbers for new materials.

Mike - not sure where 1001 would be coming from. Can you send example to Mike?
Will send an example from next batch

Diana - sometimes we send 2 volumes of a serial and they are added as separate records, sometimes at end of existing record. Is there a reason for that? Or can it be corrected?

Bianca - that would be because of something in your MARC that is preventing deduplication, should work on matching 035s or 001s + contributor. It's documented in our metadata requirements. Send over an example to Bianca and she'll review the 0035 and 001.

Collections Update
10th Anniversary. Grace putting together a campaign bringing together some interesting items on our BHL @ 10 page. Bianca working with Collections Committee to showcase noteworthy volumes from each of our contributors. If you click on the spreadsheet in the agenda, missing titles from a few folks. Please put in your contribution by May 26. Collection will launch on June.

MAP = Member - Affiliate - Partner

Collections Committee discussing copy specific info for item level metadata, i.e., notes for a specific volume. Discussing how would display in user interface.
Jackie -- Leslie Overstreet and Diane Shaw at SIL are also interested in this discussion.
Bianca will follow up with them.

Cataloging Group
Diana at AMNH, nothing to report since last call

Grant Projects

EABL
23 positive responses to a survey
team members are presenting at CBHL meeting next week
Currently collection contains 95 titles with over 100,000 pages.
Used Macaw upload to get previously uncataloged materials into BHL.
Blog post highlighting some of that content will go up on May 26.

Jackie - how many permissions agreements are moving walls?
Patrick - would estimate that 1/2 to 2/3

What is a Moving Wall?
Negotiated to have in-copyright after certain time has elapsed as specified by licensor

How are we managing the tracking of moving wall?
Bianca and Patrick will manage that.
Does Gemini trigger a reminder when the date approaches?
No. Bianca manages. This year, An intern reviewed and contacted institutions to send the next issue.

FYI many of these permissions titles arranged through EABL have files being uploaded to BHL via Macaw by EABL staff.
Jackie - After EABL is over, who will continue to upload these moving wall titles via Macaw?
Mariah - we'll be discussing how to sustain the goals of the project beyond the life of the grant.

NDSR
Connie - grant officially begins in June. We've had one phone call to discuss expectations and project management training for mentors. Another call coming up next week right before the grant officially starts. In June, we'll start discussing hiring the Resident Fellows and ensuring each project is well scoped.

We'll be advertising in general for recent graduates in Library and Information Sciences. Pool is potentially national.
Feel free to send to Staff list for them to share around.

BHL Annual Meeting
When you have some time, review those notes from the BHL Business Meetings linked from the agenda above.

IA logins
Helpful if at least one representative from each BHL Partner institution has an IA login where they can sign in and edit metadata in IA.
There is an embedded google doc - BHL Scanning Frequency -- two tabs. See the second tab -- IA Login. At some point, if you do not have a name in the IA login column or if the name is outdated, please let Bianca know.

Carmen – if there is a chance to change to name from CONABIO to BHL Mexico?
Bianca – sure, can change whatever you like. Just send Bianca an email on what you’d like changed. If you notice anything off with your name, let Bianca know so we can ensure we are using your name correctly and consistently.

Diana – is there some regulation that if we’re changing something in BHL, we should change in IA? Generally speaking BHL does not worry about what’s in IA unless it’s the copyright metadata. Important for users to have accurate info regardless of how accessing. Especially important for in copyright materials.

Bio Blitz
In DC, tomorrow and Saturday. Details linked from the agenda. Event will focus on finding and identifying as many species as possible in an area in as little time as possible. Big event is happening in DC this week. Also a biodiversity festival with lots of activities and booths, BHL has a booth there. SIL staff have volunteered to help at the booth. Lots of fun activities, targeting K-12, coloring projects, Smorball station, activities for id'ing plant species in the area, and flickr tagging activities.
Matthew - Sounds great, wish I was there!

DLF CommCap Award
BHL nominated for one of these awards. Trish sent an announcement to the listserv yesterday. Particularly focused on collabs across institutional lines. Award winner will be determined DLF Members, who will be invited to vote soon. If your institution is a DLF Member, and you have some sway, please feel free to advocate for BHL.

Cornell put forward the Book of the Month this time, The Asiatics about poultry breeds. Mann Library outreach staff also particiapting.
Heritage Breeds Week by livestock conservancy, so will look into tieing into that. Post also includes info on backyard farming and chickens.