bhlstaffccall100509

October 5, 2009
11:00 a.m. Eastern Time Zone
(Completion of the September 2009 BHL Staff Call Agenda)
Suzanne, Bianca, Becky, Joe, Diana D., Christine, Jane Smith, Bess, Doug, Michelle, Keri, Erin, Grace, Kevin, Diane R., Matt P., John M., Don

An October call will be scheduled by Bianca to discuss the last minute planning of the Face to Face meeting.

1. The Public Error Reporting/Suggestions system. Introduction to the Gemini Project

There was a call conducted by Bianca to introduce the Gemini software issue tracking software.
The purpose of this software is for users in the portal to hit a button (“Report an error” is the current label that needs to be re-labeled) to report/give feed back for a title or item. Gemini tracking system is usually used for computer bug software or call centers. It will help us manage all kinds of issues in one place. We can also share and divide up portal editing, gap fills, specific BHL member tasks, and an opportunity to field general information can come in as well. Connie and Becky offered to do “reference” type feedback.

The system is in place. We are all at the beginning on the process. Most of the original people should have sign on and passwords. Anyone else wants to participate in Gemini send Bianca a request. Jane and Bianca will connect to get the London people sign on and passwords. Other unit not in yet is Philadelphia.

Matt reported that he got emails that he was a watcher on problems and was able to log in and resolve them. It works!

Question: Do we/you have sense of amount getting per/time period? The button is recently added and Gemini has also been populated with about 300 older issues that came in through various ways (emails to Tom, or BHL, or etc.) Since the implementation in August we might have gotten about 60 new issues. We haven’t announced that the function is available. We might see a spike when we do make an announcement. Basically, it has been a very manageable amount. Mike L. goes in once a week, scheduled on his calendar. We should contemplate some sort of scheduled /regular check-ins.

Erin reported that problems are coming in and people are getting assigned tasks and issues are being resolved. Keri uses Gemini to record “stopped in the hallway” problem reports she receives. Grace uses Gemini to remind her of errors she finds while doing QA, assigns the problem to herself and when the title is imported from IA to BHL, she can correct the issue.

A future Gemini focused phone call/meeting will be scheduled to talk about upgrading the software.




2. Portal Editing.

Joe reported that he did start adding bib records to the Portal and it was working well. He was focusing on the Memoires of MCZ. The Portal had a series/serial record but Harvard has title level records to add for each as a monograph. All was well until the last few he did were not found when searched. He will follow up with Mike L. to see find out what might have/is happening.

This work was done so that there was ONE scan in the BHL portal with TWO metadata records for discovery: A serial title level record and a specific, separate monographic title for the same scan.

There is a way to do a batch into portal. Joe’s workflow had to have each title exported from the Harvard system one at a time. He then was successful in uploading an xml file with more than one title.

Bianca raised the issue of potentially needing to understand the policies surrounding uploading various metadata records for the same scan. We have no stated policy on this but if you have a title that you know is in the BHL but you have metadata that describes it differently – you could upload and connect the two. If you know that there should be a metadata record for you material that you do not have, you could use Gemini to request on of the BHL partners to upload variations. We should probably think about some guidelines.

General portal editing is working okay. There is a wiki page for recording requests for changes to the portal editing functions/layout etc. We should record our wishes there and then try to schedule a call with Mike L. to review them. At the Face to Face November meeting we can discuss and demonstrate to one another further.

Add thoughts, comments, etc. here: BHLPortalAdminEditingWishList

3. Round Robin Updates

NYBot: The last shipment they sent was in July/August. They will be sending out another shipment this month. Funding is the reason for the slow down. They have not done much QA.

London: Funds have also caused a slow down on material being scanned though still able to keep the 1.5 shifts going. NH is supplementing BHL basic material by partnering with other projects that can help fund the scanning on specific topics. In a couple of weeks, a UN publication is going be done with the partnering of Cambridge. A large project is a jointly funded JISC and NH project of scanning Darwin’s library. This will be the titles from Darwin’s person library collection and will attempt to capture all marginalia and notes. What makes this (besides being really cool!) a challenge, is that NH will be processing monographs. BHL partners will be called on for advice with this new workflow.

