CARLI Digital Collections Users' Group Minutes
Meeting Minutes
December 16, 2008
Conference call

Members Present: Matt Cook (Chair; Illinois Institute of Technology), Ellen Corrigan (Eastern Illinois University), Kevin Ford (Columbia College Chicago), Kate James (Illinois State University), Julie Patton (Northwestern University), Sue Wilson (Illinois Wesleyan University)

Members Absent: Betsy Kruger (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Michel Nguessan (Governors State University)

CARLI Staff present: Jessica Gibson (committee liaison), Amy Maroso (committee liaison), Elizabeth Clarage

1. Kevin agreed to take minutes.
2. Minutes from the November 18, 2008, meeting were approved.
3. Upcoming In-Person Meeting (January 22, 2009)
   1. Matt reminded everyone about the in-person meeting to be held at the CARLI office in Champaign January 22, 2009.
   2. The Interface committee hopes to have some visuals of the Collections website redesign to show the group at the January meeting.
   3. Matt mentioned that he would like to discuss the proposed Digital Preservation forum to be held this summer.  He hopes to have someone from the Preservation Working Group in attendance at the January in-person meeting.
4. Committee Reports
   1. Interface Committee – Sue reported on the committee’s December 3, 2008 conference call.  CARLI is preparing a contract for, and with, Kerri Willette for her proposed redesign of the CARLI Digital Collections website interface.  During the conference call, the group discussed the overall look and feel of the website, specifically its color scheme and branding.  They’ve begun to identify and document the “browse collection by” facets.  The committee also discussed the dynamic “feature” images for the new home page. Jessica is working on a document detailing resources about the CARLI Digital Collections and investigating ways to integrate RSS feeds into the website.  Betsy is creating an actual mock-up page for the website, primarily so that Kerri Willette has a clearer understanding of how the committee envisions the new interface.  Betsy hopes to present the mock-up to the larger group in January.
   2. Standards Committee - Kevin reported on the committee’s conference call last Thursday, December 11, 2008.  The group agreed to accept the majority of the changes to the Guidelines for the Creation of Digital Collections: Digitization Best Practices for Images and Text document that Kevin suggested.  Either Amy or Kevin will accept the changes in the document, and integrate two other recommendations (a rewrite of the “Character Encoding” section and appending a sample image digitization workflow).  These changes will receive a final vote at the next meeting.  Group members also concluded that they had enough information to move forward with the Audio Digitization Best Practices and Guidelines document.  Five sections were identified for the proposed document.  Each group member will be responsible for completing one section as follows:  Matt – Audio Conversion and Digitization Sample Rates; Julie – Audio File Formats; Kate – Audio Editing, Digitization and Conversion Software; Kevin - Sample Workflow; Amy - Recommended Readings.
5. Grant Writing Workshops - CARLI staff have confirmed details for the workshops and are working on creating the Registration pages.  Amy will attend the Chicago workshop; Jessica will attend the one in Springfield.
6. Digital Preservation Forum Update
   1. Matt reported that the Preservation Working Group has agreed to co-host the meeting with our group. Matt had asked Lynne Thomas, Chair of PWG, if she might be available for the present meeting, but she was unable to attend.  Matt noted that PWG has suggested a few names for presenters and queried whether we should first identify speakers we want and then decide how much money will be required.  Amy stated that, generally speaking, groups planning a CARLI event (and CARLI administrators expect this procedure) should 1) determine a location and date for the event; 2) invite speakers and secure their participation (so far as possible); and 3) then submit a request to the Program Planning Committee for any necessary funding.
   2. Matt noted that a fair amount of January meeting would be devoted to organizing the Digital Preservation Forum this summer.
   3. Potential locations for the forum might include downstate universities or the Hilton Conference Center in Champaign.
   4. Matt will contact Lynne, Jessica, and Amy about actual dates so that this requirement could be met and settled quickly, before the in-person meeting.  This would permit the group to discuss meatier topics in-person, such as themes and presentation topics for the Forum.
7. New Business
   1. Amy and Jessica reported on a three-hour webinar they attended to learn about changes and new features in CONTENTdm 5, which will be released on December 17, 2008.  CONTENTdm 5 will feature a new search engine (the same as OCLC uses for WorldCat), which will include relevancy ranking, facetted browsing, and suggested spelling corrections to search queries.  There will also be a new Acquisitions Client called the Project Client.  The new version will come with more vocabularies and thesauri pre-loaded and a number of changes to improve workflow efficiencies, such as supporting background processing and time-triggered events. CARLI will require a new server and a fresh set-up in order to migrate the present digital collections.  This will take a little time, especially as CARLI is still evaluating how current collections will be affected by changes in the new version of CONTENTdm.
   2. The contract to hire Kerri Willette as consultant for work on CARLI Digital Collections web pages is still in process.  We will want Kerri to do her work on CONTENTdm version 5.
   3. Amy and Jessica asked for clarification about the group’s name.  It has been inconsistently written in the documentation and this has been, and continues to be, frustrating and problematic. The group overwhelmingly voted for “Digital Collections Users’ Group.”  Many collections.  Many users.  One group.  All digital.

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Digital Collections Users
I-Share Users
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Illinois Repository Task Force
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