staffcallnotes_07082010
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July 2010 Agenda
In attendance:
NYBG: Kevin Nolan, John Mignault, Don Wheeler
NHM: Jane Smith
CalAcad: Becky Morin
AMNH: Diana Shih, Matthew Bolin
Field: Diana Duncan, Christine Giannoni
SIL: Bianca Lipscomb, Martin Kalfatovic, Keri Thompson, Suzanne Pilsk
MOBOT: Doug Holland, Michelle Abeln
MCZ: Joe deVeer, Chris Carden
MBLWHOI: Diane Rielinger, Matt Person,
MK: reallocated about 140 K to put towards scanning, what's the most effective way to distribute this money?
- in the past – block allocations to various libraries
- one of the problems, people are given the amount then feel compelled to spend the money within a given amt of time → scanning as much as possible w/out careful selection
- now with limited funds, need to maximize → targeted selection
- first allocation was 2 million, lots more ability to wide swath through the collection
- would there be ways where we could work through the collections committee to scan on a smaller, slower workflow scale? This will be more labor intensive b/c you'll need to pick more carefully
- possible scenarios outlined in the agenda:
- allocate a certain amount of money to a certain IA facility, then institutions are responsible
- each participating library is given a targeted amt, not a need to spend
Don: have you talked to IA
MK: yes, we have and IA is comfortable with the set up; they get the 140K, they understand, just care that they get the $ will help keep specific facilities afloat
Don: how do we get the material there? it will cost $ not coming out of 140k
MK: part of the workflow discussion...later discussion with IC on shipping budget. will tell IC also concerns about shipping, packing material, etc.
Don: but this is part of the workflow and has an effect on planning; now we use our own in house truck, etc. if we have to send elsewhere and use a third party shipper, concern about liability, insurance, etc.
mk: what if u used current system but only ship once every 2 months?
JS: should the starting point be agreeing what we want to scan first, and that will lead to workflow? also, can some of the $ be set aside to fulfill special requests
MK: we shouldn't spend too much time trying to figure out list of titles; money should be kept in large blocks that are quickly allocatable to libs that need to scan certain titles
Diane: would Bianca keep track of money spent so we wouldn't need to worry if we can scan the titles we want to scan.
MK: yes, bianca and other SI staff will keep track of the $, but you should keep a rough track of how many pages you are scanning, we will also get reports to track the spending.
CG: does all the money need to go to an IA scanning center, is there any possibility to allocate money to MOBOT to scan our rare books?
MK: this is only discussion of central contract for IA scanning. on the IC call, can discuss if some of the 140k should be held back for non IA scanning?
MP: do you want libraries to make a statement that we would scan certain # of pages by a certain date?
MK: probably less planned out, instead do a rough chunking of the $, similar to how we originally did the collections chunking -- X no. of $ to Boston, to SF, to NJ, etc.
JS: what do you need us to do?
MK: work with Bianca and rest of collections group; need ramp up permissions process so we have libs waiting to get those permissions titles scanned, for instance, if nybg knows they have a serial that is ready to go, they can reserve the $ for that
DW: sounds like a bidding process, I like Jane's idea of sitting down and picking specific titles and allocate the $
JS: rather than everybody bidding would be better to plan ahead a bit
MK: one thing we don't want is to have all the $ already allocated and then at the 11th hour get permission to scan a title, but were out of $, maybe do the selection process on a quarterly basis?
JS: split $ into 2 lumps - still feel important that we should set aside some $ for rapid response to requests
MK: everyone given a set amt w/in a given time frame; this process allows us to move money more quickly back and forth; took 5 months to get the 140K out of MOBOT to SIL and we don't want that to happen with such a small amount of money
DW: implementation?
MK: money can go to a central contract pretty quickly, then at that point it comes to getting the selection queue up and running; once money is up on main contract we have 3-4 yrs to spend it
BL: what's the main contract?
MK: individual libraries have their own contracts w/ IA, SIL contract is different – we can spend $ at any IA facility in the US, we can put money on our main SIL contract that is spendable at any facility; all BHL libs can use their contract provisions, but all billing flows thru our payment contract, contracts with individual libraries would then be about security of materials, not money
DW: what about that 12% overhead?
