BC Digitization Coalition

Redevelopment of the West Beyond the West Portal

mikec — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 21:46:07 +0000

Work is underway to revitalize the West Beyond the West portal to better assist users in discovering British Columbia’s rich digital treasures. Here’s how it will work:

In partnership with Canadiana.org, West Beyond the West will utilize the Canadiana Discovery Portal’s API (application programming interface) to perform a scoped search of the Canadiana metadata index. What this means is that every time a user performs a search from the West Beyond the West portal they will gain access to all the BC related digital collections available through Canadiana. See a complete list of Canadiana contributors here.

In addition, the BC Digitization Coalition is working to increase the number of collections indexed in Canadiana by taking on the work of transforming select BC digital collection metadata into Canadiana’s CMR format, thereby further enriching the WBTW portal with exciting local collections.

The Coalition will also be launching a hosted instance of the Digital Collection Builder (DCB) this year. In addition to providing a simple and cost effective digital collection hosting service for smaller memory institutions, the DCB will have built-in the ability to export metadata in the Canadiana CMR format for ease of ingesting into the Canadiana search engine.

Planned Services - 2012

To learn more about these upcoming services see the Final Report of the Portal Working Group.

Want to have your institution’s digital collections discoverable in the West Beyond the West Portal? Contact us for more information.

Minutes – October 13, 2011

mikec — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:37:42 +0000

Present: Simon Neame (IKBLC), Mimi Lam (IKBLC) Barb Hynek BC Historical Federation, Erica Hernandez (UNBC), Lynn Copeland (Canadiana), Anita Cocchia (BCELN), Kate Russell (VPL), Brian Owen (SFU Library), Mike Conroy (IKBLC) Alissa Cherry (UBCIC)
Telephone: Allan Bell (UBC Library), Ken Cooley (UVic Library) Heather Daly (UVic)
Guest: Ben Hyman (BC Libraries Cooperative)
Regrets: Courtney Mumma (AABC), Moira Ekdahl (BCTLA) Brenda Smith (BC Historical Federation) Chris Mathieson (BCMA)
Agenda Item	Summary	Action
1. Welcome and Introductions	The Coalition welcomed Mike Conroy to the role of coordinator, taking over from Mimi Lam. Simon thanked Mimi for her contributions to the Coalition and welcomed Mike to the role. Mike comes from UBC Library’s Digital Initiatives Unit.
2. BC Libraries Cooperative (Ben Hyman, Managing Director)	After speaking with Simon and Anita on separate occasions, Ben Hyman was invited to meet with the Coalition so the group can learn about the BC Libraries Cooperative’s activities and discuss opportunities for the two groups to work together. BC Libraries Cooperative provides several services to their membership: They are responsible for the Sitka initiative in which they provide a hosted instance of the Evergreen ILS. Sitka is used by both public and post-secondary libraries in BC and public libraries in Manitoba. BC Libraries Coop also provides bulk licensing services to public libraries that include Bibliocommons and Overdrive. In addition, BC Libraries Cooperative provides employee benefits and capital procurement services to its members. BC Libraries Cooperative member institutions have digitized materials and materials that could be digitized but lack the infrastructure. The Coop already has server infrastructure in place from Sitka and is hosting ‘one-off’ services. There is capacity in its data centre which is co-located with the BC NET Network data centre. Hosted infrastructure could be “spec’d out” by April 2012. Space already exists and the need has been identified. Interest of the membership could be determined in December when the Coop’s budget is released. The Coop has yet to formalize a relationship with the library federations, however Mr. Hyman met with Federation coordinators in Prince George recently. The Coop is working closely with federations to ensure that the work of the two groups is collaborative and cooperative, not duplicative. While projects such as InterLINK’s consortial library card purchase seem a good fit for federations, shared infrastructure remains the domain of the cooperative. Following Mr. Hyman’s presentation, the Coalition discussed opportunities to work with the BC Libraries Cooperative: The Cooperative has a larger member base with a potential substantial amount of content. The Coalition is lacking in representation from the public library sector. The Coalition could benefit from involvement of the BC Libraries Cooperative, the Federations, or both.	The coalition agreed to invite Ben Hyman or a BC Libraries Coop designate to future. – Simon Anita agreed to explore how the coalition might best solicit representation from the Federations.
3. Coordinator’s Update	Mimi thanked the Coalition for making her year as coordinator a great one. She learned a lot from her experience with the group. Mimi will continue her work with Indigitization and CHRP. Mimi reviewed visitor statistics for wbtw.ca and noted that the number of visitors is down slightly. She expects the trend to reverse as the BC History Digitization Program tends to drive traffic to the site during the grant application cycle. The website has been moved to a new server. The former server has been decommissioned.
4. Implementation of Core Services	Mimi reports that $21,900 of funding has been confirmed. The Coalition is awaiting confirmation on a further $5000. The total amount committed thus far is $34,100 which is $900 away from the required amount. Artefactual and Web Kitchen have tentatively agreed to take on the contracts for DCB development, Portal Developer and Metadata Wrangler respectively. Service agreements for the three positions are making their way through UBC Legal Counsel. Mike has drafted a letter of understanding between the Coalition and Canadiana.	Simon will forward draft letter of understanding to Mark Jordan for feedback after the Access Conference. Mike will revise timeline for implementation
5. Updates	Canadiana (Lynn) There will be a Canadiana planning meeting in early December. There are currently 65 million pages in the database. All of the U of T pages have been loaded and the U of A CHIM microfiche materials will be loaded soon. Canadiana is planning a service similar to the Digimobile that will invite patrons to come to the library to digitize their documents. The “static” Digimobile will provide software and ingest to small libraries. They are talking to groups about funding a pilot. Canadiana is rolling out new levels for membership and subscription. Membership is still mostly academic but public libraries (TPL, VPL) are coming on board as well as BANQ and LAC. There is an interest in developing Trusted Digital Repository. Canadiana is playing a role getting partners together to move it forward. SFU (Brian) As part of CHRP, SFU is developing a project on the Komagata Maru incident that will incorporate passenger lists and digital texts including the book Voyage of the Komagata Maru by Hugh Johnston. For more information: http://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/projects/komagata-maru BC Bibliography (Allan) The BC Bibliography meeting is set for October 14. They will be going over the draft metadata template and finalizing standards. Some scanning for other institutions is being done at UBC. UBC is hiring a couple of additional scanner operators. The bibliographies themselves will be marked up. The group is also looking at revising the governance model and planning an RFI for back-end systems. Allan also noted that the BC Historical Newspapers pilot project is finished. He invites everyone to take a look and provide feedback. http://historicalnewspapers.library.ubc.ca

