Posts
TIC meeting April 2012
13 years ago
10/7/10
Grant-funded Interface Specialist posting now out
The Technical Infrastructure Committee will function as the search committee for this 1/2 time/2yr. position. We've posted information about this opening widely. Qualified staff at OH5 institutions should discuss with the library director whether a release-time option might be available should they wish to apply. The posting can be found here.
10/1/10
Steering Committe Update September 28
1) Committee updates
Technical Infrastructure Committee- Staff for metadata working meeting has been identified. It looks like it will be a full day meeting on Nov 1 at OWU. At the meeting participants will review the OhioLink metadata application profile and will have a brief presentation from Kenyon about how they do metadata control. Then participants will go over the master spreadsheet which list most digital collections at the Five Colleges and the metadata elements that are used in each, from this the group will try to develop best practices that expand on the OhioLink metadata application profile.
Staff Development- On The Horizon: Emerging Learning Technologies workshop (Gadget Days) is underway. Everyone should have received an announcement by now.
2) Campus updates
Oberlin- One proposal revised and funded about Spanish literature/Hispanic studies interviews, funded at $1,800.
Denison- One proposal accepted for digitizing a herbarium collection in biology. Scottie is in process of meeting with recipients to get the approval letter and acceptance forms signed.
OWU- Steering committee set deadline at Dec. 1 and are working on getting proposals in by then. There is an Oct 22 workshop as kickoff which features one project and provides information to faculty about how to propose and expectations. They are creating a dedicated scanning room and are purchasing new equipment so that faculty and students can easily use it. The three approved projects are all still in process.
Kenyon- No report, committee hasn’t meet
Wooster- Their digital specialist is leaving. To replace her the library is working with the art history department to merge two half time positions so they can post for a full time person.
3) DRC update
OhioLink is updating to 1.6.2 this week, so don’t add anything to your DRC instance until next week. The new instances have been created, this update is moving everything to a new server environment. Alan says that everyone in the DRMC is excited for what is coming up and thinks the bad times are behind us.
There is some discussion about scholarly articles and their display in the DRC. Particularly citation display and some nifty things Harvard does we’d like to emulate. For now, interface improvements are waiting until the upgrade is done. Soon after the migration there will be test instances that can each institution can use to test modifications to their own interface. The plan is to have each institution develop its own instance of the DRC, then projects can be brought together through a single website or search.
4) Making proposals available.
The original plan to wait until acceptance forms are complete before making proposals publicly available is taking too long. Now Catalina will put a link from the blog so that they can be shared and used as examples for new projects, any newly approved proposals should be sent to her for inclusion.
5) Interface specialist position description/announcement
The position description sent out by Alan is approved. Alan and Susan will post the position with a deadline of November 1st. The technical infrastructure committee will be the search committee. There is some discussion about replacement staff and benefits. Benefits will not be provided b/c its half time, this will be more like an intern position. If we hire an internal candidate then benefits for them will be sorted out. As previously discussed the position will be posted publicly from the start, though internal candidates are allowed to apply.
6) Requirements and sample award letters
The recommendation was for a standard acceptance form and guidelines for writing approval letters. Review of acceptance form. What are the Mellon grant and consortrial policies referred to in the form? Susan provided a link to the Mellon policy, for consortial policy are we referring to faculty guidelines? Mark will changing the wording to name the Mellon grant policies specifically and change “constorial policies” to “faculty guidelines.” He will also update the wording so it states written copyright permissions are needed. Each institution will share standard letters for documenting copyright permission on the NGL Google site.
Approval letter guidelines are approved of by the committee, each school can write their own letters based on these guideline. Mark will update the acceptance form with the above changes and will make the polices referred to available and then send it out again for approval.
7) Equipment purchased with grant funds
If the grant pays for the purchase of equipment does the equipment belong to the faculty or the library? As an example, Denison purchased a specific camera lens though the library doesn’t own the camera its going on, so they are letting the lens stay with the department. The only other instance is at Wooster where digital recorders are being purchased and will belong to the library, this was decided through a discussion with the faculty member before the proposal was accepted. Decision that we won’t have a written rule but it should be decided locally for each project based on the equipment and circumstances.
10) Survey
We have a 88% response and probably aren’t getting any more. Catalina and Ron will work together to produce some meaningful results from the raw data.
Technical Infrastructure Committee- Staff for metadata working meeting has been identified. It looks like it will be a full day meeting on Nov 1 at OWU. At the meeting participants will review the OhioLink metadata application profile and will have a brief presentation from Kenyon about how they do metadata control. Then participants will go over the master spreadsheet which list most digital collections at the Five Colleges and the metadata elements that are used in each, from this the group will try to develop best practices that expand on the OhioLink metadata application profile.
