JRS African Workshop Meeting Notes

Tom opened the meeting giving thanks to the participants and indicating it will be a loose agenda, time for all to be heard.
Started by presenting the Biodiversity Heritage Literature project and each participant’s institutional presentation.
Added a new piece to the Agenda: before lunch, Robert Miller from the Internet Archive, will present.
We could have never done BHL without the support of the services that Internet Archive has provided us with.
After lunch we will focus specifically on what we can get together and what other initiatives might originate in Africa.

BHL has Global Partnerships, China, Brazil are not necessarily started by the countries.

Tom Garnett, USA, BHL Exec Director
William Ulate, Costa Rica, Missouri Botanical Garden & Global BHL Project Manager
Bryan Heidorn, USA, JRS Foundation
Lucy Waruingi, Kenya, African Conservation Center, Head of Programs
Lawrence Monda, Kenya, ICT Manager and promoting Biodiversity Informatics
Graham Higley, NHM, London. BHL /BHL-Europe Chair
Cathy Norton, USA, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, MBL, Library Scholar and Chair of BHL Exec Committee
Robert Miller USA, Global Director of Books for IA
Gracian Chimwaza, South Africa, InfoTraining & OutreachCenter forAfrica (ITOCA).
Alex Asase, Ghana,Ghana’s GBIF Node Manager.
Chris Freeland, USA, Technical Director BHL
Ashah Owano,National MuseumsKenya, Librarian, Data Manager
Erick Mata, Costa Rica, EOL Director
Wanja Dorothy Nyingi, National Museums,Kenya, Ichtyologist and coordinator new Kenya Wetlands Biodiversity Research Team.
Boris Jacob,Germany, RCMA,Brussels
Margaret Koopman, Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, Niven Library
Anne-Lise Fourie, Mary Gunn Library, South African National Biodiversity Institute inPretoria.
Willem Coetzer, South African Inst. Aquatic, B.I. Management
Rob Guralnick, USA. Prof. & Curator Univ. Colorado. Board Member of JRS.

Presentations

1.- Lawrence Monda. Center of Excellence, National Museum of Kenya.

Based on a needs assessment in the region, facing institutions of biodiversity data.
East Africahas been involved in BI projects for a while to build capacity
Indigenous Knowledge in particular.
There’s a critical mass of experts who help to mobilize BI effectively
Important quantity of data in digital format
More and better hardware and networking
Positive attitude towards data sharing
Active involvement in global and regional biodiversity networks (GBIF, BioNET)

Regional Project on global Strategy for Plant Conservation (2007-2009): EA BI Project
Capacity of key botanical institutions was built
Use of BRAHMS for data entry

BioNET/EAFRINET UVIMA Regional Project finishes this year: Pollinators, invasives and pests. Taxonomic info for environmental, food and poverty crises inAfricawas mobilized. TanBIF portal (since 2008), KenBIF and UgaBIF too.

Major challenges:
Lack of technological know-how
- DB development/maintenance
- Analysis of info
- App. of Std. Methods to share info
Scarce tech resources
- networking equip and ICT personnel
Limited communication between ICT and Scientists
- Support to users in general

A Centre of Excellence (CE) as a big opportunity:
- Avoid duplication of efforts.

JRS provided funds to develop a project proposal for the establishment of CE

Outputs:
Contextual analysis

o Global view
oFor each institution:
- § Background
- § ICT infrastructure
- § Political awareness
- § HR
- § Key needs, gaps and opportunities

Needs analysis

o Supply and demand of data and info.
o East African (EA) countries have moved in the last five years from basic technologies to more advanced tools.
oHardware and Networking
- § Hwd was not an issue, except update computers and licensing.
- § Network/Internet connectivity is an issue inTanzania andUganda.
- oSoftware
  - § Prefer Win Apps. and the use of free software is still incipient.
  - § Open to consider it because of costs of licensing.
- oData Access and Sharing Policies.
  - § There are laws pertinent to biodiv and environment
  - § Some not approved or are not operational yet
  - § There are no formal policies for data sharing.
- oHR:
  - § Scarce computer related staff,
  - § Lack of supp for BI apps,
  - § The role of BI app dev. Assumed by science staff.
  - § Lack of communication between tech personnel and scientific personnel.
  - § There is a lack motivation, attitude and incentives to share info.

