Strategic Advisory Board Meeting Minutes - February 18, 2010

HathiTrust Strategic Advisory Board Conference Call

February 18, 2010

Call participants:

Ed Van Gemert (Chair), Director of Libraries, University of Wisconsin-Madison;  John Butler, Associate University Librarian for Information Technology, University of Minnesota; Patricia Cruse, Director, UC Curation Center, California Digital Library;  Bernie Hurley, Director for Library Technologies, Director of the Northern Region Library Facility, Associate Campus CIO, University of California, Berkeley;  Sarah Pritchard, University Librarian, Northwestern University (left call early);  Paul Soderdahl, Director, Library Information Technology, University of Iowa; John Wilkin, Executive Director of HathiTrust and Associate University Librarian, Library Information Technology, University of Michigan

• Review and approve SAB minutes from 1/14/10

The SAB reviewed and approved the minutes.

• Operations/development update, John Wilkin.

1. There are two new sections on the HathiTrust website for Executive Board and Strategic Advisory Board meeting schedules and minutes <http://www.hathitrust.org/governance>
2. Progress has been made on ingest of content from the Internet Archive. The flow of content into HathiTrust will begin this month, starting with University of California content followed by University of IL content.  The ingest of this body of content will push the public domain content to over 1 million volumes.
3. Progress has been made on the implementation of Shibboleth. Work will tentatively be completed by the end of Q1 2010.
4. The Center for Research Libraries’ audit of HathiTrust using Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification (TRAC) is moving forward.
5. The data API is being thoroughly tested.  A web application is being created that will allow users to download appropriate texts.   The application is being created entirely with data and services available to the general public and is meant to demonstrate uses that can be made of the API.
6. A vigorous exploration of born digital content is being conducted to analyze how to ingest, model, and present this body of content.
7. The collaborative development environment is in place and being actively used.  The Collaborative Development Environment Working group will be reinvigorated.

• Discovery interface working group update/implementation release discussion, John Butler

1. Schedule update: OCLC has changed their release schedule from monthly to quarterly which has had a downstream impact on the schedule to release a WorldCat Local version of the HathiTrust catalog, as well as  to display HathiTrust holdings information in WorldCat records. The original schedule for the production installation of the HathiTrust catalog as a WorldCat Local instance was late March/early April.  With this scheduling change at OCLC, the installation will take place in mid- to late-May.   The Working group will use this extra time to engage in pre-release usability testing.
2. Working group process: John Butler inquired what the process is for determining if there is a releasable product. The SAB discussed and determined that the Working group will make a recommendation to the SAB, the SAB will evaluate the recommendation and make a recommendation to the Executive Board.
3. Working group activities and membership: With the expansion of the Working group’s activities there is a need to grow the working group membership to include expertise in usability testing.   Action:  John Butler will issue a call to the SAB for additional members.  The call will provide the type of expertise that they are looking for and will also provide a list of current members. 

• HT Exec. Committee communications, John Wilkin and Ed Van Gemert Third storage instance New cost model, Jan. 2013 Collections working group
  1. Third storage instance: The Working group tasked with making recommendations on a third instance of storage for HathiTrust presented its final report to the Executive Committee in January.  T he Executive Board discussed and agreed with the recommendations of the Working group to not establish a third instance of the HathiTrust content.  However, as the collection grows and changes this issue will be reconsidered.
  2. Cost model: In the new cost model, partners will share in the cost of public domain and open access volumes preserved in HathiTrust, and in the cost of in copyright volumes that they hold, or have held, in their physical collections. The model will distribute the costs of curating and managing the digital collections in a way that more accurately reflects the benefits each partner receives from deposited volumes.
  3. Collections Working group: There is a need for a Collections Working group to address classic collection development issues as well as evaluate collection management issues that are unique to HathiTrust.  Action: a subset of the SAB (Wilkin, Van Gemert, Pritchard, Cruse) will have a phone call to discuss and draft the charge.  Ivy Anderson, CDL, will be asked to participate to share her expert advice.

• Review of duplicates, Ed Van Gemert

1. The SAB discussed the need to establish a working group to undertake issues associated with duplicates.  The SAB recognizes that this is a complex issue and needs more information before forming a working group.  Action: John Wilkin will provide the SAB with information on the scope of the problem and will also provide two internal white papers on the issue.  The SAB will review the materials and discuss the issue on the next SAB conference call.

• Quality Assurance working group, Trisha Cruse

1. The SAB briefly discussed the Quality Assurance working group draft charge.  There was a question if the charge accurately reflected SAB’s discussions of the issue.  Action: Cruse will modify key sentences as appropriate and share with the SAB for comment and approval.

• New business and announcements.

1. CIC Library directors met and provided unanimous support to expand HathiTrust to serve people with print disabilities.  This is an exciting initiative, however there are many legal and user issues associated with providing this type of service.