Staff Development- On The Horizon: Emerging Learning Technologies workshop (Gadget Days) is underway. Everyone should have received an announcement by now.
2) Campus updates
Oberlin- One proposal revised and funded about Spanish literature/Hispanic studies interviews, funded at $1,800.
Denison- One proposal accepted for digitizing a herbarium collection in biology. Scottie is in process of meeting with recipients to get the approval letter and acceptance forms signed.
OWU- Steering committee set deadline at Dec. 1 and are working on getting proposals in by then. There is an Oct 22 workshop as kickoff which features one project and provides information to faculty about how to propose and expectations. They are creating a dedicated scanning room and are purchasing new equipment so that faculty and students can easily use it. The three approved projects are all still in process.
Kenyon- No report, committee hasn’t meet
Wooster- Their digital specialist is leaving. To replace her the library is working with the art history department to merge two half time positions so they can post for a full time person.
3) DRC update
OhioLink is updating to 1.6.2 this week, so don’t add anything to your DRC instance until next week. The new instances have been created, this update is moving everything to a new server environment. Alan says that everyone in the DRMC is excited for what is coming up and thinks the bad times are behind us.
There is some discussion about scholarly articles and their display in the DRC. Particularly citation display and some nifty things Harvard does we’d like to emulate. For now, interface improvements are waiting until the upgrade is done. Soon after the migration there will be test instances that can each institution can use to test modifications to their own interface. The plan is to have each institution develop its own instance of the DRC, then projects can be brought together through a single website or search.
4) Making proposals available.
The original plan to wait until acceptance forms are complete before making proposals publicly available is taking too long. Now Catalina will put a link from the blog so that they can be shared and used as examples for new projects, any newly approved proposals should be sent to her for inclusion.
5) Interface specialist position description/announcement
The position description sent out by Alan is approved. Alan and Susan will post the position with a deadline of November 1st. The technical infrastructure committee will be the search committee. There is some discussion about replacement staff and benefits. Benefits will not be provided b/c its half time, this will be more like an intern position. If we hire an internal candidate then benefits for them will be sorted out. As previously discussed the position will be posted publicly from the start, though internal candidates are allowed to apply.
6) Requirements and sample award letters
The recommendation was for a standard acceptance form and guidelines for writing approval letters. Review of acceptance form. What are the Mellon grant and consortrial policies referred to in the form? Susan provided a link to the Mellon policy, for consortial policy are we referring to faculty guidelines? Mark will changing the wording to name the Mellon grant policies specifically and change “constorial policies” to “faculty guidelines.” He will also update the wording so it states written copyright permissions are needed. Each institution will share standard letters for documenting copyright permission on the NGL Google site.
Approval letter guidelines are approved of by the committee, each school can write their own letters based on these guideline. Mark will update the acceptance form with the above changes and will make the polices referred to available and then send it out again for approval.
7) Equipment purchased with grant funds
If the grant pays for the purchase of equipment does the equipment belong to the faculty or the library? As an example, Denison purchased a specific camera lens though the library doesn’t own the camera its going on, so they are letting the lens stay with the department. The only other instance is at Wooster where digital recorders are being purchased and will belong to the library, this was decided through a discussion with the faculty member before the proposal was accepted. Decision that we won’t have a written rule but it should be decided locally for each project based on the equipment and circumstances.
10) Survey
We have a 88% response and probably aren’t getting any more. Catalina and Ron will work together to produce some meaningful results from the raw data.
9/21/10
Steering Committee update - Sept. 15, 2010
1) Committee Reports
· Staff Development (Amy) – Plans are being finalized for the two Gadget Days, October 18th at Denison, October 28th at Oberlin
· Technical Infrastructure Committee (Alan) -- List of hardware and software being updated. Jason from Kenyon will attend next meeting to talk about Drupal, general purpose web content management system. Plans in the works for a meeting to develop best practices for metadata creation in our projects, to be hosted by OWU. Recommendation about how to spend the consortial $40,000 equipment money will be shared later with the Steering Committee.
2) Campus Updates
· OWU – faculty workshop scheduled for October 22nd – “Mellon Grant Success Stories” – Liaison Dee Peterson and Digital Librarian Emily Haddaway will discuss their collaborative digital project with Professor Anne Sokolsky. Information about how to submit a proposal, expectations of librarians and faculty, etc. will be shared – a “mini kick-off event”
· COW – Digital proposal approved – “Collecting and digitizing farmer interviews in Wayne County, Ohio.” Digital Services Associate has given her notice. Search will be undertaken to replace her.
· Oberlin – Two projects recently approved – “King-Crane Commission”, budget of $4,000. Travel to Library of Congress and other institutions will be involved. “Geological features project” has been approved and funded with a budget of $4,000. Project is being revised. “Hispanic Studies” proposal has been revised, and there is a chance it will be funded at a budget of $2,000.
