March 9, 2010 BHL Executive Committee notes

BHL Executive Conference Call Tuesday, March 9 11 a.m. EST


On call: Tom, Connie, Martin, Cathy, Chris, Graham

Please dial: 1-866-748-1119


Type in the passcode: 1912897#


1. Reallocation letter to be sent to BHI IC .


Biggest suggestion was to expand other options section. Cathy noted that IC plays a big role in allocation of money according to by-laws. Having PLOS doing Citebank would free up more money. Chris has a new proposaL 130,000 for data tech for 2 years and rest for scanning. Means we have to dial back on Citebank. Place for all of our material that is in citable form. This is for article content. Won't help with the orange bag problem but would manage the article problem. Data technician would be focused on loading. There are different shades of the orange bag problem. Can bring in scanned books--complex--and then articles which are easier to deal with and go into Citebank.





ACTION: Tom will redraft proposal with higher level options. Need some leeway. Will emphasize that this is for discussion. This isn't free money--MOBOT is making the amendment.





Tom met with Cyndy Parr and they are looking for Citebank to be ready. Have 20 fellows ready to look at specific taxa.


EOL Steering Committee Component meeting will make final decisions on reallocation.





2. Scheduling of BHL Global Technical Meeting July in London, September in Woods Hole.





Either London (early July) or WH in September in conjunction with TDWG. China, Australia, Brazil, Europe can make it in early July. Australia would prefer in conjunction with TDWG. Perhaps too much dilution at TDWG. Martin and Graham think that TDWG might not be the best venue for the meeting.Graham noted that the meeting is a bit more urgent than September. Cathy suggested that the meeting should be completely separate and before TDWG. Chris agreed--not part of TDWG. Just moving the meeting to make it proximate to an international meeting that many are coming to anyway. Chris noted that timing is the same geologically. TDWG dates are not known yet. If TDWG is happening in WH then there will be a separate meeting there for the Global Tech group. Otherwise July in London. Sunday Sept 26-Oct 1 so BHL meeting 21, 22, 23 or something.





3. BHL IC election process (I attach the Bylaws and MOU). Cathy not sure she is attending in person.


a. On the process – do we want to encourage/allow email nominations before the meeting on March 22?


b. Who will run the election process?


c. Graham’s current role on EOL SC: defer to IC meeting: Cathy noted that Graham should continue to go for continuity and the global picture.


Cathy noted that we have had one real election. We are all on these two year turns. How do we solicit candidates? Do we want to have nominations ahead? Graham suggested that Tom send out an opportunity to nominate or self-nominate anyone for vice-chair and secretary. Send to Graham directly and nominations will be put in front of committee. If more than one nominated, secret ballot. Make sure nominees are willing to serve.





4. Projects I am behind or deficient on


a. Weekly IC report: this should be a priority. Tom will make an effort to provide more regular notes--perhaps monthly a couple of weeks ahead of the regular IC conference call.


b. “glossy” professional BHL brochure: looking for contractor


c. draft revised Strategic Plan: not ready by IC








5. Updates on meetings with EOL Bioinformatics Group: Chris and Tom met with Bioinformatics group, including Bob Corrigan, new product developer. Patrick developed a service to find Nomenclature Acts within BHL. Now we have to test this and other services. Productive meeting.








6. Update on DuraCloud meeting: Chris and Tom met with Duraspace organization on the pilot project. We are good guinea pigs. Will give us info. about cloud computing and cloud storage. 10 TB of BHL data in cloud. All up soon and will be available for transfer to Europe. They will be in touch with Cathy about TaxonFinder (patented). Dark archive, transfer cloud but longer term not really viable as paid solution. Duracloud helped us discover some of IAs anomalies.








7. Review of the agenda for the BHL IC. I attach the spreadsheet that I intend to walk us through at BHL IC for the finacial report section of the agenda. Martin will have a summary sheet of BHL IC member contributions to report then also.





8. tl2 should become TL3 plus citebank--it is a big project.





9. NHM and MOBOT still need to submit other contributions to BHL to Martin for spreadsheet.





10. BHL China Conference call: Only Chris will be on call. Questions: More info and help? change in global tech meeting Doing any scanning? how doing with IA?





11. Need to make serials bidlist viable. Smithsonian is willing to take on the role. Chris noted that it also on servers in Vienna (Wolfgang) but needs to be updated. Running on NHM but not updated. Martin noted that we need it up yesterday..... ACTION: Graham suggested that Martin speak with Wolfgang and get on with it. Adrian will get a current copy off the NHM server.