NH has not been able to advertise for a replacement for Bernard. Adrian and Kai are working on various aspects of BHL-E. There is still a very significant need to fill the position at NH.

MoBot: Working through their priority list and focusing on their folio collection. They are successfully working with NYBot to help fill in on serials. The bid list will be up dated for the volumes MoBot will be doing for the serial runs.

Harvard/MCZ: They sent a shipment back in July and about to send another shipment this week. They are also preparing material to be processed by the Harvard boutique scanning operation run through the Widner digital imaging center. These will be materials that for whatever reason could not be sent to Boston Public’s IA scanning facility – mainly size of volumes or size of foldouts. DVDs of these scans will be sent to Missouri to be ingested into BHL. (Will these be part of the “orange bag” issue?)

Statistically speaking, the chards from the last shipment failed. But it was not a “large”. The specific titles were sent back to be scanned by IA but not the entire shipment. Boston recently sent a request out to ask for more materials.

Cal Academy: Beginning to work with some of the researchers who are in organizations that publish their own journals to work out some potential scanning agreements. They are also identifying material that might be good candidates for scanning when scanning begins. Preparations are underway to host some BHL members who will be in town in a couple of weeks – arrangements for the meetings etc.

Field: Diana introduced Christine Giannoni the new director of the Field Museum Library. Welcome Christine! Christine is catching up on BHL things. Diana worked on a Gemini issue and contacted UIUC (the scanning partner) who agreed to rescan to fix the error. The Field is currently not sending any material to UIUC for scanning. Field staff has dome some portal editing.

Smithsonian: Smithsonian is sending approximately 70 books a week and receiving around 50 to 70 books back a week. Recently, the QA has been going well with shipments passing. There had been some problems fairly recently. Fedscan has hired a new night-time shift manager. Work has continued with reviewing items coming into Gemini and Portal editing. Portal editing recently has been re-sequencing volumes in serials and pagination on some titles from our rare collection.

MBL/WHOI: Their library assistant was tasked this summer to QA the last shipment from the spring. There was material that caused the shipment to be considered a “fail”. The errors ranged from minor to one or two major errors. The specifically failed items were sent back but not the entire shipment. The next shipment, Wednesday, will be the last from this funding and is not quite 2 carts. Next focus will be on Portal editing.

They will be resending material that is reported through the Gemini need rescanning. Working on another project, shipments are still going to Boston. BHL material could “hitch a ride” if need be. Another option might be for BHL partners to ILL to each other to move volumes that either need to be rescanned or to fill in to partners that are still scanning. Wording will need to be considered for the “Sponsor” and the “Contributing” library if we do this for one another and to insure billing is done properly.

4. Face to face meeting.
November 2/3/4/5/6 in Washington. Length: 1.5 days (2 days?)
Bianca is working on the logistics with Tom G.
Attendance: Current IC recommendation is one person from each library gets paid for by BHL funds. Other staff would be at the discretion of and funded by the home library. Expected are some of the tech people from BHL-E. There might be some IC members at the Staff meeting. There might be scheduled an IC meeting conjunction with Staff meeting.

Potential will be to video conference or Skype into the meeting. Bianca will be working on the set up/ logistics.

Joe and Jane voiced concern about making it the first part of that week. Mike L. mentioned he had some issues with that week as well. Potentially a “doodle” may be done to find the specific days or the logistics of space and planning might dictate the dates. IC staff had some issues with some of the dates but that should not affect the dates for the Staff meeting.

Tom should officially announce the meeting soon after getting final feedback from the IC.

Agenda building on the wiki: November 2009


5. Thanks everyone who has participated in the ingest discussion on the wiki. Feel free to continue the discussion going. Suzanne messed up Bianca’s layout by inserting solutions up next to the issues. But the page is a wikipage – edit away!