BC Digitization Symposium Organizing Committee
Meeting Minutes – June 10, 2009
In attendance: Simon (Chair), Alissa, Anita, Chris, Jacqueline, Kate, Lisa, Leonora, Moira, Gordon (Minutes).
1. Welcome and introductions
2. Symposium wrap-up
Anita presented the final budget. One amendment was requested to reflect the BC Teachers Federation’s contribution on behalf of the BC Teacher Librarians Association to sponsor their attendees.
3. Symposium Final Report: Recommendations and next steps
(a) Organizing Committee structure
It was agreed that the current Organizing Committee will form the nucleus of the successor group. Simon is willing to continue as chair in his capacity at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, which has a provincial and multi-sector outlook. With respect to membership, Simon will check back with those on the listserv not at the present meeting to determine if they are interested in continuing. Lisa confirmed she replaces Jim on the committee as the BC Museums Association representative. Current members should also consider whether there are important sectors not represented at the table. The make-up of the group is not seen as fixed; there will be a re-evaluation in one year’s time to determine if the membership should be changed.
Simon will draft a ‘Terms of Reference’ type document for the group. The group will focus on coordination, advocacy and capacity-building, per the Final Report’s first recommendation, seeking those areas where cross-sector collaboration can produce the greatest benefit. The initial term of membership will be one year. The Terms of Reference document will benefit the group members when seeking support and confirmation of their role from stakeholders. There was some discussion of a name for the group. “BC Digitization Coalition” was proposed.
The group will meet approximately every two months. The next meeting will be in early September.
(b) The Digital Collection Builder (DCB)
Gordon outlined the development of the DCB, its recent launch, and first training workshop. The DCB arose from a grant application by Alouette Canada two years ago to develop a simple, flexible tool that heritage organizations could use to put digitized collections online. The development team quickly joined forces with an initiative in the archival community to build a similar tool. To bring the development to its next stage there was a second round of funding which included support from several BC libraries including SFU, UBC, UVic, BC ELN, and PLSB as well as CARL and Canadiana.org (which merged with Alouette).
The archival version, known as ICA-AtoM, went live early in 2009. The DCB version was launched June 1 at a ceremony in Ottawa that featured the participation of several politicians. The first DCB training workshop was held June 8. It was extremely successful, with all seats filling up within a few days of the announcement and a number of requests for repeat workshops around the province. The training was carried out by staff of Artefactual, the developers who completed the current round of work on the software.
The group felt this success was very important and we should work to keep the momentum going. The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (IKBLC) is interested in supporting further offerings of the training workshop. There are opportunities for possible partnerships as well, e.g. the BC Museums Association annual conference in the Okanagan in October, the North East Library Federation digitization day, and a Vancouver Island offering.
There are several options for endorsement of DCB. One approach is to hire Artefactual to lead the workshops. Another approach is to hire a contract staff person who would teach the workshops as well as make progress on a number of next steps for the Coalition. There was some uncertainty about which is the best model to follow, and in fact the outcome may be a hybrid. In the meantime BC ELN will take on the coordination of those training workshops including supplying cost estimates to IKBLC and communicating with possible co-hosts for fall workshops. Simon will investigate what resources IKBLC can make available.
(c) Remaining recommendations
There was some discussion of other recommendations in the report. At the moment the current focus is on building capacity to create collections. It is important to find a way to integrate a focus on user needs, e.g. the perspective of K-12 sector. This could provide excellent evidence to support grant requests for dollars to digitize particular collections. There are also other sources of grant funding the group could consider. A better web presence would benefit the initiative, to improve communication and serve as a clearinghouse of digitization knowledge and resources. However, it’s important not to duplicate information already available. Alissa will work on a list of what sorts of resources are already available.
The next meeting will include a more systematic review of the Final Report’s other recommendations and progress that can be made on them.
End.