Steering Committee Minutes 9/25/12

Technical Infrastructure Committee.  Catalina’s last day of work will be October 12.  Discussion focused on both what we need to do before she leaves and how we will cope afterward.  The newspaper loading is coming along well—with three schools that now have at least some issues that are public.  Catalina has been working with library staff on the loading process.  Kenyon in particular will need some help in that regard.  Since Omeka isn’t that great as a portal, Catalina is working on establishing a WordPress presence on Bluehost that will function as a portal for the project.  We will need to decide what we want Matt to accomplish and who will supervise him.  He’s just recently finished some DRC work for Oberlin.  Catalina plans to make final campus visits next week. 

The portal should be able to handle the organization of information related to the grant report.  Mark noted that we needed to get as many reports on faculty projects submitted as soon as possible.  Catalina will send a list of the reports that have been completed so far. We will have some extra money in the current grant from the lines for both Catalina and Matt and also surpluses in individual projects.  We have until March to do the final report.  We can work on spending out project funds until then.  For projects involving classes that have not yet been taught, we can ask faculty to describe how the collection will be used in teaching. Our basic goal will be to have all projects completed except for final reports and the final stipends by the end of 2012.

Staff Development Committee.  The faculty videos are the one remaining project.  An Oberlin student is editing them.  Three videos are finished, two are in final stages, and three more are in the pipeline.  All schools are represented except for Kenyon.

Campus Updates.  Oberlin has recently hired a catalog department student assistant to assist with one project.  Mary just met with the Denison liaison librarians to review the status of projects and a timetable for reports from faculty and librarians.  Wooster is working to recruit two projects—one from the art department and one from the museum.

Deans’ letter of support for the next grant.  The deans will be meeting at Ohio Wesleyan on October 24 and will need to put together background information related to the letter of support for discussion with them at that meeting.  Ray summarized the points that need to be addressed in the deans’ letter.  We need to have an overall summary of how the current grant has changed campus climates.  It was agreed that each school will prepare summaries with specific examples and quotes from participating faculty.  The summaries, which can be based on project reports, videos, and contact with faculty, should be sent to Ray by October 12.  He can then develop a summary for the deans’ letter.

We also need to define the digital scholarship position carefully and we will want the deans to express support for the position, as we define it, in their letter.  Cathi mentioned an example of a digital humanities position at Yale that she will circulate.  She and Mark will draw on it to create a first draft of the position description.  We will share discuss the description with the deans at the October 24 meeting.

The background we provide the deans for the meeting will also need to get them thinking about the question of the grants’ impact on the faculty reward system and about strategies for sustainability.

New grant proposal discussions with staff.  Alan will trim down the précis of the grant that we sent earlier to Mellon—and we can use the shortened version in conversations with library staff to both inform them about and engage them with the new grant proposal.