Libraries: DEDCC : Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes > 2008 Minutes

09/23/2008
Meeting Notes
by:Rachel Beckwith

Five Colleges DEDCC
Meeting Minutes
September 23, 2008, 3:30 – 5:00 p.m.

Present: Emily Alling , Rachel Beckwith (recorder), Marilyn Billings, Janet Ewing, Rebecca Henning, Chris Loring, David Podboy (chair), Mary Stettner.

Announcements: Rachel has taken over the DEDCC Five Colleges web site administration. David has taken over as chair of DEDCC.

Dates of fall semester meetings:

• Wednesday, October 22 at 3:30 pm

• Monday, November 24 at 10:30 am

• Wednesday, December 17 at 2:30 pm

(presumably all at Five Colleges, but David will confirm location)

FCLC update/ Next Gen Discussion

Chris: FCLC is having problems seeing a way to move forward on Next Gen/ Aquabrowser. Where would the money come from? What are the implications of UMass and Amherst joining the Boston Library Consortium in terms of WorldCat Local? AquaBrowser takes care of relevancy ranking, looks nice, and has some features users would like. Federated searching would be an important thing to sort out. FCLC would want to know more about the scope of the discovery tool. Each institution has a different perspective on AquaBrowser. For FCLC to more forward on AquaBrowser, a compelling case would have to be made that AquaBrowser represents enough of a move forward and/or can be a good tool for expanding the universe of discovery beyond the catalog. There is a lot of activity out there, and some members of FCLC are not sure it’s worth doing something as a bridge measure. And, coming full circle, where would we come up with the startup money for AquaBrowser?

Then a discussion ensued about looking to people as solutions rather than products. What about hiring a person who can set up an open source product? Although the Aleph Manager was an easy sell for provosts, it’s a different sell to hire additional new Five-College staff. We would have to pick an open source product with robust developer staff.

There is a lot of development going on, but in its infancy. If DEDCC picked up on a sense of urgency about moving forward, it was not coming from FCLC. We needed to seriously look at AquaBrowser and wanted to see the significance of WorldCat Local / BLC. The directors felt it was too important an issue given that 2 out of 5 are BLC members.

The next meeting of the BLC board is Sept. 24—we will know more then. Are there other options for them (Relay, for example)?

We came to AquaBrowser partly as a bridge because of our OPAC problems. There is no other way around our OPAC issues that won’t be expensive. The single biggest issue is relevancy ranking.

The door is not shut for FCLC, but DEDCC would have to make a very compelling case for it.

There was further discussion about how the new Aleph manager would be incorporated toward some solutions. Some felt that it is not a good time to make a bold leap forward on something like AquaBrowser, although others felt that since Chicago had paved the way, the implementation would be easier, so it really came down to cost.

David said that we need to communicate the AquaBrowser interview summaries to FCLC, and asked if we want to recommend that FCLC should purchase it?

We then went around the room, and there was a mix of responses: one yes, one no, many maybes with reservations (several people stated an inclination to wait until after the BLC board meeting when more information is known about that, and perhaps wait until the new Aleph Manager is in place as well).

Then there was a discussion about the longer-term future: what’s sustainable? Are there people at the Five-College level who have skills to deal with it? We seem to be past the stage where you just buy an ILS, and there is a need to be forward thinking.

Chris: it’s worth telling the directors if DEDCC as a whole feels that we need more people skills/ need to move in new directions in terms of strategic staffing needs.

David: will send off the summary of the AquaBrowser interviews to FCLC

Brown Bag

The Brown Bag is scheduled for next week. Rebecca can check the Alumni House, and Janet will check at Mt. Holyoke for space availability. We can focus on ELUNA, but also look at the 16 responses from the Five-College conference excel spreadsheet. The format will be informal, with each person talking for up to 15 minutes. David can talk about Computers in Libraries. Everyone should ask back at their home institutions if the people who attended ELUNA would be willing to talk. We’d like 5 people, with 2 or 3 from ELUNA and the rest from other conferences.

LITA

Marilyn wondered if anyone from Five Colleges is going, and if they could give DEDCC a report when they get back. There is a lot of next gen. stuff on the agenda. No one from DEDCC is going this year, but everyone will check at their home institutions and see if anyone is going who could report back.

Sidebar

We need to update the sidebar on the agenda. Take off “monitor digital assets discussion.” David said we could email him, and he’ll add to the list of technologies to watch. There are also the Delicious tags linked in the Ella site. Mary asked if we could embed an RSS feed on the Five-College web site, but the system won’t allow it. We also have the wiki on the Ella site that we can use. We decided to use Delicious to keep track of new technologies to watch and monitor.

Wrap up: action items and communications

• Please come with 2 or 3 ideas of projects for the next meeting. What do we want to work on?

• David will revise AquaBrowser interview summary and send it out for feedback.

• Look into spaces for Brown Bag; David will send email to FC lib

• David will look at Google excel to find people who went to ELUNA.

• Everyone can check to see who’s going to LITA and report back.

• Next location for DEDCC meeting will be confirmed.

• ACRL New England Chapter just started a new SIG for Scholarly Communication. They are planning a program for Dec 4 at the Boston Public Library. Stuart Shieber, Head of Harvard University's Scholarly Communication Office, and author of the policy that granted the University the right to make Faculty of Arts and Sciences scholarly articles freely available to the world, is the morning keynote speaker. The afternoon session will highlight recent SPARC "Right to Research" efforts and Students for Free Culture chapters at regional universities.

• For the next DEDCC meeting agenda, we will discuss archiving old meeting minutes on the web site.

