Heads of Special Collections -- HOSC

Conference Call
October 10, 2011, 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Minutes
Attending: Christine Bunting (Santa Cruz), Lynda Claassen (San Diego), Melissa Conway (Riverside),Josue Hurtado (San Francisco), (Tom Hyry (Los Angeles), Peter Hanff (Berkeley),  Michelle Light (Irvine), Emily Lin (Merced), Daryl Morrison (Davis; chair), David Seubert (Santa Barbara), Elaine Tennant (Berkeley) Adrian Turner (CDL)

I. NGTS Power of Three.  POT 3's objectives to "accelerate processing of archival and manuscript collections."  Michelle Light and Adrian Turner.
(POT 3 will assess the current implementation of Archivists' Toolkit and More Process Less Process (MPLP) and needs on the campuses. It will charge three Lightning Teams to 1) deploy Archivists' Toolkit system-wide; 2) define minimal collection record specification; and 3) implement MPLP practices UC-wide).

• Archivist Toolkit. The Next Generation Technical Services (NGTS) Power of Three (POT) charges have been developed.  The committees will be consulting HOSC as the agent of implementation.  The POT 3 group has several goals:
•  Support the system wide use of Archivist Toolkit and facilitate its use.  The lightning team will conduct a lightweight assessment of needs across UC special collections and archives, to identify what kinds of support and services would facilitate usage.  Training solutions could encompass workshops sponsored by the Society of American Archivists and the Society of California Archivists or through AT staff (e.g., at UCSD) or other in-house trainers.  The team will also facilitate a teesmigration of data from a local UC campus instance (UCI) to a CDL-hosted AT instance, to confirm migration processes.  The team will ultimately prepare an implementation plan, defining training and support services that can be made available systemwide, including use of the CDL-hosted service.
• There was discussion on which campuses are currently using AT and discussion about the upcoming merge of AT with Archon.  There is an expected new product in 2013.  Archives Space will be tested by CDL; the CDL would like to extend beta testing of the software to hosted users. 
• There was discussion as to whether we could see each other’s records, within the context of CDL’s hosted AT service.  The answer is “no”: the CDL can set up an individual backend database instance for a given campus that wants to use the service (and the campus can set up individual repositories, within the single instance; the repositories would share name/subject records in this case, as well as overall customizations to the database); or can work with campuses to set up individual backend database instances for particular repositories on the campus, if their data needs to be completely sequestered.. 
• Define a “good enough” specification for collections described using archival control. This POT will codify minimal data elements for collection-level descriptions, to optimize cataloging and work through backlogs bringing out our “hidden collections.”   The spec will reiterate minimal requirements set forth in DACS and ISAD-G, and provide mappings to EAD and MARC. 
• Continue to explore processes for providing online access to non-EAD encoded box lists  and non—standard inventories to attach to a minimal record.  From the survey that was done there is information on the non- Encoded Archival Description (EAD) data.  Legacy print inventories may be able to be cheaply converted into searchable PDF (in lieu of EAD).
• Facilitate the adoption of MPLP=based processing approaches. An MPLP manual or “toolkit” will be developed, offering a reference framework for processing of different kinds of materials and describe typical scenarios.  Deployment will include the provision of MPLP training.  This POT will also rely on HOSC.  There was discussion that we can plan strategies for our backlogs, but there will still be a place for traditional finding aids.   Deployment will also include tools for documenting and tracking processing benchmarks, building on recent data gathering projects involving processing metrics. 
• An articulation of long-term strategies for eliminating our processing backlogs, through cooperative approaches and funding strategies. 
• Circulation and Request Management. (Automated or not?  Software being used? Privacy and security issues?)  Christine Bunting
• UCSC is considering an automated commercial circulation for Special Collections.  Bunting has been in discussion with AEON.  There was discussion on how others are using circulations systems to track in-house circulation of Special Collections materials. Systems mentioned were also ExLibris, Millenium, Voyageur.  Christine will share information about AEON.

