Coordinating Committees
Minutes DICC Meeting
8/23/2007 9:30AM.
780 Regent St., Madison
Present: Ranger (Chair), Edmonds, Gorman, Rozmarynowski, Tobias, Wilkinson, Moriarty.
Guests: Ed VanGemert, Dorothea Salo, Troy Reeves
Excused: Beck, Doylen, Hagness, Gulig
Purpose of Committee:
Ranger stated the importance for having a set of priorities that will help dictate where energies are spent and for CUWL to know where we are going. We have four sources of where these ideas can come from: previous experiences of the constituent committees (UWDC and Minds groups), the CUWL Charge, CUWL strategic plan, and our own initiatives. The various priorities decided upon today will be brought together in a document for the committee consideration at the next meeting.
Charge:
The committee reviewed the charge provided by CUWL and the results of Ranger’s survey of the committee regarding the charge. After discussion, the committee agreed to the following priorities--based on the charge--that the committee will pursue over the next 1-2 year period.
Priority 1: Develop a comprehensive digital plan.
Priority 2: Analyze needs of libraries and faculty regarding additional digitization efforts.
Priority 3: Enhance access. This process will be user focused.
Strategic Directions:
Wilkinson covered the origins of CUWL’s strategic plan. The key of the plan is to focus on specific activities and goals that could be reached. Coordinating Committees are to develop ACTION ITEMS that plug into these strategic directions. All/Most of these objectives can be fit into DICC business.
The committee talked about several of the directions and objective separately.
Objective 1.2 - “Maximize Success of the UW Digital Collections.” Tobias expressed the need to define “success.” Discussion continued. There was general agreement for the need to switch from focusing on input (so many items/pages added) to concentrating on learning outcomes. We need to show that these collections work to feed into external initiatives. It was also agreed that more detailed statistics are needed.
Objective 1.3: “Determine the role of the institutional repository. The committee understood that the MINDS program needed to be enhanced dramatically for CUWL to see its long term value.
Strategic Direction 2: “Build partnerships for learning and scholarship. The committee noted that UWDC has neglected the need to build partnerships.
Strategic Direction 3: “Embrace innovation in services and operations.” The committee understands it is encouraged to think innovatively to achieve results and efficiencies.
Objective 3.1: “Develop a culture of assessment by collecting library data that is relevant to current library services and is outcomes based. The committee understood that some research has been done on UWDC projects (FRUS, Ada James) and that most of the results still pending. Edmonds reported that WHS has hired a consultant for assessment of their services. Tobias and Gorman stated that they would like to export survey protocols that they are developing to other campuses for testing at other UW sites. This committee would help with that by, among other things, looking into the means to conduct the surveys elsewhere. This might include hiring someone to do the assessment.
Tobias made known that the UWDC is prepared to make the changes necessary to make the collection better for users. The need perhaps is to shift from quantity to quality. It is important however that CUWL understands that the research and development work that this process requires will come at the expense of production.
After discussing the objectives, the committee agreed to the following priorities or “action items” –based on the strategic plan—that the committee will pursue over the next 1-2 year period.
ACTION ITEMS:
1. Support the development of tools and methods to assess quality, usability of UWDC and MINDS.
2. Review criteria for inclusion in UWDC and MINDS.
3. Refine mission and scope of UWDC as well as MINDS and how other digitization models fall into place. This will be part of the comprehensive digital plan mentioned earlier.
4. Define research and development as part of UWDCC work.
5. Enhance access through investigation of reinvesting in content, new platforms, change services, and the development of mediation of content.
6. Improve established marketing plan. Investigate outside advice with emphasis on decision makers.
VanGemert excused himself to attend to other responsibilities. The committee thanked him for his attendance.
Big Ideas:
The group took part in a brainstorming session on new initiatives members thought the DICC might pursue outside of the charge and CUWL’s strategic directions.
Wilkinson suggested we consider forming a big umbrella organization like California Digital Library does.
Tobias suggested exploring and experimenting with non-traditional formats as Google increasingly is tackling big text based products. Tobias also asked what should we be doing with content that is digitized but is unable to be accessed remotely due to copyright or licensing issues.
Salo recommended an expansion of services (digitization service, for one) to faculty to help them get materials into MINDS. She also asked the group to consider taking on some of the digital curation role that will be required of digitized or born digital materials.
Edmonds asked that we shift all of our work and thinking to emphasize users, to concentrate on the outputs and how those meet the needs of our users.
Rozmarynowski recommended a shared UW system project that would include materials that are common to all campuses (such as yearbooks or theses). He also asked if other non-UW institutions might be included more in our projects.
Ranger asked that the committee work on the challenges System libraries face in offline digital content, most important the migration needs of UW campuses as analog formats become obsolete (DAT, VHS, Reel to Reel audio, etc.).
LUNCH. Rozmarynowski excused himself for another meeting.
Housekeeping:
Schedule: The committee decided to work with a six meeting per year schedule with meetings every other month alternating between in-person and teleconference meetings. Teleconferences will be held in October, 2007 and in February, 2008. In person meetings will be held in December, 2007 and April, 2008. The committee will reexamine this schedule in April. The December meeting will most likely not take place in Madison. We may ask UW SP to host the meeting.
