JRS African Workshop Summary and Action Items
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JRS African Workshop Summary and Action Items
JRS African Digitization Workshop Summary and Action Items.doc
Last Wednesday November 16th, 2001 took place the JRS African Biodiversity Literature Digitization Workshop, nine African representatives from different fields (librarians, biologists, computer scientists, publishers and students) met with colleagues from the Global Biodiversity Heritage Literature project.
INTRODUCTION
Tom Garnett opened the meeting giving thanks to the participants and indicating it will be a loose agenda, and there would be time for all to be heard.
After a brief presentation on the Biodiversity Heritage Literature project, each participant presented themselves, where they were coming from and the role within their institution.
A new piece to the Agenda was added: Robert Miller from the Internet Archive would present just before lunch. It was pointed out that BHL could have never been done without the support and services that Internet Archive has provided us with.
It was decided that after lunch, we would focus specifically on what we can get together and what other initiatives might originate inAfrica.
BHL has Global Partnerships like BHL-US/UK or BHL-Europe, besides BHL inChina,BrazilandAustralia; they are not necessarily started by the countries.
There were 19 participants in the Workshop:
- Tom Garnett, USA, BHL Exec Director
- William Ulate,Costa Rica,MissouriBotanical Garden & Global BHL Project Manager
- Brian Heidorn, USA, JRS Foundation
- Lucy Waruingi,Kenya,AfricanConservationCenter, 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 MillerUSA, 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.
DISCUSSION:
After the African colleagues presentations and Robert Miller’s IA presentation, the floor was opened for discussion.
Graham Higley, from the National History Museum started the discussion by raising three points:
- Local copies of BHL content can be copied and shipped. Soon, BHL will have a copy of the whole content in different locations; specifically, all the content by next March will be available in Europe also and all of the content will be available in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina inAlexandria,Egypt. This will allow access to the content, resilience to a certain degree of failure, security and proper replication.
- The current grant for the BHL-Europe is coming to an end in April of next year, but another bid is being put together where partners could be identified to support developing countries. He would very much like to become fully integrated partners in a BHL-Europe project, although they can not transmit money to non-European partners.
- Six big institutions have set the European Journal of Taxonomy (European because of it’s funding, not because of its content) specially designed for descriptive taxonomy and there is no cost to use it and publish on it! It is a properly peer-reviewed journal that will hopefully have a significant impact factor. They will no publish on paper and it can not take very long papers because it is electronic. It is designed to generate some speed in the process and theRoyalMuseumforCentral Africais particularly interested in getting this kind of African content published.
There is a lot of biodiversity literature still to be digitized and there is a large amount of content not published but in printed format. Some exchange and sharing of files with partners has proven sometimes to be an adequate option to promote access to digitalized material, and although digitization has advanced with certain gaps in some cases, it really depends on resources and infrastructure.
To mobilize the content that is already digitalized to the Centers mentioned we should start by sorting the Biodiversity Information from Africa., having links to frequently visited websites with information available and taking the available opportunities to bring in new content in CDs, Hard Drives or Thumbdrives. Getting mobile might be a solution to reach some audiences with certain information.
Now, in the case ofSouth Africa, the issue is not so much to have a proper Internet connection, but how to advance on the digitization; there is a premise to choose those contents that are relevant forAfrica.
EOL wants to consolidate its Globalization, so it is pleased to have Bibliotheca Alexandrina and SANBI as partners in this endeavor and would like to find other new partners for collaborations.
For the basic level of awareness, it should be easy to transform the metadata and copy it into the Library Management System of each library with links, so that the record can be search. Preferably, a Library Standard Catalog should be used to include the information.
Not only the metadata could be retrieved, but also the content if it is found online., we should device a solution. We don’t have a lot of files forAfricacurrently in BHL, just about 300 books.
ACTION ITEM 1: Determine how to integrate BHL content with other biodiversity literature.
It should be determined how to integrate BHL content with other biodiversity literature that African colleagues have digitized.
The African colleagues will considerate all the issues they need to decide before start scanning (quality, metadata, resolution, format and even what to scan). In the case of South Africa, there is a checklist on the site with the South African plants.
ACTION ITEM 2: Grant access to the wiki
The African colleagues will be granted access to the internal wiki as a place to start sharing as a group.
In principle, North Africa is largely covered from $1M of funding to cover students in Alexandria. There’s an interest in working with the West Africa,South Africa and East Africa as Regions. In relation to the issue of distance between the place where the contents are and the place where a scanning station would be, the African participants indicated that they would not like to move some of their contents to another place, although shipping content has been a solution for other BHL Programs. Nevertheless, it was recommended to use the existing exchange programs between libraries to move materials.
ACTION ITEM 3: Use the current exchange programs to move materials
The current exchange programs between libraries will be used as the mechanism to move materials to and from the scanning stations.
The Mary Gunn Library in Pretoria specializes in metadata and scanning.