Conclusions:
Institutions in EA are spear-heading efforts (species, specimens, ecosystems)
Opportunities to share info
Kenya Tanzania andUgandahave moved ahead quickly.
There are important challenges, needs and gaps.

TheCenterofExcellenceformed by institutions that have experts.
CoE to integrate information mgmt info and data sharing.
Provides distributed architecture for data sharing
Strengthen BHLs
Offer data to diff. types of consumers
Provide soft. tools

Acknowledgments to Manuel Vargas,INBio,Costa Ricaand Vijay Barve, Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health inIndia.

Q: What is the Relation of theNationalMuseumand the CoE. A/ The National Museum is spear-heading the development of the CoE.

Chris: Are your users using BHL?
A/ Lawrence: No, only because Ashah has been working directly with BHL. There are some small libraries but few digitalization.

Graham: Supporting scientists and decision-makers. Hard-core top-down business model approach? Yes.

Erick: A complete CoE in each country would be too much for our countries. Under that general umbrella, what is the strategy in your country or Region? Sp

2. - Lucy Waruingi, African Conservation Center

A non-profit Kenyan org. Her background is Mathematics.

We need to know what we have… In Biodiversity we don’t know what we don’t have… We need to describe and prioritize according to threats and opportunities.

Intl Conf. on Biodiversity, Land-use and Climate Change (Sep.2010) [JRS and Ministry of Environment]

Review status ofKenya’s Biodiv. and threats
Value biodiversity (qualify the value of its natural capital, establish ecosystem)
Expand wildlife policy
Recommend steps fwd

Conf. outputs:

Valuing biodiv.

Biodiv. Informatics. (Open access, Biodiversity Atlas of Kenya, Document our wealth of Knowledge on our Biodiversity by compiling centrally what is already published and collating the various articles and grey literature, develop a B.I. policy and best practices)

Literature is in other’s shelf. If I am doing research in Massai-mara, how do I access the info.

Sustainable Use (TEEB Report):

Economic value to ecosystems,
KenyaVision 2030 Strategy: Tourism vs. Economic Resources.
Climate Change (cost of adaptation of biodiversity)
Agro businesses recognize that we need healthy ecosystems.

Local Efforts – I
ACC andNat.MuseumsofKenyareviewing feasibility for Regional Center of Excellence in BI. Hired for Assessment on users needs.

Specific for elephants, Kenya-Tanzania border looking at the threats, etc. to use it in a portal, scale to other species.

Ministry of Higher Education is documenting all past research in the country.

ACC is working with partners to build a biodiversity database forKenya, the groundwork forKenya’s Minimum Viable Conservation Areas.

Madagascarmight be more prioritized thanKenya, but there is a prioritization for the country.

Local Efforts – II
Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources (MEMR) and others coordinating for Biodiversity Atlas forKenya
Developing an Herbarium and Community Resource Centers inSouthern Kenya.
SERVIR-Africa project developing a web-portal on assessing vulnerability of biodiversity.

Climate Change Assessments.

Community Resource Centres – Citizen Science.
Working with Communities to find out what they want

Challenges:
Diverse information
Limited expertise
Data ownership and data sharing policies
Data and information management platforms
Poor writing and documenting culture, passed by speaking!!!
Poor long term perspective of value of info/data
Local data and info held in museums and universities abroad – repatriation
Role of government as critical to set up natl. initiatives.

Possible Collaboration:
Mobilising scientists and researchers to write and publish…
Mobilise access to biodiversity data and info on various taxa for the Atlas
Engage citizens in info generation, use and dissemination.
Partnering with BHL, EOL, NHMs and access services.
Interested in educational tools and Illustrations of biodiversity…

Questions:
Tom: Is the Ministry of Higher Education inKenyainterested in digitization?
A/ Interested in documenting the investigation done. National Council for Science is interested in KenBIF.

3. - Ashah Owano, National Museum of Kenya, Librarian, Data Manager.

