May 1, 2007 BHL Executive Committee Notes

BHL Executive Committee NOTES 5/1/2007
Conference Call with Graham Higley, Cathy Norton, Connie Rinaldo, Tom Garnett and Chris Freeland.


There will be a meeting at the Field museum in mid-late June with TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference attendees who wish to support EOL. Polices will be worked out for collaboration with commercial sector support.

Cathy, Chris, Tom have had conversations with Microsoft re SeaDragon software to explore its relevant for BHL. After signing a non-disclosure agreement, they viewed an impressive QuickTime video that brought the books to life using online tools. It is a high end product and bleeding edge written for the pc only and requiring recent hardware/ software. Lots of promise but needs more investigation.

Smithsonian’s first Scribe will be delivered May 4 and installed by Robert Miller on Tues May 8. The EOL Board will meet at 10:30 a.m. on May 8 and Brewster Kahle will be invited for lunch. On Wed May 9 at 10:30 there will be a press conference at the National Press Club followed by an EOL Board luncheon with selected agency officials, which Graham will attend. At 2:05 EOL Board and guests will go to see the Scribe and listen to an explanation about the BHL. The reception at the National Academy of Science will start at 6:30 pm. On May 10 the EOL Board will meet to review proposals. After lunch there will be a BHL meeting for those in town at NMNH in the SIL Conference Room. Jim Edwards will be talking to the American Institute of Biological Societies (AIBS) general meeting. Jim and Tom will talk to the AIBS Council on May 15;

Graham earlier reported an EOL Board suggestion that we should organize a mini-conference to work on the permissions issues with learned societies. Tom will bring it up at AIBS Council meeting to get ideas for planning conference

Tom has a version of permissions document ready to be commented on by BHL Directors, which he will send out this week. He plans to bring it to AIBS meeting with the hope of getting one or two signatures

The revised EOL MOU should be coming soon and we will need to get signatures again.

Smithsonian will sign soon for OCLC collection analysis tool. Bernard Scaife at NHM has run into some problems on the serials list using the available software tools. Cathy and Tom will explore solutions and be in touch with him. SIL has some funding left from the Lounsbery Foundation that can be applied to the serials list or to the BHL Portal work.

NHM is organizing a short video of a senior UK Minister talking about EOL and BHL.

Nigel Robinson of the Zoological Record may be ready to start working with BHL. Graham has met with him and will set up discussions with Chris Freeland and then Patrick Leary. He is open to providing us with pre-1923 and post-1923 top-rated list of journals arranged by number of species referenced in them. This will be very helpful to review with the EOL Board for priorities.

No conference call next week.