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Sorry I was not on the last call. Thanks for the notes. Regarding levels, and more generally the registry submission process, I have a few thoughts. It probably *would* help to make the levels field optional. Another approach would be to keep it required, but allow a couple of additional values, "Undetermined", and "Less than 1" or something similar. It's slightly more informative than no value, and slightly more accepting than requiring values of 1-3. If totally optional, it is too easy to not provide an answer out of laziness (looking in the mirrror, here). Just a thought. I also like Abby Rumsey's ideas on this matter. I think the Subject Matter field is a little daunting, especially for an organization with a lot of collections. It's not horrible, but for Michigan it is the difference between being able to generate a completed spreadsheet with ~175 collections in it using a single database query, and having to manually edit 175 rows in a spreadsheet to map the subjects. And up until a few years ago, the description would have been the deal breaker for us. Now we have descriptions, which is nice. But does everybody? Michigan has quite a few collections, so our perspective on what the obstacles are will be a bit different than an organization with just a few collections, where, choosing subjects and even writing descriptions is not much overhead. You can see what we have, here... http://quod.lib.umich.edu/lib/colllist/ Perhaps other collection registries would be willing to share data. Illinois is doing a lot in this realm, including collection level descriptions. OCLC has a collection registry for the OAI harvesting they do. Would this be weird? Another possible approach would be to reach out to a few big organizations that have a lot of collections to see if they could provide fully populated tabulated data for import into the registry. At the same time, reach out more directly to a couple dozen small organizations and ask that they each make at least one submission. (Sorry if these approaches have been tried and I'm unaware.) OK, well, I wrote kind of a lot. I hope it helps a little. :) On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 4:56 PM, Grotke, Abigail <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hello all, > Many thanks to Rachel Howard for our notetaking this call. The minutes > have been posted to the wiki and are below. > > http://www.loc.gov/extranet/wiki/osi/ndiip/ndsa/index.php?title=Content_WG_April_4,_2012_Meeting_Minutes > > If I missed anyone who was on the call but not listed on the attendees > list, feel free to add yourself. I know some folks called in without the > webex so I may have missed some names. > > I encourage those of you with thoughts about the levels of preservation to > chime in on the list... > Thanks! > Abbie > > ------------------------------------------------------ > Attendees (16) > > * Faundeen, John, Archivist | U.S. Geological Survey | > [log in to unmask] > * Grotke, Abbie | Web Archiving Team Lead, Library of Congress, and > Co-Chair of the NDSA Content Working Group | [log in to unmask] | 202-707-2833 > | @agrotke > * Harrison, Anne | Federal Library & Information Center Committee > (FLICC) | [log in to unmask] > * Hartman, Cathy | Associate Dean of Libraries, University of North > Texas/ Co-Chair of the NDSA Content Working Group | [log in to unmask] > * Howard, Rachel | Digital Initiatives Librarian, University of > Louisville | [log in to unmask] > * Kepley, David | NARA | [log in to unmask] > * Maes, Margaret | Legal Information Preservation Alliance | > [log in to unmask] > * McAninch, Glen | Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives | > [log in to unmask] > * McGlone, Jonathan | University of Michigan Library | > [log in to unmask] > * Moffatt, Christie | National Library of Medicine | > [log in to unmask] > * Muller, Chris | Muller Media Conversions | > [log in to unmask] > * Rau, Erik | Hagley Museum and Library | [log in to unmask] > * Reib, Linda | Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records | > [log in to unmask] > * Rumsey, Abby Smith | Library of Congress/NDIIPP | [log in to unmask] > * Seneca, Tracy | California Digital Library | [log in to unmask] > * Stoller, Michael | New York University | [log in to unmask] > > Report from the NDSA Leadership Meeting > > Abbie and Cathy attended the meeting last Thursday and Friday. It was the > first time that working group co-chairs and Coordinating Committee got > together in one room for 1 ½ days. Discussion covered how things are going, > what working groups are doing, where we could use support from Coordinating > Committee. Abbie and Cathy shared the challenges our working group has > experienced as we've grown to over 70; we're the largest, but also have > fairly good attendance on our calls and with our content teams. > > Outcomes of overall meeting include having press kit to guide members in > talking about NDSA's purpose, plans, and accomplishments - common topics to > address rather than working in silos. The Outreach Team will work on that > and make it available to all members. An action list will help drive what > work the Coordinating Committee can/should be doing for the organization. > Watch for more details on NDSA-all listserv. > > Report from the Registry Action Team > > Daniel sent an update over the list. There's been a bit of concern at low > number of submissions to registry, and worry that levels were stumbling > block due to uncertainty or embarrassment. We've been talking about having > interns help feed info into the registry, and also looking again at levels > and at each item listed in the levels and expand upon them so that it > becomes an internal assessment tool for deciding where we're at and what > resources are needed to get to a higher level . Levels of preservation were > also discussed at the NDSA Leadership Meeting last week. The Infrastructure > Team was interested in looking at the levels more closely and building > something around them that could benefit the membership more widely. We > need to figure out where to go with that next. > > Margie agreed that expansion/better description of levels will encourage > more libraries to participate. > > Christie suggested exploring the possibility of not making levels > required, just get people to register content and over time, with > assistance of interns, fill in the gaps. Levels are a stumbling block > because they seem to be all or nothing - you have to meet everything in the > level. > > Glen reported that he's involved in another survey of state archives in > U.S. with regard to preservation activities; it's even more complex in > state archives to identify who's doing what, and then to go beyond that and > try to figure out a standard entry is even more intensive in terms of staff. > > Michael agreed that assigning levels can be a really helpful exercise, but > for some institutions it's too big an exercise. > > Abby Rumsey suggested identifying activities in each level as being > benchmarks of excellence as a way to acknowledge progress, or things that > are not relevant/priority for mission. It could just be that libraries and > archives look at the set of things in each class/level and pick out the > priorities that are highest for their mission and assess themselves against > themselves rather than engage in a self-defeating one-size-fits-all > exercise. > > Tracy questioned the fundamental goal of the registry - is it more about > content or about practices across the organization? Abbie explained that > the original goal was to identify content, but then we had to grapple with > what you mean when you say you've preserved content. Levels maybe should > not be part of the registry at all, which is why there's interest in it > being elevated to cross-NDSA. > > Michael agreed that we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. > How easy can we make the registry so the basic info can get out there > without burdening institutions with extensive self-evaluation process? > > Abby reiterated that it should be possible to come up with cluster of > things that characterize each level and then each institution can identify > sets that apply to them at that level. > > Glen suggested looking at Charles Dollar's Data Maturity levels because > that's what they're using for the latest survey of state archives. It > spells out 10 or 11 different categories of preservation and offers levels > in each one of those categories, along with a point system. David wondered > why we weren't using the TRAC checklist. Rachel pointed out that it's more > complicated than the levels as we currently state them. Others said that > Dollar's system is more complex than TRAC. > > Abbie suggested moving this discussion to the listserv, where Kris and > Daniel can provide input. > > Report from the Content Teams > > John (Geospatial) - Didn't meet last month. Will meet end of this month to > further refine scope and areas of focus - they have more than enough input > (several pages of comments), now need to figure out what to concentrate > on/prioritize. > > Glen (Government) - Started at beginning talking about issues with regard > to electronic records risk. Seemed to be an emphasis on working with > records creators to better refine what we get so that we can preserve it > better. The front end was of major concern. Sense that respondents are > daunted by all of the things to be concerned about - where do you start? > Constructed sample document of purpose/objectives/statement but haven't yet > received comments. Scheduling next meeting for end of month. > > Abbie (News, Media & Journalism) - Met once and came up with categories to > pursue; narrowing it down. Citizen journalism, born-digital journalism > content case study that came through from UNT. Don't have another meeting > set but will be working over email on those topic areas. > > Christie (Science, Tech, Medicine, Mathematics ) - Met last week and > identified some areas of at-risk content; still in brainstorming mode and > plan to meet after using the Wiki to identify different types of data, > develop case studies. > > Social Sciences: Think they have met at least once but haven't heard > anything lately. > > Erik Rau volunteered to facilitate History. Jon volunteered to be the > catalyst to get meeting going with Arts & Humanities group. > > Next Meeting > > Next meeting will be June 6 at 11am. There will also be an in-person > meeting at NDSA meeting on Wednesday afternoon July 25, for which they're > also trying to get a conference call set up. Will send out details. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Abbie Grotke | Web Archiving Team Lead | Office of Strategic Initiatives > National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program | > Library of Congress > http://www.loc.gov/webarchiving/ | http://www.digitalpreservation.gov< > http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/> > 202-707-2833 | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | @agrotke > > > ############################ > > To unsubscribe from the NDSA-CONTENT list: > write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] > or click the following link: > > http://list.digitalpreservation.gov/SCRIPTS/WA-DIGITAL.EXE?SUBED1=NDSA-CONTENT&A=1 > -- John Weise <http://www.lib.umich.edu/users/jweise> - DLPS<http://www.lib.umich.edu/digital-library-production-service-dlps>- MLibrary <http://www.lib.umich.edu/> ############################ To unsubscribe from the NDSA-CONTENT list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://list.digitalpreservation.gov/SCRIPTS/WA-DIGITAL.EXE?SUBED1=NDSA-CONTENT&A=1