Digitization of the Journal of East African Natural History Society

Published by the Society in 1910, in 1994 joined to another, accepts papers of the Region on biodiversity conservation and ethnobiology.
How to get to the more than 300 exchange partners
In 2005, started Retrospective digitization of the Journal (1994-2008)
1910-1993 had an agreement with BHL, entered the Metadata.
Since 2009, the Journal went digital.

Other Digitization Efforts:
Swara Magazine (1978—2008) Africana (1962-81) and Wildlife Magazine (1959-1961) for East African Wildlife Society.
Tanzania Notes and Records (1936-1986) at the request of University of Dar es Salaam are waiting on a shelf.

Experience after Digitization. Started digitization without Training, lack of feedback on uploading provided data, BHL provided a template for metadata.
Some articles are viewed at Citebank – Challenges searching at Citebank.

Experience during Digitization:
Choice of scanner depends on Type, size and conditions of documents.
Different types of scanners.
Damage to Library Hard copy e.g. due to splitting up in preparation for scanning
Cost of rebinding was also expensive (shipped leather fromUK).
Making documents searchable vis-à-vis
Rejection of certain characters when running OCR.
Indexing and Accuracy during metadata creation.
Staffing and type of training required.
Skewed scans created by software
Memory Capacity (ie. RAM & disk space) of computer for handling large files

Uses of Biodiv Lit. and Info
The librarian, it’s the first one to access. Base data for scientist: Desktop & Field
Carry out research in Kenya’s rich natural heritage, Conservation of biodiversity, Id. Of Species, Education, monitoring purposes like climate change issues.

Users: Researchers, Citizen Scientists, Government & NGOs, Institutions of higher learning, local communities. The library is open for all on-board. Prototype libraries in Regional libraries.

Supplies of info. not at table inAfrica
Research institutions.
Researchers, Nat. Scientists/Gen Publ.,
Government & NGOs
Institutions of higher learning
Librarians through consortiums (KLISC formed under INASP, Electronic information for libraries (Eifl, Museums come as public)

Requirements:

Local content.
Current literature
Teach Koha to librarians to have a union catalog. Current literature only in electronic format. We as amateurs trained them and as it becomes tedious, they quit.
Issues with Policy, like the copyright issues.

Challenges to Digitization and Access

Quality of library materials for digitization: e.g. the size of the material.
What type of quality do you need for BHL?
Indexing; bibliographic data like subject terms
Need some Standards for going regionally: What kind of resolution.

Digitization Funding
Sustainability, usability and access (subscription)

Other Potential Gray Literature for future Digitization:
Utafiti (1988-1992)
KenyaBirds (1992-2008)
KenyaBirding (2007-)
Scopus (1977-)
EANHS Bulletin (1970-2002)
KIFCON Reports (several)
Costs, Benefits and unmet Needs of Biological Diversity Conservation inKenya.

Birds are doing better than other groups.

Questions
Tom: Your talk was music to my ears. I am confident we will work out an approach.
Anne-Lise: Ashah is a big contributor, we have an ongoing collaboration with her.
Robert: The questions you are asking are the right questions. You are seeing the problems people know about.

4. - Wanja Dorothy Nyingi, Icthyologist and coordinator of the Kenya Wetlands Biodiversity research Team.

Icthiology since 1997.
40K freshwater and 20K marine fishes.

There is a need for repository to come for info on biodiversity for Lake Victoria (in collaboration with East Africa partners inKenya,UgandaandTanzania)

It’s able to share info in international arena. We are sharing data among scientists. This does not account for dissemination and conservation… no impact in conservation.

Important Consideration
Audience: Currently researchers inKenya, which determines the reason for info so they want scientifically sound updated info. Citizen Scientist is not finding what they need. InAfrica, we are not doing guide books. No people is publishing biodiversity books forAfrica. Mainly because it’s not a book that will make millions, but books important for us are not important for publishers. We do biodiversity books but not forAfrica.

Potential Users:
Students are constant visitors to our library.
High School and Primary Schools: constant visitors to the museum and Aquarium; lack of information and exhibits to keep them interested.

Digitization as a way to Preserve!