• NERCOMP is taking proposals for the library track for March 10 and 11 in Providence.


	Meeting Notes > 2008 Minutes 09/23/2008 Meeting Notes by:Rachel Beckwith Five Colleges DEDCC Meeting Minutes September 23, 2008, 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. Present: Emily Alling , Rachel Beckwith (recorder), Marilyn Billings, Janet Ewing, Rebecca Henning, Chris Loring, David Podboy (chair), Mary Stettner. Announcements: Rachel has taken over the DEDCC Five Colleges web site administration. David has taken over as chair of DEDCC. Dates of fall semester meetings: • Wednesday, October 22 at 3:30 pm • Monday, November 24 at 10:30 am • Wednesday, December 17 at 2:30 pm (presumably all at Five Colleges, but David will confirm location) FCLC update/ Next Gen Discussion Chris: FCLC is having problems seeing a way to move forward on Next Gen/ Aquabrowser. Where would the money come from? What are the implications of UMass and Amherst joining the Boston Library Consortium in terms of WorldCat Local? AquaBrowser takes care of relevancy ranking, looks nice, and has some features users would like. Federated searching would be an important thing to sort out. FCLC would want to know more about the scope of the discovery tool. Each institution has a different perspective on AquaBrowser. For FCLC to more forward on AquaBrowser, a compelling case would have to be made that AquaBrowser represents enough of a move forward and/or can be a good tool for expanding the universe of discovery beyond the catalog. There is a lot of activity out there, and some members of FCLC are not sure it’s worth doing something as a bridge measure. And, coming full circle, where would we come up with the startup money for AquaBrowser? Then a discussion ensued about looking to people as solutions rather than products. What about hiring a person who can set up an open source product? Although the Aleph Manager was an easy sell for provosts, it’s a different sell to hire additional new Five-College staff. We would have to pick an open source product with robust developer staff. There is a lot of development going on, but in its infancy. If DEDCC picked up on a sense of urgency about moving forward, it was not coming from FCLC. We needed to seriously look at AquaBrowser and wanted to see the significance of WorldCat Local / BLC. The directors felt it was too important an issue given that 2 out of 5 are BLC members. The next meeting of the BLC board is Sept. 24—we will know more then. Are there other options for them (Relay, for example)? We came to AquaBrowser partly as a bridge because of our OPAC problems. There is no other way around our OPAC issues that won’t be expensive. The single biggest issue is relevancy ranking. The door is not shut for FCLC, but DEDCC would have to make a very compelling case for it. There was further discussion about how the new Aleph manager would be incorporated toward some solutions. Some felt that it is not a good time to make a bold leap forward on something like AquaBrowser, although others felt that since Chicago had paved the way, the implementation would be easier, so it really came down to cost. David said that we need to communicate the AquaBrowser interview summaries to FCLC, and asked if we want to recommend that FCLC should purchase it? We then went around the room, and there was a mix of responses: one yes, one no, many maybes with reservations (several people stated an inclination to wait until after the BLC board meeting when more information is known about that, and perhaps wait until the new Aleph Manager is in place as well). Then there was a discussion about the longer-term future: what’s sustainable? Are there people at the Five-College level who have skills to deal with it? We seem to be past the stage where you just buy an ILS, and there is a need to be forward thinking. Chris: it’s worth telling the directors if DEDCC as a whole feels that we need more people skills/ need to move in new directions in terms of strategic staffing needs. David: will send off the summary of the AquaBrowser interviews to FCLC Brown Bag The Brown Bag is scheduled for next week. Rebecca can check the Alumni House, and Janet will check at Mt. Holyoke for space availability. We can focus on ELUNA, but also look at the 16 responses from the Five-College conference excel spreadsheet. The format will be informal, with each person talking for up to 15 minutes. David can talk about Computers in Libraries. Everyone should ask back at their home institutions if the people who attended ELUNA would be willing to talk. We’d like 5 people, with 2 or 3 from ELUNA and the rest from other conferences. LITA Marilyn wondered if anyone from Five Colleges is going, and if they could give DEDCC a report when they get back. There is a lot of next gen. stuff on the agenda. No one from DEDCC is going this year, but everyone will check at their home institutions and see if anyone is going who could report back. Sidebar We need to update the sidebar on the agenda. Take off “monitor digital assets discussion.” David said we could email him, and he’ll add to the list of technologies to watch. There are also the Delicious tags linked in the Ella site. Mary asked if we could embed an RSS feed on the Five-College web site, but the system won’t allow it. We also have the wiki on the Ella site that we can use. We decided to use Delicious to keep track of new technologies to watch and monitor. Wrap up: action items and communications • Please come with 2 or 3 ideas of projects for the next meeting. What do we want to work on? • David will revise AquaBrowser interview summary and send it out for feedback. • Look into spaces for Brown Bag; David will send email to FC lib • David will look at Google excel to find people who went to ELUNA. • Everyone can check to see who’s going to LITA and report back. • Next location for DEDCC meeting will be confirmed. • ACRL New England Chapter just started a new SIG for Scholarly Communication. They are planning a program for Dec 4 at the Boston Public Library. Stuart Shieber, Head of Harvard University's Scholarly Communication Office, and author of the policy that granted the University the right to make Faculty of Arts and Sciences scholarly articles freely available to the world, is the morning keynote speaker. The afternoon session will highlight recent SPARC "Right to Research" efforts and Students for Free Culture chapters at regional universities. • For the next DEDCC meeting agenda, we will discuss archiving old meeting minutes on the web site. • NERCOMP is taking proposals for the library track for March 10 and 11 in Providence.