Next Meeting:

Next meeting on October 13, 2011

mmlam — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:38:40 +0000

Where: BCLA Board Room (900 Howe Street, Vancouver, BC, V6Z 2M4)

When: Thursday, October 13, 2011, 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Minutes – June 22, 2011

mmlam — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:45:50 +0000

BC Digitization Coalition
June 22, 2011
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
SFU Harbour Centre

Present: Allan Bell (UBC Library), Courtney Mumma (AABC), Lynn Copeland (Canadiana), Anita Cocchia (BC ELN), Simon Neame (IKBLC), Kate Russell (VPL), Mimi Lam (IKBLC), Brian Owen (SFU Library), Alissa Cherry (UBCIC)
Telephone: Brenda Smith (BC Historical Federation)
Apologies: Heather Daly (BCTLA), Erica Hernandez (UNBC)
Agenda Item	Summary	Action
1. Welcome and introductions	The Coalition welcomed Courtney Mumma to the group as the new Archives Association of BC representative.
2. Chair’s report	Since it has been a while since the last meeting, Simon updated the group on events and activities that have taken place since March. Simon and Mimi did a presentation at BC Library Association Conference titled “Best of Digital BC: Digitization Around the Province”. There was a really good turn out at the session and there were lot of interesting questions. Simon has taken on the new role of Director of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. He gave some background about his new portfolio as Director. Since his portfolio is extensive, he will step down from his current role as Chair of the Coalition sometime later this year. We will add an agenda item for the next meeting will be discussing the process for electing a new chair.	Mimi will ask the Portal Working Group about their process of evaluating options for the search portal and share with the group. Discussion on process for electing new chair on the agenda for the next meeting.
3. Coordinator’s report	Mimi provided a report on her activities since taking on the role of Coordinator for the Coalition. She shared some statistics collection about the website since its launch. There has been a steady increase in the number of visitors, and average time spent on the site. It is also interesting that the majority of traffic is coming from Google and the second source of traffic is direct use of the URL. The most popular pages are the homepage, About the Coalition, Digitization Resources and the WBTW web portal page. Mimi has also been involved in promoting the Coalition through community engagement activities. She co-presented with Simon at the 2011 BC Library Association Conference and co-presented with Marc Saunders at the 2011 Beyond Hope Library Conference. In addition, Mimi has worked closely with Jessica Bushey at Artefactual to develop and design the DCB workshop/demo. She is hopeful that she will have the opportunity to give DCB workshops in the near future. Recently, Mimi has drafted the funding proposal and implementation plan to begin carrying out the recommendations of the Portal Working Group’s Final Report. Since acting as the Coordinator of the BC Digitization Coalition is only one aspect of Mimi’s position as Community Digitization Librarian at the IKBLC, she updated the group on other projects that she is currently working on: BC History Digitization Program, Indigitization Project (Collaborative project with BC First Nations) and Chinese Canadian Stories Project (Community Historical Recognition Program).	In the future, minutes will be electronically approved immediately following the meeting.
4. Funding proposal (draft)	Mimi gave a brief overview of the funding proposal and then opened up the discussion to everyone to provide feedback and comments. Several Coalition members noted that the annual hosting fee was not included in the proposal. This was done deliberately to simplify the proposal to reflect only one-time costs. A suggestion was made to eliminate the cost ranges and simply present one amount since funders are usually just interested in the bottom line. Also, if there are extra funds remaining, it could become a contingency fund for unexpected expenses. It was also noted that HST is not included in the price quotes and a proviso should be added to the document. A suggestion was made to rename the ‘Potential Partners’ section to ‘Current Partners’. The potential use of this document as a communications tool and its public relations value should be considered. The intention of the document is to be a targeted proposal which will then be accompanied by a letter from the Chair of the Coalition. The proposal needs to be inclusive enough to attract enough funders to hit the targeted amount ($35,000). Another suggestion was made to create different levels of funding to attract more funders, perhaps as a next phase of a funding strategy.	Coalition members should send feedback and comments to Mimi ASAP to expedite the process Mimi will remove “potential partners” and rename to “current partners” The funding proposal will be accompanied with a letter from the Chair of the Coalition Initial funding recruitment will start with a select group which will be broadened as needed
5. Implementation plan (draft)	Mimi gave a brief overview of the draft implementation plan and then opened up the discussion for feedback and comments. There was a suggestion that the Letter of Understanding with Canadian should be moved up in the timeline. However, Canadiana has expressed a willingness and interest in working with the Coalition so the Letter of Understanding should not be difficult to attain. Also the timeline should be extended until March 2012 to stay consistent with the 6 month time frame for the two contract positions. A section on reporting should be added to the document to clarify reporting procedure for the contract staff. There was discussion about which organization could potentially host the contract staff. The group will discuss this issue at a future meeting.	Coalition members should send all feedback and comments to Mimi ASAP Mimi will revise and send back out to group for approval Courtney is interested in joining the Technical Sub-Committee
6. Canadiana Update	Lynn gave an update on Canadiana. There are currently 65 million image records (metadata) in the database and there will be more from Eastern Canada (BANQ). Canadiana is also running an Early Canadiana Online (ECO) digitization project (CRKN). In terms of subscriptions to ECO, Canadiana is looking forward to negotiating with a regional group that would subscribe for a consortium of smaller groups. Recently, Canadiana.org is rated as one of the top 150 family genealogy websites.
Next Meeting: Late September or early October

Next meeting on June 22, 2011

mmlam — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:51:11 +0000

Where: SFU Harbour Centre, Third Floor Boardroom (3100)

When: Wednesday, June 22, 2011, 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Beyond Hope Session – Just Digitize, Gonna Be Okay

mmlam — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:47:56 +0000

Marc Saunders and Mimi Lam presented a session titled, “Just Digitze, Gonna Be Okay: Digitization and your Library” at the 2011 Beyond Hope Library Conference in Prince George, BC.

Description:
This presentation will appeal to librarians, archivists, historians, and information professionals who are interested in digitization projects. The speakers will touch on different types of projects that have been done, sources of funding for digitization projects, and project planning. Mimi will speak about the topics in the context of the IKBLC’s Community Digitization Initiatives and the BC History Digitization Program and Marc will speak about the topics in the context of the multi-year Prince George Newspapers Digitization Project.

Presenters:
Marc Saunders is the Public Service Manager at the Prince George Public Library. Marc has been the project lead for the Prince George Newspaper Digitization Project since 2006.
Mimi Lam is the Community Digitization Librarian at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Prior to IKBLC, she was a Digital Librarian at the Union of BC Indian Chiefs Resource Centre where she worked on several digitization projects and management of digital collections.