· Denison – Local steering committee meeting next week. Two possible projects are in the works – Geosciences project to digitize specimens in the department and a Biology project to digitize the university herbarium collection.
· Kenyon – Four approved projects, two involving hiring of students. Working out where students will work and use equipment, tasks, etc. Will scan, possibly write metadata – will depend on the project.
3) Award and Acceptance letters
Ray is concerned that the faculty guidelines do not match the requirements listed in the award and acceptance letters. Following discussion, we agreed that this content would be standard for each college, but the language used in our letters can be modified to best suit the culture of each school. Sample letters from Oberlin and OWU will be sent out at the same time.
4) Interface Specialist
Job description has been reviewed by Technical Infrastructure Committee. Alan asked us to send our comments about the description to him. Hopes to send us a final draft next week. The T.I.Committee will review resumes, select candidates, and interview. After discussion, consensus that the position will be an “open search, internal applicants free to apply,” with one inclusive call for candidates.
Other grant business
Catalina reported an 84% response rate to the technology survey she sent out. Committee asked Catalina to send each of us the names of staff members at our schools who did not complete the survey, hoping to get closer to 100%.
Interim reports from each school and the heads of Staff Development and Technical Infrastructure Committee are due today. Bulleted lists are o.k. Send to both Mark and Susan.
8/31/10
Steering Committee Update - August 31, 2010
- Alan Boyd asked if the infrastructure committee needs additional topics to discuss. Carol Holliger suggested that the infrastructure committee should review the staff survey results.
- Amy Badertscher reported that staff development committee has just received the survey results and has not yet met to discuss them. She reminded the steering committee of the two Gadget Days scheduled for the 18th at Denison and the 28h at Oberlin. The comments from the survey will likely influence the topics discussed and demonstrated during the Gadget Days.
- Campus reports included a new proposal at Kenyon. The significant issue for this proposal is the requirement by the faculty member to control the timing of the open publication of the results. After some discussion of this (because the spirit of the Mellon NGL Grant is to have the materials made openly available as soon as possible), the steering committee decided to ask the faculty member to set a date for making the material open, based on the scholarship requirements.
- The steering committee discussed the component of grant to encourage open access for scholarly communication. Ray English described the efforts taken to date at Oberlin to encourage and educate faculty on this issue. A long discussion followed, through which it became clear that open access is a large and complicated issue that will take great patience. We reminded ourselves that each campus needs to come up with an approach to address scholarly communication, but that since each campus is at a different point in the understanding and acceptance of open access, each campus plan will be different.
8/23/10
Quick Conference Report
I was fortunate to attend the Society of American Archivists Conference in DC this year and wanted to provide a short note on some of the more relevant parts of the conference. A number of the sessions were very informative. The most useful was on the new Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines for still images. In addition to providing a very detailed system for measuring the quality of scans, the guidelines include suggested best practices, and can be a great resource for some of our scanning projects. Another good presentation was about very large digital collections and how to assign metadata giving three different examples of outsourcing, using keyword searching, and grouping multiple objects with one set of metadata. I also got to hear about how web interfaces can be improved through sessions on user studies and better use of search engine optimization.
While the sessions were good, the best part was probably the networking. SAA is a small conference so I had the chance to meet archivists and librarians involved with an assortment of digital projects at the Online Archives of California, JSTOR, New York Public Library, and colleges and universities from across the country. It was really inspiring to learn about all the different digital efforts that are underway, but I can't wait until next year when I can brag about all the projects the Ohio 5 has accomplished!
While the sessions were good, the best part was probably the networking. SAA is a small conference so I had the chance to meet archivists and librarians involved with an assortment of digital projects at the Online Archives of California, JSTOR, New York Public Library, and colleges and universities from across the country. It was really inspiring to learn about all the different digital efforts that are underway, but I can't wait until next year when I can brag about all the projects the Ohio 5 has accomplished!
8/19/10
Steering Cttee Update Aug. 19, 2010
Committee updates
a. Denison – Three projects have been approved and work began this summer. They are from Black Studies, Theater, and Women’s Studies. One more from Geosciences is in preparation. After the Denison Selection Committee re-convenes in early September, Scottie will send the letters and acceptance forms to current grant recipients.
b. Kenyon – Five projects have been approved. Letters and agreement forms were sent out to the grant recipients. All were signed and returned. Work will start with the Fall semester.
c. Oberlin – Two projects have been awarded grants, one processing the archives of former Oberlin President King who chaired a commission for U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, and the other from Geology wherein images of geological features will be processed. Work will begin after the semester starts. Ray will send the award letters and acceptance forms to recipients soon.
d. OWU – They are on track with a link for the grant on their home page. Two projects
e. COW – The first proposal is almost ready for review. It is an oral history project from environmental studies regarding the history of dairy farms in the local area.