This is something important to consider even at early stages = what do we want to present for the variety of users and how to give life to preserved specimens.

Life collection and update it as often as possible.

Dry lands is well studied, while on wetlands, work has been isolated. Created a Research Team.

In one of the most important hotspots: Tana Delta. Develop is coming in because it looks empty, they don’t see the value of the delta. Came out with the Tana Delta Photo Exhibition – Since June 2011

Recently we came out with a link.

Through the website, 30 students have come for the …

We have a lot of PDFs that were sorted by Mendeley.

We want a Regional platform with Pictures, Maps and everything else BHL is doing, specially inAfricawith so many hotspots to be able to say to our leaders that they only have to go and preserve.

The Wetlands topic was defined because of the Wetlands Policy that was going to the House.

A Rapid Assessment Methodology was done.

Take home lesson for the meeting from BHL Workshop:
- The role of librarians and resource centers is under-estimated in most biodiversity institutions
- Learned about various levels of dissemination – balancing content for variety of audiences
- Potential that BHL has for partnerships with African biodiversity institutions.

Questions
Are you publishing in Open Access Journals? No, our publishing is in paid journals for the impact factor.

Bryan: There’s also the issue of the really Gray literature.

Graham: A lot of our literature is mandated by the government to the scientists.

5. - Alex Asase, Botanist, University of Ghana

Africa: 8 of the 34 biodiversity

The Natl. Biodiv. Strategy document forGhanahas indicated lack of accurate information.

We need basic information inGhana:
Specimens, Species, Ecosystems (guidelines, images of species, plant exporters, security services for )

Digitized more than 100,000 collections of 3 herbaria with BRAHMS and Herbscan (imaging) with support from JRS in 2009, although some scanning activities before.

Medicinal plants: Georeferencing and mapping. and Images.
Digitization of information on species and their medicinal properties from literature.

Challenges:
IPR issues.
Partners signed an MOU (GhanaBIF with Dutch node)
Seminar on IPR
Internet Speed is an issue but is improving, software and hardware and issues of no-Uninterrupted power supply.

Inadequate access to literature on biodiversity. Protologues were published mostly on Europe andAmerica.

Low level of expertise. Ready to digitize but funding is an issue.

Next Steps:
Ghananode of GBIF is sharing info. Library Board as well as the National Biodiversity Committee.

Data repatriation from institutions such as MOBOT and Smithsonian from Ghanaand West Africais needed. 1969, and other out-of-print literature is needed.

Herbarium is accessible fromGhana. Help from Sloane program in the Key Herbarium. We need to continue to mobilize data as well as capacity building.

Questions:
Graham: Who are the other players in the East African?
Alex: Most peopleBenin,Burkina Faso,TogoandMauritania

Chris: is putting the info on the web enough or do you need local access?
Alex: Both! Get their gray literature that is not published.
East African Commission is that working? ECOLAS is not doing anything at the moment.

6. - Willem Coetzer, SAIAB: South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity

A facility of the National Research Foundation

There are two National Facilities. Speciality in Specimen Records.

Digitized our digital publications, already mostly done. There is a clear problem with OCR, haven’t computed how much.

Images or 35 mm with basic info

A Citizen Science project extends our knowledge of species by telling us

Losing the skills of detailed photography. They have an Image collection, but a lot of work to be done. And Elaine, the illustrator, is retiring.

We use the Specify 6 since 2009. About 3 years ago, there was few users of some other system but were financed to move to Specify and with support from JRS also. Will revamp the website. Specimens for Afrotropical Bees is now in the Catalogue of GBIF. Flickr images unrelated with tags appeared.

What’s still pending and will do next?
Investigation reports as a result from contractsUganda,Botswana,Mozambique
Legacy from 35 mm slides

Questions
Rob: Can the georeference be improved? It should.

7. - Anne-Lise Fourie, the only librarian left at SANBI.

NEMBA (Natl. Environm.Management Biodiversity Act, 2004)
Effective protection and management of its biodiversity.
SANBI’s core business:
- Biodiversity Research Portfolio Management
- Biodiversity Knowledge, Policy and Network Managements
- Conservation Estate Management and Corporate Services

First stop: SIBIS, POSA, BGIS, FLAN: Flora of Angola, SABIF, Platzafrica, etc.

