Steering Committee Minutes, 29 October 2002
Minutes of the meeting of the Archives Hub Steering Committee held at 11.30am on 29th October 2002 at MIMAS, Manchester Computing, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL
Present
Michael Breaks (Heriot-Watt University & JISC) (Chair)
Alan Borthwick (Scottish Archive Network)
Julia Chruszcz (Manchester Computing)
Sean Dunne (MIMAS)
John Hall (University of Durham & CURL)
Amanda Hill (MIMAS)
Dorothy Johnston (University of Nottingham)
Apologies
Apologies were received from John Belchem, Derek Law, Lesley Richmond, Dick Sargent, Mary Clapinson, Bill Stockting.
1 Minutes of the last meeting and matters arising
1.1 The minutes of the last meeting were agreed.
1.2 Michael Breaks suggested that the steering committee consider increasing membership from the archive community. It was decided to invite Christine Woodland from Warwick and John Hodgson from Manchester to the next meeting.
2 CURL RD&D Report
Amanda Hill presented the report.
2.1 There are now over 10,000 records on the Archives Hub, with an extra 700 records if sub-fonds are counted. More institutions are now creating sub-fonds so the 20,000 record target for July 2003 should be met.
2.2 There has been a request to repeat the successful Society of Archivists indexing course held at Manchester in September, with the emphasis on UNESCO instead of LCSH. John Hall expressed concern about losing sight of LCSH. Amanda Hill responded that archivists are asking for training in UNESCO and that we must respond to that need. John Hall queried the random use of LCSH and UNESCO. Amanda Hill responded that each index term has the source marked up in EAD.
2.3 November's Collection of the Month will be replaced by a prize draw to encourage users to complete the Archives Hub online feedback form. Prizes will include book tokens, mugs and propelling pencils. The feedback form will ask for "success stories" and also what features users would like to see on the Hub.
2.4 Usage figures are constantly increasing and October is looking to be another record month.
2.5 The Hub team have attended several awareness-raising exhibitions, including the Family History Experience in Coventry and the Museums Association exhibition in Manchester.
2.6 The code is now complete for the Distributed Version (DV). Manchester and Liverpool will be the first "spokes". Installation has been improved and tested for ease of use by a non-technical person at Liverpool. The DV will first be rolled out to local institutions in case of problems that require site visits. It is hoped that by Christmas it will have been installed at Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Warwick.
2.7 John Hall expressed concern that the plans for the roll out seem vague. Julia Chruszcz reassured the Steering Committee that the DV would be rolled out systematically. The preliminary work with Manchester and Liverpool will hopefully identify any problems and ensure a more cohesive strategy for roll out. John Hall questioned whether increased use of the DV would lead to technical or infrastructure problems. Julia Chruszcz responded that this was impossible to predict and another reason for the controlled roll out. John Hall queried the timing of the roll out, with the current funding period due to end next July and also that institutions would have mapped out their work for the year and may not be able to accommodate installation of the DV. Dorothy Johnston added that the test institutions are quite advanced technically and that it would be useful to know how the DV will work in less advanced institutions. Julia Chruszcz responded that by the end of November we would be able to give a clear indication of what is required by sites. We should then hopefully be able to get feedback from institutions by January that can form part of the report to JISC for further funding.
2.8 Dorothy Johnston asked about relevance ranking for Quick Search. Amanda Hill responded that phrase searching and exact matches for index browsing are featured in the new version of the software, which will be available early in 2003.
3 Forthcoming National Archives Network meeting
3.1 Julia Chruszcz stated that it was important to formalise the role of the Archives Hub within the archive community to establish the Archives Hub's future role and strategic position. John Hall raised the question of overlap between archive projects e.g. should Scottish universities be included on the Hub, in SCAN or both? Do we need two services covering HE (AIM25 and the Hub)? Alan Borthwick stated that the archive community will achieve more together than through working separately. He mentioned the use of Name Authority Files, which is not currently supported by the Archives Hub. Amanda Hill pointed out that support for authority files and the new Encoded Archival Context DTD (Document Type Definition) are likely to feature in any further funding bid.
3.2 Michael Breaks questioned whether any work could be done with the AIM25 records. Amanda Hill stated that she did not think these records were available in EAD. There was some overlap in collections between the two services and consequently concerns from contributors over "version control". One option might be to have the AIM25 records available as a distributed node in the future, if all parties concerned were willing.
4 Update on funding situation
4.1 Michael Breaks suggested that details of training events and the Contributors' and Users' Forum be added. He also suggested emphasising cross-sector collaboration and that institutions were likely to continue to contribute records once their funding was over. This would make the long-term financial commitment appear more manageable. Kevin Ashley suggested providing details of institutions already making voluntary contributions.
ACTION: Julia Chruszcz to establish contact with Pat Crocker.
4.2 Michael Breaks questioned whether any more information was available on how the service review would work. Julia Chruszcz replied that she wasn't entirely sure but that we would be able to add qualitative data to the quantitative data supplied by the quarterly reports to the JISC's Monitoring and Advisory Unit.
4.3 Julia Chruszcz suggested contacting Derek Law to assist in portraying the value of the Hub in academia as there are no archivists on the JCCS. Michael Breaks suggested drawing up a "vision statement" for the Archives Hub. John Hall suggested emphasising the research value of the Hub and Michael Breaks felt it should stress that there are many more institutions still to contribute. Julia Chruszcz stated that attention should be drawn to the value that contributors place on the Hub when they continue to submit records after their funding period is over.
ACTION: Amanda Hill to draw up a "vision statement" for the Archives Hub with input from steering committee members directly involved with the archive community.
4.4 Michael Breaks questioned when the final paper will be submitted to JISC. Julia Chruszcz stated that it would be at the end of January. The service budget would be annual but presumed to be ongoing. JISC may wish to build in a three year review period for development.
5 Verbal report on Contributors' and Users' Forum
5.1 Amanda Hill informed the steering committee that the minutes of this meeting were available at https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/cufmins04.shtml. The main issues discussed were (1) New repository pages (2) Searching/Name authority files (3) Promotion of the Archives Hub within repositories (4) Celebratory event (to be held on 16 July 2003 (5) Upgrade to EAD 2000 (6) RLG request to harvest Archives Hub records.
6 RLG request to harvest Archives Hub records
6.1 John Hall informed the committee that a request had been made by Nancy Elkington from RLG to harvest Archives Hub records (particularly from CURL members) for their Archival Resources service. Amanda Hill stated that there had been mixed reactions from contributors so the decision had been made to tell RLG to contact repositories individually. The main question was whether RLG would be downloading the records or just searching the records. Julia Chruszcz stated that it was important to clarify exactly what RLG were proposing. Dorothy Johnston questioned whether the Archives Hub would object to RLG using descriptions which they had paid for. John Hall stated that Durham's view was that it important to open up access.
ACTION: John Hall to clarify RLG's intended use of Archive Hub records.
7 Any other business
7.1 Michael Breaks noted that there was no-one from the HE archives sector on Re:source's newly established Archives Task Force Group. Dorothy Johnston stated that the people named for the group so far were quite senior and felt that there would be another committee underneath this group involved in the decision making process.
8 Date and time of next meeting
It was decided to hold a meeting where the primary item would be the funding proposal.
Thursday 16th January 2003 at 11.30am.