MK: that's a discussion for the IC call – if we did decide to take the 12% ($16,800) off the top and divide it up for each of the libraries that would require paperwork for each transaction
DW: so this would be even for each institution?
MK: could be pro-rated, but up to IC
DD: would we really want to start up with a new scanning center
MK: you could
DD: quality control concerns regarding start up with a new center, other facilities have worked that out
DW: this plan is much cleaner, much more well thought out, much more integrated, too bad wasn't 3 years ago, work falls to selections group, bulk of the work is identifying materials,
MK: issue of the overhead costs is a big issue; know some libs have used that to fund their bhl activities.
DW: particularly with the shipping
JS: NHM absorbing overhead costs
MK: SIL has funded all the work and transportation not over the overhead
JS: since we will be doing less scanning, we dont want to lose momentum, make sure we have quality titles on the list, if we can make joint decisions on content that would be a good way forward
MK: leaving aside big issue of transportation & overhead (for the IC call), does the group feel that a process can be worked out for selection and to distribute scanning across multiple IA facilites?
JM: NYBG is strapped, the idea of where that overhead money will come from is huge
DW: this will also affect workflow, collections group identifies material but then the workflow may be impacted based on overhead concerns
MK: everyone needs to talk to their directors, explain how you would manage/not manage without the overhead? and how far would that $ really go? is it a make or break decision for your institution?
DW: we are paying driver, gas, tolls, etc. if we went to fedex, would we be able to use the new ILL pot $ for shipping?
MK: that is a possibility, depends on cost per boxes, bianca could get that. we could take some of the overhead $ and put it into a shipping slush fund. btw, the Ft wayne facility is being used by florida - they are shipping books. – Bianca and I will look into that to get estimates from them.
DW: concerns expressed about care taken for shipments, insurance costs, has experienced damage to shipments despite insurance
MP: WD Mayer is a book moving company that was used for shipping to Boston; located in various places in us. we have a hi degree of confidence in their work.
DR: paid by the load not by the item; smaller shipments of items sent through courier system
MK: Metro consortium signed an agreement with IA, NY folks should look into that
BL: comment in some ways we are already doing this shuffling when we do gap fills and special requests. i know field has ill'd material to sil to scan, etc. so i think we have some of the workflow in place
DW: i agree. the work u and grace do in gemini is that. what needs to be looked at is priorities; are patrons requests going to be the priority, permissions, or will the collections committee decide
BL: will prioritization start with the collections group then go to the larger group?
DR: that makes sense, as jane suggested some of the $ can be for the priorities of the collections grp and some $ ofr the patron requests.
JS: there is probably overlap between those two groups
BM: seems like this discussion is complementary to the sort of thing we've (the collections group) been grappling with already
MK: next step is to go back and think about how this might work and talk to your directors
JM: how done of a deal is this?
MK: not done at all. If people don't agree to this...maybe a hybrid situation?
JM: what is the frequency of shipments? would this be entirely request driven?
MK: envisioning less frequent medium sized shipments; discussion came about as to needing a high impact, flexible,
SP: trying to figure out how this would work? if list starts growing, and x comes from the field, they can wait until a critical mass and then ships all at once? there will be desire to have your collections scanned so that it completes a shipment. so field could ill to nybg to make their shipment. we just need to know what the cost break is.
DW: yeah I was wondering where does the cost effectiveness breaks off; what about wonderfetch and tracking? seems complicated
BL: Grace keeps track of all this for shipments to and from the Field and updates the portal to reflect the proper contributor information
MK: let's say 20K allocated to NJ scanning facility for NYBG and AMNH to spend – we could see later that maybe the Boston facility is running out of money and transfer some from the NJ facility to the Boston facility; waiting for the shipments to fill up & the ILL situation would lead to double shipping; problem is identifying high impact bigger chunks with flexibility; nix SP's idea; continue with fedex for smaller gap-fills
Next call in August, Doug & Michelle to doodle to continue with rest of July agenda