SANBI libraries and Capetown library

There’s a steady growth of people fromChina,South AfricaandAfrica.

Two main projects:
Koha.
Digitization
- Descriptions PLANTARUM 60 books (wood binded + seeds)

Challenges:

University of Pretoria,South Africa
Registered books with South African Heritage Resource Agency. Tool to look for when looking for funding.
Being using BHL, not used a lot by South Africans. Need to digitalize their Publications.
Transnational Exchanges.
SANBI definitely has to take a role in establishing the coming together in BHL as we are expected to take a leading role.

Printed before 1900…
1. Need a Comprehensive program
2. Housing of our collections is another aspect.
3. Turn into a Repository.
4. Establish and maintain links
5. Info mandates for capacity to manage it.

Conclusion

Worldwide loss of biodiversity
Africa’s ecosystems
Wealth of biodiversity
South Africa
Spread of biodiversity knowledge

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need! –Cicero.
ORAL HISTORY is a gap in Africa.

8. - Robert Miller, Internet Archive

One of the most successful partnerships with an international visions and working with the
Come to lunch on a Friday inSan Francisco.

We are a library: One of the 250 websites in the world. Open Access. Not only a Digital Library, but also a Physical Archive with 350,000 Books. San Francisco Public Library donated 130,000 books. We try to be cheap of thrifty.

Also have a moving images library (500,000 moving images) and 1,000,000 Audio Recordings. When we store something, we try to guarantee we can migrate it later.
Digitizing TV, 20 channels (in 2000), now 50 channels… We want the Citizen Scientists to be able to compare. 3,000,000 of those online!

150 billion Web Pages online (way back machine)

Digitizing with partners around the Globe, all cameras in color. Museum 3500 Kw lights. Two Scribes inBrazilin January.

One of the things we could get is to set up a Scribe Machine inAfrica.

We want a 10 million volume library. e-Books: 2Mpublic domain, 7Mbooks are out of print, 1M books …

Raise funds to digitize the next million books, libraries are trusted, so copies put in dark and are In-Library Lending. Deliver eBooks to your patrons, 2 week loans, 1 person per copy. 2 million classic eBooks available; 10 million downloads per month, since 2005; 500 hits per second.

Worried because Google are digitizing, working with Sloan Foundation

Send a Scribe (if the cost is covered by JRS), if you do the labor, we will do the back-end processor.

Cradle-to-Kindle. We have worked a relation that we have taken further generating e-content

There’s a Scribe Machine inGuatemala! Not dis-binding, Skewed, OCR’ed.

They have 8 Petabytes of storage growing 1 Petabye a month. 1,000 libraries, 8 countries! 1 book will be donated and the library could lend a book.

How can we build three barns inSouth Africa,GhanaandKenya?
Email for Robert@archive.org

Major issue of moving the materials.
Cathy: Depends on the economy of scale… in our case, it was better to do it like that.

9. - Margaret Koopman, Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, Niven Library

Fitzntitute
Books on Ornithology
Delivery selected publications you don’t have in BHL collection.
1000 journal titles published in or aboutAfrica
1000 newsletters 30% African Content

Grey literature collection
36,000 items including unpublished materials

South African Archival Holdings 1941 published inUK, as many of the published books before the War.

Support research for NGOs with no libraries, but access the website.

Interlibrary department, you can provide of an item for free for research purposes.

