Coordinating Committees

UWDICC
Meeting Minutes for September 16, 2009 at 3:00

Teleconference

Present: Michael Doylen (chair); Michael Edmonds; Peter Gorman; Tony Gulig; Lisa Jewell; Paige Mano; Nerissa Nelson; Rebecca Peters; Joshua Ranger; Mark Rozmarynowski

Absent: Alison Jones; Pat Wilkinson

The meeting was called to order at 3:05 p.m. by MD.

1. Future meetings. MD welcomed new members PM, NN, and RP. Agreed to hold the next meeting on October 7 from 1:00 to 2:00. Future meetings will be held on the first Wednesday of each month from 2:30 to 3:30, as follows:  November 4, December 2, January 6, February 3, March 3, April 7, May 5, June 2, and July 7. MD will send out teleconference information in advance of each meeting. If there is no business to discuss, meetings will be cancelled. Agreed that committee members would each take minutes in an alpha rotation.

MD asked for a volunteer to serve as the committee's representative on the Program Committee for the CUWL conference in 2010.

2. Project Proposals.

Bulletin of the Wisconsin Geologic and Natural History Survey. After brief discussion, the proposal was accepted.

Midwest Archives Conference (MAC) journal backfile. PG asked if the proposal implied a continuing commitment by UWDCC to digitize/provide online access to future issues. JR believes this is the case, although MAC may be able to provide electronic copies in the future. MR asked about the appropriateness of this proposal for UWDCC. How does it fall within scope of the digital collections? JR noted that the project does not involve digitization of unique or rare materials held by UW Libraries; copies of the MAC journal are easily found in libraries across the country. However, the proposal would benefit students enrolled in the archival education programs at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee. Discussion followed regarding status of the proposed project as a repository collection. JR suggested that MAC Council may prefer to have the journal treated like other digital collections of journals. He requested that UWDCC provide a separate project brief for this alternative and offered to present both to MAC Council at its meeting in Madison on October 22.

PG also stated that archiving MAC's journal on a continuing basis (treating this as a "forever project") would require a separate proposal, since it would entail a committed annual expenditure, as opposed to the fixed cost represented in the current proposal for the backfile.

UW Whitewater university photographs. UWDICC rejected the proposal in spring 2009 for several reasons, including the uncertain research potential of the digital collection and the size of the proposal. Nevertheless, some members of the committee would like to find a way to provide UW archives with a means of providing online access to selections from their university photograph collections. The group agreed that all UW campuses should have an equal opportunity to participate, that submissions would be solicited in rounds, and that a cap should be placed on the volume of photographs submitted by each campus in any round. Also discussed the value of encouraging submissions based on subject matter in order to give some unity to the digital collection. JR and MD will pursue with UW System Archives Council at its November 5-6 meeting in Madison. MD will notify Karen Weston that UWDICC has rejected her proposal.

3. UWDCC Updates (PG)

Repository Infrastructure and Research Discovery Interface. PG reminded the group of the work of CUWL's Resource Discovery Exploratory Task Force, which is spearheading the effort to identify ways to improve access to UW library resources wherever it resides. What is UWDICC's role with regard to the work of the task force? JR noted that the task force has previously invited a representative from UWDICC to attend their meetings. As the group meets in Madison, our representative would likely come from UWDCC. PG noted that he is in touch with task force members, although communication is informal at this point. Group agreed that it should remain informed about the work of the task force, but that no immediate action is required.

Twitter feed. Noted that UWDC have 300 followers on Twitter. 30% tweets have click-throughs to content. UW-Madison's Alumni Association and University Communications regularly re-tweet messages. He encouraged members of the committee to promote on each campus.

Zazzle.com. UWDCC is marketing images from the digital collections on zazzle.com as a service to users. Individuals may purchase prints in various sizes. UWDCC is monitoring to determine if this service is worth continuing.

Respectfully submitted,
Michael Doylen