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 As some of you know, I have been working on a project to use FRBR and 
 facets to improve access to moving images materials in libraries.  
 Although we have managed to lay some theoretical groundwork and work on 
 some practical proof-of-concept projects, I have continued to struggle 
 with finding a way to move the project forward. Someone recently 
 suggested that I should apply for planning grant. The project doesn't 
 seem to lend itself to a lot of smaller grants because the midpoints 
 aren't sufficiently interesting in themselves. The main thing that seems 
 to be holding me back from getting a bigger grant is that I can't even 
 put together a proposal because I don't have the knowledge to make the 
 basic planning decisions related to the technological aspects of the 
 project.

 I initially thought the planning grant would primarily pay to hire a 
 consultant or consultants. It has also been suggested that alternatively 
 maybe I should form an advisory board and bring a group of people 
 together to help with the planning. What I would like is for someone(s) 
 to do the technical project planning that would be necessary to write a 
 realistic grant proposal--things like evaluate and recommend software 
 platforms and tools, make recommendations on the technical skill sets 
 and personnel needed, and develop a high-level plan of work, timeline 
 and budget.

 I am looking for advice on how to identify people who would be good 
 members of an advisory board, especially people with a strong technology 
 background or, alternatively, how to identify an appropriate consultant 
 or consultants. If anyone has advice for how to go about this or 
 suggestions for specific names, please let me know.

 Also, if anyone has general suggestions for the best way to approach 
 this kind of planning project, I would very much appreciate hearing 
 them.

 To give you some sense of what we hope to do, there are three broad 
 components to the overall project:

 1. Conversion of existing data

 We will convert existing MARC bibliographic data to a form useful for 
 the new interface, i.e., normalized, machine-manipulatable values for 
 important data elements mapped to the appropriate FRBR levels. We will 
 cluster records representing the same movie or FRBR work and use these 
 clusters to create preliminary work records. We are current 
 investigating the potential of the XC Metadata Services Toolkit to 
 perform the initial data transformation.

 2. Development of end user discovery interface

 We plan to develop a discovery interface that will enable users to 
 easily find specific movies as well as explore categories of movies. The 
 interface will also support identification of appropriate versions based 
 on format, location, language options and other characteristics. We have 
 developed an initial prototype at http://blazing-sunset-24.heroku.com/ 
 that was designed to demonstrate the basic concepts of our approach.

 3. Creation of tools and documentation for data input and maintenance

 Although the initial data conversion can be treated as a separate 
 process, we will need to develop tools and forms for inputting records 
 directly into the new system as well as for editing, deleting and mass 
 updating of data and records. Documentation will be needed for data 
 elements, data sources, input standards, and using the tools for data 
 input and maintenance.

 If you are interested in more details, feel free to email me.

 Kelley

 Kelley McGrath
 Metadata Management Librarian
 University of Oregon