Terms: The following terms were decided upon based on member requests and committee needs:
Beck – 2 years
Doylen – 2 years
Edmonds – 3 years
Peter Gorman – switched to voting ex-officio member
Gulig – 3 years
Hagness – 2 years
Ranger – 2 years
Rozmarynowski – 3 years
Tobias – 2 years
Wilkinson – 3 years
Moriarty (or representative) – 3 years
The committee decided that the Gorman’s position, Head of the UW Digital Collections Center, should ALWAYS have a seat on the DICC as a voting member. The committee also decided, however, that this individual would NOT be able to serve as chair.
Minutes: Will rotate based on an upcoming schedule. Circulate to committee first, final copy will be posted to the CUWL website.
Email list: Committee members were asked to use digital@maillist.uwsa.edu for all housekeeping functions of the committee. This list ONLY sends mail to members of the DICC. The list will be used for scheduling of meetings, approval of UWDC projects, and sharing of draft documents. Members are to use cuwldigital@maillist.uwsa.edu for other activities. This list sends mail to all who have signed up for the list. The list will be used for discussion about issues and solutions. CUWL is dedicated to keeping non-committee members apprised of CUWL activities.
Other communication solutions: The committee talked briefly about using Xythos and/or Wiki technologies. Will discuss more in future.
Oral history/ sound collections update:
New UW historian Troy Reeves visited the meeting and reported that a group is coming on campus that will work on best practices of the preservation of digital sound.
MINDS@UW:
Salo gave the group an Introduction to MINDS@UW mentioned that only crude stats are available to us at this time to determine use. Salo mentioned that the largest difficulty in getting Faculty to use Minds is the amount of work required of them. This needs to be addressed, however mediation could become a drain on library resources.
Salo gave the committee an update of her recent activities which include research into enhancing services and presentations statewide. New projects were discussed including From UW Milwaukee came a website capture for the site, Judaica which was a product of a retiring professor. UWM is poised to push Minds much more. Salo also reported on a bibliographic application a Wendt librarian is working on that could allow faculty to easily request that articles that apply to their research be located and ingested into D-Space.
Salo praised River Falls, Whitewater and Milwaukee staffs particularly for good support in developing the repository.
After the report, it was decided that the committee will concentrate on the following priorities vis-à-vis Minds.
1) Helped define parameters of DS position. Should she be reactive or proactive?
2) Parameters of services, should we support scanning. Mediated / Unmediated.
3) Promote service to librarians. Need librarians to use it and promote it on campus.
The committee decided that a working group to examine and act on these priorities was necessary. A Digital Repository working group will be created based on a charge to be developed by Salo. The committee will need to approve the charge and set an end date for the working group’s activities. Invitations to repository liaisons to serve on the group will then be made. Most meetings will be held virtually. Moriarty stated UWSA will support some in person meetings.
UWDC
The committee offered its sincere appreciation to Nolan Pope (not present) for his leadership in helping make UWDC a success.
Proposals: The committee discussed the need for a more streamlined process for approving UWDC project proposals. The committee supports the continuation of the UWDCC’s intake of proposals three times a year. The trimester slate of submissions will come to group via email from Tobias no fewer than 2 weeks before a meeting. Members will review the proposals promptly, asking questions of Tobias so that decisions can be made at the next DICC meeting. The committee will propose to CUWL that final approval from the CUWL executive committee of proposals will no longer be necessary, that the DICC will have the final decision on whether proposals go forward. It was also decided that any changes to an approved proposal that do not result in an increase of 20% in costs will not require an additional approval by the DICC. All modified projects with costs in excess of 20% of initial approved sum, will, however, require new approval from the DICC. Changes that result in decreases in costs regardless of the amount will not require additional approval. UWDCC will inform the committee of all changes made to approved proposals at meetings however.
Proposals: The following proposals were approved:
INDIAN TREATIES – Approved. Will ask project manager more about the public domain status of these.
UW MILWAUKEE FINDING AIDS - Approved. This was a modified proposal from this summer.
HISTORY OF GAY PEOPLE’S UNION – Approved. This was a modified proposal from this summer.
Tobias distributed a production update sheet and entertained questions about various projects. Tobias reported UWDCC was at full capacity with no new projects beginning for a year.
Technology: Gorman reported that the UWDCC is looking to replace the remote data entry interface. He also stated a desire to change how objects are organized within collections, subcollections, etc.. A system to organize objects in a way that maximizes preservation, curation, discovery. To these ends they are building a Fedora repository, an open source technology that is Mellon Foundation supported, that will allow them to manage the records as one large chunk. It provides flexibility in creating collections, etc.. Fedora is able to store all the objects, their links and the metadata, independent of the indexing, access, discovery, etc..
Wilkinson stated that any upcoming proposals for new investment in state monies will probably be focused on digital initiatives rather than print. He asked if UWDC had twice as much money, what could we think about doing? Gorman answered that they would use the money for a dedicated person to handle assessment and marketing as well as additional technological staff to speed up developments as well as undertake ore effort into R&D.
Privacy: The committee talked briefly about privacy issues in photographs of individuals. Gorman stated the onus is on the faculty member proposing the project.
ImageIdeas: Ranger reported on the ImageIdeas project being run by UWEX and UW Colleges. Committee discussed the implications for the UWDC and decided that we would welcome the harvesting of our content. Re-use is part of our mission.
Committee adjourned at 2:55PM.