Click here to download a PDF of the presentation.

BCLA Session – Best of Digital BC: Digitization Around the Province

mmlam — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 04:53:45 +0000

Simon Neame and Mimi Lam presented a session titled “Best of Digital British Columbia – Digitization Around the Province” at the 2011 BC Library Association Conference.

Description:

The Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science defines digitization as “the process of converting data to digital format for processing by a computer.” We have all heard about mass digitization projects such as the Google Digitization Project and Project Gutenberg, but local ’boutique’ digitization efforts do not receive as much fanfare. Digitization projects completed in BC showcase the unique culture and history of British Columbia. The BC Digitization Coalition is a new initiative working towards the creation of a province-wide digitization strategy by coordinating information on digitization guides, standards, metadata, and funding, as well as supporting the ongoing development of the West Beyond the West search portal as a window into BC’s unique history. The presenters will also highlight some of the successful projects funded by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre’s BC History Digitization Program.

Presenters:

Simon Neame, Acting Director, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia
Simon is the current Chair of the BC Digitization Coalition. As Acting Director for the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at UBC, he is responsible for learning support programs and services as well as a number of community development programs including the Learning Centre’s digital initiatives.

Mimi Lam, Community Digitization Librarian, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia
Mimi has worked on several digital projects at the Union BC Indian Chiefs and is now the Community Digitization Librarian at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. She is currently the Coordinator for the BC Digitization Coalition.

Click here to download the presentation.

Final Report of the BC Digitization Portal Working Group RELEASED!

mmlam — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:44:48 +0000

The final report of the BC Digitization Portal Working Group was released at the last meeting of the BC Digitization Coalition. The report was well received by all members. To read the full report, click here. To read the minutes from the last meeting, click here.