II. Interlibrary Loan Services (ILL) for UC Special Collections. Requests for information from HOPS. Lynda Claassen and Emily Lin

• HOPS has asked for information on how the Special Collections Interlibrary Service is working.  What are the current policies for loaning, creating surrogates and the infrastructure involved? There was a general feeling that the service is working just fine and that new Associate University Librarians (AULs) not involved when this was set up just need to be updated.  Perhaps we need to make the service more visible on the HOSC Special Collections websites or our own campus websites. A recommendation was made to update the website so that the Special Collections ILL contacts are current. Claassen offered to gather and organize our responses to questions asked about the ILL service.

III. Public Services and Use Statistics. What and how are you counting?  Do you have written definitions? How do your stats meld into ARL and State reports? Daryl Morrison

• UCD has been reviewing its reference statistics gathering forms used by the various information and reference desks and working to develop one form.  Discussion on how Special Collections count various reference transactions.  UCSD same as the general library—highlighting the number of users and instruction.  There counts are higher than areas of the library.  UCB—are considering how to account for head counts as they relate to classes, whether to count as a member of the class for the semester or individual counts.  They consider the purpose of the visits and how many hours spent in the reading room as useful information.   

IV. Web Archiving Service use for campus websites.   Daryl Morrison

• UCD has been considering a campus wide survey of University websites. Morrison thanked everyone for their responses to her query.  The general consensus was that the Web Archiving Service was being used by the campuses and the support for funding was most often coming from the library administration.  Adrian Turner had alerted Tracy Seneca to this agenda item and she indicated that she would be pleased to do any webinar training or offer further information.

V. OAC Updates. Collection-level template; MARC ingest for OAC;  Metadata Editor;  Calisphere Slideshow Widget.  Adrian Turner. Establishing Digital Forensics Workstations as shareable UC resource for the preservation of digital files. Adrian Turner (For some additional context and reference, Stanford University Library's Digital Forensics Lab provides a useful case study to consider .(http://lib.stanford.edu/digital-forensics)

• The OAC now supports the direct submission of MARC 21 records, for collections and individual items. Prior to this MARC records were harvested from MELVYL.  Now we can submit the MARC records directly on a request basis. There are encoding specifications for collection versus item level descriptions. UCB, UCD and UCSF tested the new process.   MARC submission info. available through your Contributor Dashboard; also here: http://www.cdlib.org/services/dsc/contribute/submitmarc.html
• New Metadata Editor feature.  We have a new web-based mechanism for making edits to individual digital objects in OAC/Calisphere.  You can update metadata without having to resubmit the source METS object -- it’s really designed for quick edits, and for institutions that can’t easily resubmit their source METS.  This semi-mediated process is ready to be rolled out.  It will be password protected to each repository; available through your Contributor Dashboard. 
• New Calisphere Slideshow Widget.  You can feature your objects in Calisphere on your local website, by embedding this widget.  Available through your Contributor Dashboard. 
• We are working on creating a simple, web-based template for creating collection-level descriptions, with a baseline level of descriptive elements (based on DACS and ISAD-G).   Geared to repositories that can’t easily utilize more robust tools, such as AT -- or that aren’t implementing EAD.  Our existing EAD web templates won’t be replaced, but the new forthcoming templates will offer a simple approach by early next year.  This service ties into the POT relating to minimal collection records.  Turner was soliciting our interest in establishing a digital forensic workstation (or set of workstations) as a shareable UC resource for the reading, validation, verification, etc. of digital files similar to the Stanford model.  This is under discussion by the Preservation Advisory Group (PAG).  The logistics, policies, and cost sharing issues would need to be worked out.  The discussion indicated wide interest on the part of HOSC members.  It was suggested that we should share with campus Digital Initiatives contacts.  It was also suggested that we  consult the recent CLIR report on digital forensics and born-digital content.   It was noted that this would have great interest for University Archives and faculty papers, where old formats are most often received.

VI. Hosted e-mail. Daryl Morrison

• The UCD HOSC website does not seem to be fully operational.  Morrison asked if the Berkeley site could still be retained?  Hanff to check.  Morrison to check on the UCD site.

VII. Campus round robin. All.   

• Due to the lengthy agenda, there was no campus round robin at this meeting.

VIII. Next Meeting Date

• The next meeting will be Monday, February 6, 2012 from 10:30 to noon.