2015-01-21 Meeting notes

2015-01-21 Meeting notes

Date

Jan 21, 2015

Attendees

  • @Jessica Wesley Meyerson

  • @Fishman, Jessi

  • @Amy Armstrong

  • @Carla Alvarez

  • @Stulgaityte, Evelina

  • @Esther E Kirchner

  • @Paloma Graciani Picardo

  • @Ece G Turnator

Goals

  • Housekeeping  

    • Finalizing our new meeting time in order to make standing reservation in CLA

    • Is bi-monthly too frequent?

    • We need to check for conflicts with other working groups on campus

  • Reports to the group regarding: 

    • Northwest Digital Archive (Carla), 

    • Folks using ArchivesSpace (Jessi)

    • Responses from Dan on follow-up questions (Jessica)

    • UT Lib white paper on special collections needs (Paloma) --> Jennifer might be able to give a brief update

  • Schedule/timeline for spring goals/Dividing into smaller working groups:

    • Preparing Spring 2015 Archival Description Management System proposal

      • Researching the implications of the switch to EAD3

      • Creating a roadmap for a phased implementation of EAD3 and new ADMS

      • Pricing out the differences between available products and creating a budget for implementation

    • Scheduling investigation of EAC-CPF

      • Creator of Xece (pronounced "Zeke") project

      • Yale/Harvard pilot (SAA 2013)

      • What does a phased approach to getting our repositories in a position to create authority records look like?

Discussion items

Item

Who

Notes

Item

Who

Notes

Carla

  • They are currently using AAT, they are currently deciding to adopt something else.

  • They decided to go with ArchivesSpace because members of the Orbis Cascade Alliance are using AS.

  • They are engaging in a pilot this year - 4 to 6 members are going to start using AS without any training.

  • The pilot members will start using AS and along the way they will create documentation for later adoption by all members of the allliance

    • The training modules will be based on this one-year pilot - 4 Orbis members are volunteering to participate in the pilot.

  • They are not going to be official members, though, which means that they won't be receiving the documentation from AS

  • Esther: Did they talk about the migration process?

    • Well because they were using AT, it was another reason to go with AS

    • Orbis Cascade members pay a fee for Orbis to host multiple instances of AS

  • Carla added to the Resources section of the wiki, NWDA draft of the cost of receiving the AS service (software and training through Orbis Cascade)

 

Jessi

  • She did a search for institutions associated with Archivist Toolkit (AT) and AtoM.

  • 2 out of 3 responses had previously used Archivematica (Possibly worth a follow-up. Since Archivematica isn't meant for archival description management, they may have convinced themselves that Artefactual didn't offer the right tools without actually testing its ArchivesSpace (AS) equivalent)

  • 1 had used AT so AS was the natural step forward

  • Jessi listed quotes from respondents are in the Resources section of the wiki (see links to pages above)

  • No responses from folks that are using AS as a nonmember - but members' impressions are that AS/Lyrasis would work well with non-members

  • Jessi thinks that ArchivesSpace will be an easier sell as far as ADMS because it seems to have a much wider adoption

  • Esther: What about migration issues?

    • For all the folks who used AT - there is a direct migration path (migration scripts) so reaction is varied but net positive

 

Esther and Paloma

  • Collection maintenance week, Esther and Paloma re-imagined space management - shifting from word docs to excel with formulas for finding available box space more quickly

  • Identifying misplaced or mis-shelved collection materials

  • They are willing to share the new Excel template for the space tracker on the wiki

 

Amy

  • HRC has a digital archivist position available

    • The position used to be part of Archives & Manuscripts but now the position will report to Digital Collections Librarian, Liz Gushee, and digital initiatives

    • The hiring committee includes Liz Gushee

    • The position closes in February

  • The major focus of the HRC strategic plan is to make access (both online and onsite) more research friendly and

    • Restructuring - less collection-focused and more of a unified body of primary resource materials, albeit in different formats

  • Starting April 1st, HRC will be open all day on Saturday

  • Potentially scaling back project positions and creating more full time positions

  • The Gabriel Garcia Marquez collection project is starting this spring and Daniella will be working on that

    • The finding aid will be in both English and Spanish

    • Partnership with the Benson

  • [Emergent topic of general interest: Cultural heritage as a commodity]

 

Ece

  • Trying to get faculty to come to the realization that they can't just dump a project on library technical staff - they have to take ownership of that project

  • She performs a lot of translation work between technical staff and content experts

  • Her role is to facilitate relationships between faculty and the libraries to see each other's perspectives in order to build sustainable projects

  • Primary resources haven't been part of this discussion but controlled vocabularies and metadata have

  • Building Portal - Global Middle Ages, medieval history portal which has raised questions:

    • how do you organize the information online

    • how to do preserve what's created

    • how do you document complexity

    • how do you describe scholarly resources created for digital spaces

  • Ece will have another year to work on the project

  • Ece will send the link to summary report based on recent digital scholarship survey/also May symposium on digital scholarship in medieval studies

 

Evelina

  • Working on huge processing project

  • Doing an archives presentation for lawyers from all over the country currently in town for a conference

  • Digitization of the collection is ongoing and Evelina will preview the new site during the presentation

 

Carla

  • The Benson will also have restructuring

  • New Associate Director of Scholarly Resources for the Benson

 

Jessi

  • Jessi is working on digital projects for university archives

  • She wants to coordinate digital projects for classroom use

  • She wants to improve the online presence of university archives records and projects online

    • Selection and digitization

  • Document what the scope of the university archives

  • Needs to get a list of priorities for things to digitize - looking at research requests for most frequently requested

Action items