Update on the staffing survey
Catalina reported that few responses have been received, but she will send a reminder soon and follow through.
2-year timeline in grant proposal
Mark noted that we are behind schedule. See the timeline he sent via e-mail and see how we can move along more quickly. Catalina has discussed this at COW and she will meet shortly with Kenyon about it and the assessment plan. Note that a detailed assessment plan is part of our responsibility. Ron will work on getting this completed with Catalina’s help.
The Scholarly Communication component needs to be addressed. Oberlin has long been working on this, and Denison will start this Fall. Scottie meets with the Provost today and has invited Ray to give an open talk on the topic November 4th followed by a meeting of the Library Advisory Committee. Summer of 2010 was supposed to be focused on library staff and Summer of 2011 was to focus on faculty. The directors need to discuss how to move forward as a group on this topic.
Interim reports are due September 15th to Mark. LOOK at the timeline and prepare your report accordingly.
"Hardware and software" ($40,000) in grant budget - how do we want to spend this money?
We will ask Alan to discuss this on the next call. Ray will alert Alan about this.
a. Staff Development
Planning is underway for the ‘gadget days’ tentatively scheduled for Oct. 18 at Denison and Oct. 28 at Oberlin (October breaks for those schools, so better facilities and parking available). The committee is meeting by conference calls and details will soon follow re. the October events.
b. Technical Infrastructure – Alan is on vacation, so there’s nothing new to report at the moment.
Institution updatesPlanning is underway for the ‘gadget days’ tentatively scheduled for Oct. 18 at Denison and Oct. 28 at Oberlin (October breaks for those schools, so better facilities and parking available). The committee is meeting by conference calls and details will soon follow re. the October events.
b. Technical Infrastructure – Alan is on vacation, so there’s nothing new to report at the moment.
a. Denison – Three projects have been approved and work began this summer. They are from Black Studies, Theater, and Women’s Studies. One more from Geosciences is in preparation. After the Denison Selection Committee re-convenes in early September, Scottie will send the letters and acceptance forms to current grant recipients.
b. Kenyon – Five projects have been approved. Letters and agreement forms were sent out to the grant recipients. All were signed and returned. Work will start with the Fall semester.
c. Oberlin – Two projects have been awarded grants, one processing the archives of former Oberlin President King who chaired a commission for U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, and the other from Geology wherein images of geological features will be processed. Work will begin after the semester starts. Ray will send the award letters and acceptance forms to recipients soon.
d. OWU – They are on track with a link for the grant on their home page. Two projects
e. COW – The first proposal is almost ready for review. It is an oral history project from environmental studies regarding the history of dairy farms in the local area.
Update on the staffing survey
Catalina reported that few responses have been received, but she will send a reminder soon and follow through.
2-year timeline in grant proposal
Mark noted that we are behind schedule. See the timeline he sent via e-mail and see how we can move along more quickly. Catalina has discussed this at COW and she will meet shortly with Kenyon about it and the assessment plan. Note that a detailed assessment plan is part of our responsibility. Ron will work on getting this completed with Catalina’s help.
The Scholarly Communication component needs to be addressed. Oberlin has long been working on this, and Denison will start this Fall. Scottie meets with the Provost today and has invited Ray to give an open talk on the topic November 4th followed by a meeting of the Library Advisory Committee. Summer of 2010 was supposed to be focused on library staff and Summer of 2011 was to focus on faculty. The directors need to discuss how to move forward as a group on this topic.
Interim reports are due September 15th to Mark. LOOK at the timeline and prepare your report accordingly.
"Hardware and software" ($40,000) in grant budget - how do we want to spend this money?
We will ask Alan to discuss this on the next call. Ray will alert Alan about this.
8/9/10
About Scheduling
Next week I'll finish my introductory visits to each of the colleges, which means I'll have even more projects to start on. I'm trying to balance hours spent working for each school while still making sure that every project reaches a timely and successful outcome. For now I'm focusing on projects that are already underway or those with a timeline that starts this summer, but if you're ready to begin a project, want my input, or are just feeling a little neglected please don't hesitate to contact to me. Email is always best at caoyler@gmail.com.
I'm also tracking when I'm on the road, and you can see when I'll be visiting your school through the NGL calendar at https://sites.google.com/site/oh5nextgenerationlibrary/Home/calendar-1. If you want to add a visit to the calendar just let me know and we can set something up.
I'm also tracking when I'm on the road, and you can see when I'll be visiting your school through the NGL calendar at https://sites.google.com/site/oh5nextgenerationlibrary/Home/calendar-1. If you want to add a visit to the calendar just let me know and we can set something up.
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