Steering Committee Update—Feb. 3, 2011

Present on call: Badertscher (KEN), Christel (WOO), Prophet (DEN), English (OBE), Boyd (OBE), Peoples (OWU), Holliger (OWU) (scribe), Upfold (OH5), Oyler (OH5), Palmer (OH5).
Absent: Griggs (KEN)
 Recorder – Holliger

Corrections to last call minutes

·         Amy’s name left off the list of attendees

·         OWU update – Catalina will be coming to lead a metadata workshop on February 18^th, not March 18^th. The Krygier/Walker proposal involves the overlaying of historic maps of Columbus neighborhoods with current maps in order to analyze how they have changed. 

 Committee updates

a.       Technical Infrastructure –

·         Kenyon decided to change its purchase request for a slide scanner. Committee approved the modified purchase request.

·         Paperwork is being finalized for Matt. Agreement has been reached regarding remote guidelines (working from home). He will meet with Catalina soon. Plan is for him to work ½ day every other week at OWU (home base). Committee will meet with Matt once he has worked about a month. Catalina will coordinate his time and efforts. Alan, Mark and Catalina will meet with Matt every other week.

·         Catalina received a positive employment review. Now that Matt is onboard, she will spend more time “communicating best practices.” Thanks to Alan for spearheading the review. 

b.      Staff development –

·         Committee will be meeting soon.

·         First ALCTS webinar held on January 26^th at Oberlin with five in attendance. Topic was copyright (very basic). Catalina sent link for archived webinar to those who requested it.

·         Host for next ALCTS webinar (April 13^th) has not been selected.

·         Probably does not make sense for us to travel to other schools for a one hour webinar – will proceed with current plan of schools taking turns “hosting” and Catalina sending out link to archived version. 

  Stipends for faculty – Receive full amount or are taxes and benefits taken out of the stipend?

·         Consistency among our schools is not possible. Our accounting practices differ. We will all follow past practice with regard to stipend payment.

 Best Practices -- Catalina

a.       Shall we add statement on “landing page” of each collection that the project was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation? Statement on “landing page” about authors/creators of collection? (faculty/librarian/student, etc.) Committee agreed that some consistency might be good. Carol will send e-mail with OWU prototype for discussion on next call.

b.      Creation of collection level cataloging record for each project? Again, consistency might be considered. Carol will send e-mail with prototype of cataloging record from OWU to discuss on next call. Michael will add this as an agenda item for the Summon meeting that will be held on February 10^th.

c.       Standard assessment of projects? Alan proposes that we get feedback from student assistants/workers who are employed under the grants. Ray, Alan, and Catalina will work on two or three standard questions we might use for assessment purposes and send them via e-mail to the group.

d.      Better communication while proposals are being conceptualized, internally on each campus and between schools – Agreed to communicate with Catalina earlier about possible proposals so that she can catch any institutional overlap. On the local level, suggestion that there be ample communication between librarian liaisons during the development stage of each proposal in order to catch institutional knowledge and avoid duplication.

Campus updates

a.       Oberlin

·         Four new projects have been approved – 1) Hispanic and Latin American Studies --  audio recordings and interview transcripts  2) Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association materials in Archives 3) Geology project -- digitization of invertebrate fossils. Camera equipment being purchased. Will be on loan to Geology Department for project and then return to library. 4) Second phase of King-Crane Commission digitization project, concentrating on materials external to Oberlin.

·         $31,000 of their $50,000 allotment has been committed.

·         New project proposal coming up – Oberlin history as American history (will involve digitization of portions of student newspaper).

b.      Kenyon – Nothing new to report.

c.       OWU – Carol approved request of faculty member to realign budget lines without going over total amount of grant. Consensus that this is a decision to be made between chair of local steering committee and individual faculty member.

d.      Denison – Two possible grant proposals on the way.

e.      Wooster – Awarded geology project that was discussed in earlier call. February 14 is the deadline for new proposals.

 Develop new proposal or request grant extension from Mellon? Will discuss on next call. Susan will contact campuses individually to get spending information and monies already committed to projects.

 Report to Mellon Foundation – Susan sent a list of our projects to the Mellon Foundation – Received positive response.