November 25, 2008 BHL Executive Committee Notes

BHL Executive Committee Minutes 11/25/2008

Tom: Budget--preparation for submission to MacArthur is proceeding. Have to cut it back. Revisions due from all component leaders next week. Draft was 6.6 million but must be cut back to about 3 million. Put in 4 libraries transportation costs. Can cut direct scanning costs. The other big thing is the delays and focus for collection manager--we could consider cutting that position since it has not been hired. Cathy noted that several organizations are asking to come in so maybe we could do a tutorial on how to do this. If others want to partner, then they can bring own money and provide tutorial (for payment). Collection Manager could manage all collections and would need a training component (BHL Europe, China and the rest of the US). Connie: and collection management could come from a potential partner who can't contribute money. Chris: There is no infrastructure to support all of these plans, no storage, no jp2 software etc. Graham: Capability for lots of development in BHL Europe. Need Backup! MacArthur is open to something new. We need to spend on a big storage opportunity. Cathy has some questions regarding some of the backup issues.

Graham-- Adrian, Tom and Henning --been in talks with IBM about building a data center for NHM--petabyte. Must secure future of BHL.

Chris--tested 15 books--got all files and are writing code to get them into Fedora. Internet 2 is best communication tool for this amount of content.

Tom noted that storage figure is budget needs work. Smithsonian can do some distributed storage solution for both BHL and EOL. Cathy reminded Tom that this is Risk Management and Sustainability, not Portal.

Chris noted that one renowned botanist said we need to get sustainable and doesn't care if there are ads. JSTOR has 300 employees! JSTOR pushing to have BHL. OK as long as it remains open! Terra grid approached MOBOT about storage.

Cathy: Start up costs--what happens after that? Sustainability! These are the kinds of things that Cathy thinks we have to know to talk about "back up" storage, mirror, deep archive....etc.


1. What is the total capacity currently? Expected growth? 2. What does the backup system need to do? · Simply a big bucket for storage or does it need to be smarter and take on more responsibility? · What type of recovery time objective is required? Does there need to be instantaneous fail-over to the backup system in the event of an outage at the primary site, or can we look for an acceptable downtime until the backup system is up and serving files? 3. What platform do the files currently sit on? If Linux, what type? 4. Is there anything special/unique to this file system? 5. Does the backup directory structure need to match primary site’s structure? 6. Meta Data – Possible to manipulate? How?7. Data mining possibilities?
Please feel free to add to the list of questions... but in order to "size" anything to make a good guess for Tom's "unique" requests... we think we need some of these answers. Chris can you take a stab at these... and then we will be able to talk about at least the Founding BHL.... and then begin to talk about BHL Europe, China, etc.Cathy will also think about the BHL Training Camp... and costs.

Smithsonian, NHM and maybe Harvard might be long-term storage.

BHL has fit right into our institutional infrastructure.

What are the options of bringing in revenue around these books (calendars, merchandise). This needs to be on the table so that it is obvious that we are thinking about sustainability.

BHL has become part of the fabric of all of our institutions and our staff is providing an in-kind contribution. All partners/potential partners must be informed of this.

Tom would like a formal presentation about sustainability at the institutional council meeting.

Tom noted that by end of June, all money allocated for scanning will have been spent.

Cutting suggestions: collection managers, library technicians (institution will have to manage these costs), storage (separate grant item), transportation, director meetings should be self-funded

We are contributors, not just participants.

Scanning is the flagship of what we do so we should cut other players.

Jim Edwards and Tom talked with Fred von Lohmann about article repository and clarified doctrine of safe harbor and how it can work with liability protections (click through for contributors). Specific take down procedures and copyright agent who is registered with copyright office.

Correspondence with Peter Raven re Chinese BHL--Tom will reply.

Next call Dec 2 at 11 AM EST, 10 AM CST, 4 PM GMT