Projects in the Niven Library
CAPEi-forum (online bibliography)
SKEP database (online bibliography)
PFIAO staff publications (2010) – approx. 3,780 items
PFIAO MSc & PhD theses - approx 700 items
Zoology Hons Projects – approx 860 items
Launch of digital repository for Fitztitute (2012/2013)
Digitization of grey literature (funding dependent)
Digitisation of public domain books & journals (funding dependent)

Other initiatives in the University of Capetown (UCT):
1. Animal Demography Unit and The Bolus Herbarium
2. African Networks. (Angola - Botswana - Cameroon - Congo Republic – Democratic Republic of Congo - Ethiopia - Kenya - Liberia - Madagascar - Malawi - Namibia - Nigeria – South Africa - Sudan - Swaziland - Tanzania - Uganda - Zambia – Zimbabwe)

10. - Gracian Chimwaza, ITOCA (Information Training & Outreach Centre for Africa)

ITOCA (formerly TEEAL)
Support Sub-Sahara Franco-phoneAfrica

ICT/ICM Capacity Building/Training
Info management & research
ICT M & E Projects
ICT/ICM consultancy

Marketing programs: HINARI, AGORA, OARE give access in developing countries to the closed literature (Cornell, WHO, FAO). Gateway held by the U.N.

All offline database from Cornell distributing Journals on a 1 TB and install on their Local Area Network. Contains 200 top scientific Journals from 65 major publishers.

CEPD Courses - Information Literacy

The program called LocalHarvest linking several IRs allowing to Search across. in collaboration with Mann Library from Cornell University, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, PROTA Foundation (Netherlands), Institute of Development Studies (UK), ITOCA (South Africa).

Challenges: In access, inadequate Computers and Bandwidth and unreliable electricity. Resources are always scarce.

The issue is the last mile link!!! MombasaandKenyahave direct links, if we can bring it in to inland

Questions

Graham: Local copies can be copied and shipped. BHL will have a copy of the whole content in different locations. Specifically, all the content by next March will be available in Europe, and all of the content will be available in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina inAlexandria. This will allow access to the content, degree of failure, security and proper replication.

BHL-Europe, it’s current grant is coming to an end April of this year, but we are putting together another bid, but we can identify partners to support developing countries, so we might talk with you to become partners in a project, we can’t transmit money, but we can be fully integrated partners in BHL-Europe.

Third, particularly, six of the big institutions have set the European Journal of Taxonomy. European because of it’s funding, not it’s content. 0 cost to use and publish in it! Designed specially for descriptive taxonomy. Properly peer-reviewed, proper journal hopefully with a significant impact factor. We won’t be publishing in paper, it can’t take very long papers because it is electronic. It’s designed to generate some speed in the process. The RMCA is particularly interested in getting this content published.

There is a whole lot of biodiversity literature still to be digitized! And there is a large amount of content not published but in printed format. Should this content be digitized?

With other partners we have done some exchange. We have shared some of the files.

Resources is another topic. There are Infrastructure issues too. Penetration is increasing but spotty in some places.

Chris: How can we mobilize the content that is already digitalized to move it to the Centers that we heard today and how do we want to set the digitizing?

We should start by sorting the Biodiversity information fromAfrica. Having links from frequently visited websites and make that available. For example, came back with a couple of CDs with Fishbase.

Chris: Is the CD the right material?

Yes, CDs or Hard Drives or Thumb Drives.

SA: Maybe getting mobile is your solution.

South Africa’s issue is how to go on with digitization rather than having Internet connection.

Choose those contents that are relevant for us…

Erick: EOL is delighted to have Bibliotheca of Alexandria and SANBI and maybe find other new partners with collaboration. We want to consolidate the Globalization of EOL.

Chris: What form should the metadata be transformed?
For the basic level of awareness, it is easy.
Copying into the Library Management System with links, so that we can search.
Do you have a Library Standard Catalog?

Find the content that’s online and not just the Metadata but also the content. We should device a solution. We don’t have a lot, just 300 books.

InSouth Africa, everything that is published can be digitized before 1962.

As a task for the Agenda, we should determine how to integrate with other biodiversity literature what you have digitized.

What you have digitized… starting next week. Think all the issues first, before start scanning. Quality, metadata, resolution, format.

We have a checklist on the site.

Graham: There are two levels of wiki. We can give you access to the internal one.

Chris: I am taking away from the West African, Southern Africa andEast Africa.

Graham: In principle, North Africa is largely covered from $1M of funding to cover students inAlexandria.

Chris: Shipping is possible inNorth America, is the distance a problem?

Lawrence: No one would like to move one thing to another place.

Look at the existing exchange programs between libraries.