Minutes – March 11, 2011

mmlam — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:24:57 +0000

BC Digitization Coalition
March 11, 2011
3:00 – 5:00
BCLA Boardroom

Present: Simon Neame, Chair (IKBLC), Alissa Cherry (UBCIC), Mimi Lam, Coordinator (IKBLC), Allan Bell (UBC Library), Anita Cocchia (BC ELN), Ken Cooley (UVic Library), Gordon Coleman (BC ELN), Brenda Smith (BC Historical Federation)
Guests: Mark Jordan (SFU)
Telephone: Janine Johnston (AABC), Erica Hernandez (UNBC Library), Cecily Walker (VPL)
Apologies: Moira Ekdahl (BC Teacher Librarians Assoc.), Chris Mathieson (BC Museums Assoc.), Brian Owen (SFU), Kate Russell (VPL), Lynn Copeland (SFU), Heather Daly (BC Teacher Librarians Assoc.)
Agenda Item	Summary	Action
1. Welcome & introductions
2. Software Working Group Report	Gordon gave some background information about the formation of the Software Working Group (SWG) and the report. Initially the SWG’s goal was to find options to replace the search portal; however, the group realized that the needs exceeded a new search engine. The SWG presented the following five recommendations:
	1. Search portal/engine The SWG recommends replacing the current search portal with an user interface that will pass searches though Canadiana and return BC related results to the West Beyond the West Portal.This approach will increase visibility of BC content at a national level while maintaining the West Beyond the West branding. The search portal would be a core service provided by the Coalition.	Simon and Mimi will create a one-page proposal for portal development. Make a fundraising pitch to local groups.
	2. Digital collection hosting service The SWG recognizes that there are institutions with valuable material who cannot host their own software installations. The group proceeded to discuss details about (a) what software would be appropriate and (b) who would host these collections. The SWG recommends the use of a third-party host and the use of the free, open source software, Digital Collection Builder (DCB).The cost for this approach would include an annual hosting fee and the cost for adding some additional features to DCB, most likely to be done by the original software developer Artefactual. ICA-AtoM uses the same back-end so in the future, West Beyond the West and MemoryBC could become interoperable and harvestable by the national portal, Canadiana. The Coalition (or another organization) could add other features later on such as additional metadata templates depending on expressed need.Other provinces like Ontario and Saskatchewan are in the process of switching to ICA-AtoM so this is a growing community. Coalition members were in favour of this approach and will follow up with Artefactual to discuss hosting and development options.	Coalition will contact Artefactual to confirm interest with additional development work for DCB.
	3. Metadata transformation service This recommendation proposes hiring someone on an initial six-month contract to transform existing metadata for ingest into Canadiana in order to populate the WBTW portal. A natural place to start acquiring metadata are projects funded by the BC History Digitization Program. The group also discussed the need to support ‘at risk’ digitized collections that may be using out-dated technology, such as the collection of digitized materials at New Westminster Public Library that was developed in the early days of digitization.Other digitization initiatives such as Knowledge Ontario have found a need for the same service. AABC’s archival network coordinator’s position would offer valuable insights for recruitment of a metadata ‘wrangler’. The group agreed with this recommendation and noted the need to populate the WBTW portal with more usable metadata to help build broader interest in using the portal.	Mark has developed tools to export metadata from ContentDM which he could share. Mimi will explore adding more BC content metadata to populate the WBTW search portal (content recruitment). Mimi will ask AABC to share their network coordinator JD and begin a draft for the ‘metadata wrangler’ contract position.
