Digital Library Steering Committee Meeting of November 8, 2005 (11:00 pm – 12:00pm)
Present: Jody Combs, Flo Wilson, Roberta Winjum, Janice Adlington, Bill Hook, Marshall Breeding, Rick Stringer-Hye, Dale Poulter, John Haar.
Agenda as initially posted in Oak:
1. Observations about using OAK course for communications. (5 minutes)
2. Brief discussion of categorization of existing projects (discussion board). (5 minutes)
3. Brain storming direction for committee's work: (40 minutes)
- how do we deal with maintenance of existing projects that fall within our purview?
- how do we deal with current "pending" initiatives?
- of these, how do we prioritize use of resources?
- how do we develop a coherent strategy for the coming year(s)?
- how to incorporate input from DLAB, Research Services, Collections, Metadata, others?
4. "Homework"--exercise (3 minutes)
- think of four issues or initiatives that we need to address as a committee, prioritize in 3, 6, 12 month, and "longer" horizons/time-frames.
5. Other (5 minutes)
6. Announcements (2 minutes)
- reminder that DLAB will meet this Friday, Nov. 11.
1. Using OAK for Communications
Jody asked the committee members whether using OAK for discussion topics was working well. Most members said that they had been very busy this week and so weren’t able to take much time to login and post. Bill noted that it takes more time to respond in OAK than to send an email, and that he doesn’t routinely login to OAK like he does with email and other systems. Other members agreed with Bill.
The committee agreed to continue using OAK for discussion purposes for the time being and revisit the issue again at a future meeting.
2. Further Discussion of Categorization of Existing Projects
Jody asked for further thoughts and discussion with regard to the digital initiatives categorization issue. Some members said they liked the scheme that Rick had posted but feel that the way they are currently listed, with many projects details etc. under each project, made it difficult to get a good grip on them as whole and how they might be regrouped.
Rick agreed to rework the list into a collapsible form where one can see just the project title in its group but then can expand the details section if so desired.
3. Brain storming direction for committee's work
A good portion of the committee’s time was spent in conversation about the question of how to organize project teams and individuals for the maintenance of existing programs and services while also planning and organizing for pending and future digital projects.
The first question was how to manage and maintain existing web services and pages. John brought up the example of the Heard news ticker and news page, which is now somewhat out of date. Committee members thought that the maintenance of the news ticker might logically fall under the purview of the Communications committee. It was agreed that the DLSC would approach the chair of that Comm. committee with this idea.
The next question centered on the interim maintenance of the Heard web site, until such time as the DLSC can organize for a larger web redesign and revision project. After considerable discussion the committee agreed that for the time being a small project team might be created to handle the ongoing maintenance of the web. Because she already does much of the web maintenance work it was suggested that Suellen Stringer-Hye be the team leader for this project. Bill suggested that it might be a good idea to get a staff member who wasn’t on the Web Task Force to broaden participation and offer learning and involvement opportunities to other staff. The owner of the project team will be the DLSC with Suellen as project leader reporting items back as needed depending on the importance of the issue.
Roberta said that she thought the committee was going to spend time prioritizing the list of existing and pending projects. Marshall said that prioritizing projects was a resource allocation issue and that the committee ought to be thinking of how to prioritize projects for the Big Picture.
Dale mentioned that there is an existing issue regarding the “exact search” option on the E-Journal Locator page that has been discussed recently by SFX team staff and needs attention. The suggestion is that the option be removed because of the way the system searches for articles in journal titles. The committee agreed that the DLSC would seek input and approval from the Research Services committee with regard to removing the “exact” search option from the SFX-based E-Journal Locator.
Bill asked Jody where in the DLSC’s purview something like the migration to a new web server platform would fall. After a brief discussion, where it was generally agreed that this item was more of a plumbing type issue than a DL project, it was agreed that the migration ought to go ahead as planned, especially as the new platform will provide for new web services that could be advantageous to our future efforts.
Next was discussion about whether SFX is a project that might require a degree of ongoing attention and maintenance. John said that he had been planning to have a SFX Team meeting but that the team had not yet. Rick added that he thought there were ongoing issues related to SFX that some kind of group or project team ought to consider. He agreed to put together a list of the things that he thinks would fall into this category.
Running short on time, Jody ended the discussion by asking team members to think about other existing projects that might require this type of attention.
4. Homework—exercise
Due to a lack of time the committee did not address this item. {This work will be handled through the OAK discussion board.--jdc}
5. Other
Janice asked if the RSS feed for the staff news was working well. Jody said that he thought that it was but that staff had sent him a number of comments and questions about it.
6. Announcements - reminder that DLAB will meet this Friday, Nov. 11.
Jody reminded members that the DLAB meets this Friday Nov. 11 and to send him any additions, modifications or suggestions to their agenda.
Action items:
1. The DLSC will ask the Communications committee to manage and maintain the Heard Library news ticker and news page.
2. The DLSC will form a small interim project team (Suellen Stringer-Hye and one as yet unnamed person) to manage and maintain the current Heard Library web pages. Suellen will report activities and issues back to the DLSC as needed.
3. No further action or consideration is required by the DLSC as LITS migrates the library’s web environment to a new server platform.
4. The DLSC will seek input and approval from the Research Services committee with regard to removing the “exact” search option from the SFX-based E-Journal Locator.
5. Rick will compile a list of intermediate SFX issues that may need to be addressed by the DLSC in the short term.
The meeting adjourned at 12:05 Minutes prepared by Rick Stringer-Hye