October 26, 2010 BHL Executive Committee notes

BHL Executive Committee Conference Call
October 26, 2010

On call: Chris Freeland, Tom Garnett, Martin Kalfatovic, Connie Rinaldo

1. Internet Archive meeting: correcting text via open library crowdsourcing. Working on table of contents to link into book. George has spoken with Trove folks in Australia. What is the longevity of Open Library--seems to be becoming an effective interface (one page per book) and Brewster is pushing "digital lending" and it can only be done through Open Library. Title merging is being worked on (aggregate serials). They are doing some merging within the database structure. No page-level annotations.

2. Chris noted he has been reviewing older notes about BHL. Now Open Library is gaining traction and doing some of the things BHL does. What do we do for the last 20 months? MOBOT may be able to keep BHL running but can't get institutional funding for anything broader. What becomes of the metadata repository, APIs, web applications and Citebank. Can we piggyback on a larger organization? Internet Archive? What are the Smithsonian plans? (Thorny Staples will be starting a position at Smithsonian.) BHL-Europe (and other BHLs) are moving forward with their own versions. MOBOT, Smithsonian and NHM are the institutions that can keep BHL functioning in the .net environment. If stays at MOBOT, it can't expand without funding.

Martin: Develop a hibernation plan: Document current .net version; identify costs of adding new content but keep the platform the same, and next level would be to port it to a new platform. Should develop a plan to show to new partners.

Tom: Ongoing discussions at Smithsonian as to what role to take on. EOL is also working on sustainability and including BHL.

What about incorporating BHL so that it is an official entity? Could have advantages.

ACTION: Chris's team needs to start planning for hibernation phase so it is ready to go in the spring of 2012

3. Josh Greenberg is new Sloane manager for digital projects. Interested in specimen scanning and linked data.

4. Trish and Bianca have made lots of progress.

5. Maria Ballenger--Tom met with her regarding back runs of journals that will be joining Bioone. Bianca and Tom met with Maria about having BHL digitize backfiles. She is part of a consortium of 20 museums in Europe (Scientific Publishing in Natural History Institutions). Not currently working with BHL Europe. Beginning a new journal "European Journal of Taxonomy"--born digital, interoperative (working with Donat and Lubo). ACTION: Tom will connect Chris and Maria so they can meet when Chris is in Paris.

6. NatureServe: Tom and Martin met with Tom Brook?. Director of NatureServe (linking state and national species surveys). Big users of BHL and want more serials and grey literature. Want the grey literature surveys in BHL. Not much metadata and some rights issues (depending on what entity completed the survey). Have a ranked list of journals they want to see scanned. Funded by NBII.

7. Development team and Bianca are walking through Citebank and recommending minor enhancements.