	4. Technical Sub-Committee The SWG’s recommendations involve utilizing the Coalition’s coordinator extensively. Consequently, the coordinator will benefit from the advice and assistance of a permanent Technical Sub-Committee (TSC). Some members of SWG have expressed an interest in being on the TSC. Coalition members agree that the formation a TSC will provide structure as the scope of work grows.	Gordon will ask/recruit members for the Technical Sub-Committee. Gordon will lay out tasks/responsibilities for prospective members.
	5. Relationship with Canadiana The SWG’s final recommendation is to establish a formal arrangement such as letter of agreement with Canadiana. Canadiana has similar agreements with other groups. Coalition members are in agreement with this recommendation.	Simon will initiate a conversation with Canadiana and the TSC can take over regarding the details.
	IMPLEMENTATION The Coalition and its coordinator need to establish a Core Services Implementation Plan. There are several details that are already known: Artefactual work cannot begin until September 2011 Canadiana API work can begin right away	Mimi will begin a draft of a Core Services Implementation Plan for review by the group.
	FUNDING The Coalition took some time to brainstorm funding options at this point: Have a look at resources and grant opportunities that fund projects like the BC Books Online Form a Funding Sub-Committee (FSC) to conduct in-depth search for funding FSC can enlist the help of a fundraising specialist or consult university development offices (ie. UBC Development Office has access to databases that have information on Canadian foundations) If members are considering going to their institutions for funding, they need to show that they are exploring external funding options Sharing costs will lead to more buy-in Approach the Public Library Services Branch, public library federations, library, archives associations, museum associations, Vancouver Foundation, post-secondary partners, historical federations, etc. Create an appealing proposal/document similar to the JISC document Stewardship of funding should be considered/worked out among members	Talk to Ron Walker/Brian Bell at Canadiana because they have experience in this area. Form a FSC that could look at a more elaborate proposal for other funding sources.
3. The Future of the Coalition	It has been almost two years since the BC Digitization Coalition was formed out of the recommendations of the Digitization Symposium in late 2008, and the group paused to discuss where the Coalition is headed in the future. Simon provided a document that reviews the Coalition’s activities as well as looks ahead to solidify the Coalition’s structure, governance and sustainability as it plans future programs and services.Although the costs of creating and providing new services are not huge, members also need to consider ongoing issues of sustainability how the Coalition relates to other large digitization initiatives. The Coalition is not a group that engages in digitization projects but rather works to facilitate conversations between the different sectors with a particular interest in supporting smaller institutions to participate in digitization initiatives. There is potential for collaboration with larger digitization projects such as BC Bibliography Project (a multi-institutional initiative) and the group agreed that the Coalition should stay connected with some of the larger projects (the group also noted that there is usually overlap in the membership of various groups which should help information sharing).The group agreed that the current informal structure works well and will allow the Coalition to achieve its immediate goals for the next year. Members of the group suggested some changes to the current meeting format including a regular Coordinator’s report to ensure that action items are moving forward.	Talk about internal structure next meeting and the steering committee role of the Coalition and its sub-committees Promote the new website. Coordinator’s report at the next meeting. Simon will present on behalf of the Coalition at the BC Bibliography meeting on April 29^th.
Next Meeting: TBD

Next meeting on March 11, 2011

mmlam — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:45:13 +0000

Where: BCLA Boardroom, Vancouver (900 Howe Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 2M4 )

When: Friday, March 11, 2011, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm