Steering Committe Update October 12

General Announcements

• Mary Prophet will be joining the committee as Scottie begins her exodus from Denison
• Copyright and permission forms will be shared on the website as a resource
• Each campus will develop their own copyright and permission forms based on input from their legal counsel
• Cat and Alan are talking with John Davidson at OhioLINK about customizing the new DSpace interface for enhanced display of scholarly articles.

Committee Reports

Technical Infrastructure Committee

• Ad for the Digital Initiatives Interface Specialist has been widely posted
  
• Equipment requests and purchases will be tracked on a spreadsheet available on the website.
• $40K available.
• Big purchase requests will be approved by the steering committee
• Small purchase requests will be approved by the TI committee
• Project purchases will stay with the individual library rather than migrate to departmental or individual faculty ownership
• Metadata Meeting is planned for Nov. 1, 2010 at OWU. ~20 expected to attend.
• Outcome expected to be a set of data elements that can be standard across the projects

Staff Development Committee

• Gadget Days on track. 10/18 @ Denison; 10/28 @ Oberlin
• Will begin to plan for a Copyright Workshop

Assessment Group

• Ad Hoc (Ron & Cat) reviewed the Staff Technology Use & Knowledge survey; found that nothing significant stood out
• Date will be shared with Steering Committee for further discussion if needed

Campus Updates

OWU

• Call for proposals out. Two rounds: one due 12/1/10; second due tba spring
• Mini-kickoff workshop for faculty 10/22/10 repeated at two different times
• OWU requests that faculty have access to the list of funded proposals as examples

OBE

• Campus committee is setting the deadline for their 2^nd round of proposals

KEN

• Campus committee has met and is deciding on deadline for 2^nd round of proposals that will probably be completed over the summer

WOO

• Campus committee deciding when to put out the 2^nd call

DEN

• Call going out in November for summer project proposals
• Open Access topic has been launched via discussion with Academic Affairs and faculty meeting announcement.
• Nov 4, 1010 Open Access kick-off event scheduled. Open to the whole campus. Ray and the chair of Oberlin’s Library Committee will speak at the event.

Late Update

I've missed a couple monthly updates, but here's a brief recap of the projects I worked on in August and September.

The projects getting the most of my time are at Denison, the Writing our Story and Looking Back, Looking Forward proposals particularly. I've been working with Denison staff to sort out metadata, set up workflow, and create a space for the collection. A test version of Looking Back, Looking Forward is even online at http://drcdev.ohiolink.edu/handle/123456789/8775. I've also worked a fair amount on improving the processes and appearance of the Oberlin Scholarship project, though it'll be a few more months before those changes move into production. As for the other schools and projects I've tried to be involved in meetings and helped with related tasks as they've come up. As projects get going and deadlines approach, I expect to be spending more time with the other campuses.

Gadget Days has also been a big task for me, organizing the Oberlin event has been especially time consuming. Other committee work, like administering the staff technology survey, planning for the metadata meeting, and updating the internal NGL site have also been a part of my regular work. With what's left of my time I've been researching technology we are or will be using, in particular trying to become more familiar DSpace.

Open Access

Open Access is an important part of the Next Generation Library project, and next week is a time to celebrate it with Open Access Week!

In addition to reminding you about Open Access Week, this blog post is also here to announce that the legal documents for ensuring Open Access for NGL projects are available. For librarians working on Next Generation Library projects we've added a new section to the internal NGL site where legal documents for getting permission to use copyrighted materials are stored. Be sure to get the documents completed so we continue to provide Open Access.

Oberlin College has put up a simple lobby exhibit in the library that highlights the OC faculty's 11/09 Open Access resolution and the debut later this fall of the OberlinScholarshipOA institutional repository which will run on their OhioLINK DSPACE server. A library blog entry also announces OA week to the campus community.

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.

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.

Steering Committee update - Sept. 15, 2010

1) Committee Reports

· Staff Development (Amy) – Plans are being finalized for the two Gadget Days, October 18^th at Denison, October 28^th 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 22^nd – “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.

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.