I wouldn’t like some of my things to move. I have things fromZimbabwe.

You have to manage the selection.

I am fromSouth Africaand I am in contact with people fromZimbabweandMalawi.

Or where we have permissions, from 170 publishers. We have a standard permission form, you may have contacts with Societies that could allow for digitization of your material.

BHL doesn’t buy rights.

Boris: There are cheap toolkits.

Do-It-Yourself Book Scanning: how to scan your personal library.

We will need the minimum metadata standards that BHL requires.

There is an institute inPretoriawho specializes in that.

Tom: There is always a trade-off between boutique scanning and mass digitization.

I am worried with the folded maps. There’s equipment for that.

We have ways to stitch in very detailed scanned with cheap scanning.

Chris: The capture of the image is the simplest. The metadata, the article level description is what needs a lot of volunteers.

Cathy: Then there’s the OCR that is done later.

Chris: Is there a way to prioritize what to scan? At MOBOT we started with 500 books.

South Africa: We have a list on the most frequently used material.

Tom: Can you come up with a Pan-African list of books to scan? A/Yes.

Can we use Mendeley as a repository? Yes

Chris: We have developed things that function similar to what Mendeley has done.

Tom: If you have a list accepted by enough scientists, that could help

Graham: We can scan what was published.

Chris: We won’t have the hand-written manuscripts.

Action Item: Compile the list and seek additional sources of funding.

Graham: There are things that we can’t do because we don’t have it.

Tom: I will be willing happy to encourage books that are important for you. I hope this meeting creates an African infrastructure.

SA: Botany will change into open source in two years.

Tom: Gray literature is a great turn.

Some reports could not be there!

Tom: Summarizing, this are the topics we have talked about.

- METADATA DELIVERY (some analysis, some questions)
- DELIVERY INFRASTRUCTURE (Thumbdrive, CD ROM, )
- UPDATES OF NEW CONTENT AND PERIODICITY
- WHAT’S ALREADY SCANNED (for you all to know what you have scanned, file sizes, formats, and the proper way to report that)
- MATERIAL TO BE SCANNED (Cheap infrastructure, mobile, boutique scan)
- GREY LITERATURE ON THE PLATFORM SIDE (give thought to a platform)
- THE LIST OF TITLES THAT ARE NOT DIGITIZED BUT ARE IMPORTANT FOR BIODIVERSITY SCIENTISTS IN AFRICA (do a pilot project)
- HOW CAN WE CONTINUE THESE DISCUSSIONS (We can’t have weekly meetings)

South Africa: I will discuss with some of the colleagues. South Africa Biodiversity Information Forum (meeting before February-April) is a good place to get together. Or Start a group in Mendeley. Can we have an African Section in the wiki?

Bryan: JRS will keep their primary interest inAfrica, will look to projects that eventually will have Conservation results. I think this is an obvious case, in the next couple of months we will need an RfP with the form of similar to previous, except it would allow to 3 years but can be shorter and somewhere around $1.5 M expecting to do 5-10 grants. The more you ask for, the better it better be. And well thought out collaborations. You could do coordinated separate institutions or a collaboration with IA for shipment, etc. JRS also accepts in the terms of 10K can approve smaller planning plans, not 30K or 40K. Will make the decisions at the end of May. You have to consider the timing. Pre-proposals will be 2 pages (15 of those), 6 weeks to turn around the good proposals and decide again by May.
- We will give you Access to the Wiki.
- Apart from the 1,000 most important titles.
- Skype works well inAfrica.
- We will start by expanding the Wiki and add names and Skype accounts and build the Mendeley group.
- Determine a Meeting face-to-face

NHM, Smithsonian,FieldMuseumis using KEmu and looking to create a merged interface and have a separate discussion which is not a BHL issue. We already have some chats with colleagues inLatin Americaand setting GUIDs to the specimen databases. A/We use Specify Collection 6.0 because of the price.

Our goal is that our data is interoperable with all other biodiversity information
Mendeley, BiSciCol, Interlinking with RDF,
Let’s include a TimeFrame in 3 months by Email and by Mendely by end of January. Must be achievable to meet inSouth Africa.