There is always a trade-off between boutique scanning and mass digitization. There’s also specialized equipment for things out of size like folded maps and there are also ways to stitch in very detailed scanned with cheap scanning.
Capturing the image is the simplest to do, the metadata, the article level description is what needs a lot of volunteers. After the scanning the OCR would be done later. There are also cheap toolkits; a kind of “Do-It-Yourself Book Scanning” on how to scan your personal library.
ACTION ITEM 4: Share BHL minimum metadata standards
The minimum metadata standards that BHL requires will be shared with the African colleagues.
The selection of materials should be managed by the African colleagues themselves. South Africa, for example, is in contact with colleagues from Zimbabweand Malawiand could work with them for the content. It is good to start with a prioritized list of books to scan. For example, MOBOT started with 500 books as their priority, according to those which had protologues of species.
ACTION ITEM 5: Each participant suggests a list of Pan-African books to scan
The African participants will come up with a Pan-African list of the most frequently used books to scan, preferably, a list accepted by enough scientists.
ACTION ITEM 6: Compile the definite list of books and seek funding.
Compile the list and seek additional sources of funding.
ACTION ITEM 7: Set a Mendeley group.
A group in Mendeley would be set as a repository of such list.
ACTION ITEM 8: Determine what has been scanned and what can be scanned by BHL partners.
The BHL partners will determine what part of what has been published and can be scanned. There are things that we can’t digitalize because we don’t have them; for example, we won’t have the hand-written manuscripts.
In South Africa, everything that is published can be digitized before 1962. BHL doesn’t buy rights, either the content is in public domain (out of copyright) or permissions have been granted (currently , 170 publishers have granted permission to BHL for digitizing and making available their content). BHL has a standard permission form that the African colleagues could use with Societies that would allow for digitization of their material. Gray literature would be a great contribution to BHL, even when it is understandable that some reports may not be digitized!
ACTION ITEM 9: Make the Standard permission form available.
The standard permission form will be made available to the African colleagues.
Tom: I will be willing happy to encourage books that are important for you.
Hopefully this meeting will create an African infrastructure.
Tom Garnett summarized the topics covered as:
- 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
(We can do a pilot project) - HOW CAN WE CONTINUE THESE DISCUSSIONS (We can’t have weekly meetings). South Africa representatives will discuss with some of their colleagues how to move on. The South Africa Biodiversity Information Forum (meeting before February-April) could be a good place to get together. A group will be started in Mendeley and an African Section will be defined in the wiki.
IMMEDIATE ACTION ITEMS
The following are the most immediate Action Items:
ACTION ITEM 1: Make BHL data interoperable
Investigate how to make BHL data interoperable with all other biodiversity information platforms and initiatives, like Mendeley, BiSciCol, BRAHMS, KE Emu Software, Specify, interlinking with RDF, etc.
Timeline: ---
Activities:
- Find out what software is being used by the African colleagues.
- Deteremine how to make BHL data interoperable with each of them.
- Implement for each one of the feasible information platforms.
ACTION ITEM 5, 6: Create a list of African titles to scan.
Have a list of the most important 1,000 titles thatAfrica is interested in having scanned.
Timeline: 3 months (Feb. 16th, 2012)
Activities:
- Set a space in the Wiki for communications
- Add to the wiki, the names and Skype accounts of the participants.
- Set a Mendeley group for BHL-Africa
- The African colleagues will have the list reviewed by Jan 30th, 2012
Current list of BHL Africa's 1000 Books to Scan
ACTION ITEM 10: Communicate via email, Skype and the Wiki.
Communications will be done to the group by email, Skype and the Wiki.
ACTION ITEM 11: Determine a Face-to-Face meeting in South Africa
Determine a Face-to-Face Meeting to meet in South Africa with the South Africa Biodiversity Information Forum.
Activities:
Anne-Lisse will investigate on the exact dates of the meeting.
ACTION ITEM 12: Apply for funds for the next JRS RfP.
Apply for funds for the next JRS RfP.
Timeline: 2 months
Activities:
Develop a proposal for the next 3 years or shorter (around $1.5 M divided into 5-10 grants)
Finally, Bryan Heidorn indicated that JRS will keep their primary interest inAfrica, but will look to projects that eventually will have Conservation results. He considers this to be an obvious case, and invited the group to apply for the next RfP in a couple of months, that would allow to 3 years (but can be shorter) and somewhere around $1.5 M divided into 5 to10 grants. The more funds needed, the better the proposal should be and the better thought collaborations. It can be presented as coordinated separate institutions or a collaboration with IA for shipment, etc. JRS also accepts proposals in the range of US$10,000 but less than US$30,000 for planning. The timing has to be considered because the decision will be made at the end of May. Pre-proposals will be 2 pages (expected to approve 15 of those), and in 6 weeks the good proposals should be turned in and then the decision will be made by May.
