October 7, 2008 BHL Executive Committee Notes

BHL Executive Committee Conference Call Minutes October 7,2008

1. Abby software (IA) doesn't OCR Chinese.

2. Graham reports on EOL Steering Committee: Component leaders
presented and there were many questions. Few comments about BHL and
generally supportive. Graham suggests we prepare a complete budget
and bid for what we want to get. Graham raised the possibility of
developing a risk register for all of EOL to be reviewed quarterly.
Graham notes that the key risk is personnel--there is no cover if we
lose personnel (except in BHL). BHL should develop a succession
plan. IT is a major risk area.
Presentation at EOL from Bram Bluestein (from Booz and Co) is doing critical
pathwork. Bernuth and Williamson are consultants based in Washington
and they are doing the business plan. BBC World wants to work closely
with EOL to provide a backend to their roster of programs--planned 5
years out. We would make an EOL page and BHL content available.
Policy questions reviewed--sharing distribution lists (NO to current
list but may revisit for specific cases) and relationships with
commercial publishers (ongoing).
Institute for Learning Innovations report have 6 recommendations that
were agreed on for release sometime in next year (better search, more
dynamic opening page for example).
EOL style manual proposal--agreed on. BHL will use when sending out
info in EOL context.
Institutional Council meeting coming up and component leaders will be
invited if enough money. Will discuss curatorial network and how to
get credit for contributors. Costa Rica, NY and then Washington for
next meetings of EOL Steering Committee.

3. Chris sent out the BHL stats. Chris will try to distribute
quarterly. Chris was talking to LC about scripts for downloading
content from IA. They can do it fast because they are on Internet2
and have a pipe directly from IA. Smithsonian and MBL are on
Internet2. Chris wants to test if Internet2 is the answer or if more
needs to happen. Tom notes that we will have a dark BHL archive at
the Smithsonian but Chris says that this is not enough. Chris will
also try out downloads at MOBOT. There is grant money available for a
petabox but MOBOT doesn't want to support this. MBL can do it and
thus will be an access site. This is tentative and there will be
revisions. Vision is to have multiple places with BHL content
available. And how would article repository fit into distributed
architecture. Chris is confident now that the architecture and
technology are finally coming together. Cathy has a grant to develop
interoperability in biodiversity and geosciences. She hopes to hire
one person to accomplish this.

4. NY may use Mammals of North America bibliography as a basis for
scanning selection. Tom G. will be speaking with Tom Baione this
week. Cathy will be meeting with the NY folks later this week.

Next call October 14 at 11 AM EST, 10 AM CST, 4 PM GMT.