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MinutesSteering CommitteeJune 6 - 7, 2002 MinutesPresent Magdalene Albert, Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Secretariat Susan Haigh, National Library of Canada Call to order Claude Bonnelly called the meeting to order at 1:00 on June 6 and welcomed the committee to the Robarts Library. He explained that the presentations that would take place later in the afternoon would provide the opportunity to examine links with other organizations in view of the globalization of digital activities. Our Roots/Nos Racines Frits Pannekoek, University of Calgary, joined the meeting via teleconference. He explained that negotiations with Canadian Heritage have been completed regarding Year II of the Project and that he expected to have an announcement regarding funding within 4 to 6 weeks. The request was for almost $1 million. The Project is currently cleaning up the data that was created during Year I and continuing to work on the design of the home page. In Year I, 300,000 pages were created and copyright clearance was obtained for an addition 4,000 titles to be scanned in Year II. The National Editorial Committee has met once and two Regional Editorial Committees have been established. A site design competition was held but the results are not yet conclusive. It is decided that the Launch of the project will be delayed so that the site will appear at its best for the launch. University of Calgary staff will be in contact with the Office of the National Librarian to propose a Fall launch, possibly involving the Governor General. Among others, school boards would be a good target group to attend the launch. CIHM is in the process of updating a list of school boards that originated with OISE and M. Albert will make this available. Action: M. Albert On the second day, June 7, this review was continued. Although titles have been selected for Phase II, this remains flexible since we don't yet know how much money will be provided. Fifteen partners will participate in copyright clearance, bibliographic work and the provision of material for scanning. The central server at the University of Calgary will store the metadata and search application but decentralized servers will store the digital text. It was emphasized that the Steering Committee will be kept informed as developments occur and the project expands to additional nodes and partners. The Steering Committee will also be kept informed of standards and practices being followed. There will be a need to identify other institutions that could become nodes. In that context, it was noted that the National Library has a strong collection of local histories some of which would be too fragile or valuable to ship to another venue for scanning, making it logical for the National Library to be a potential node. It was suggested that records for the items scanned in this project be loaded into AMICUS through a MARA load. Also on the second day, the Committee revisited the question of the launch. It was agreed that it should take place during a high-profile event and that we should try to invite prominent Canadian historians and scholars. The national launch should take place in Ottawa, possibly at Rideau Hall or at the National Library. M. Albert will investigate the possibility of a launch at Rideau Hall, possibly similar to the launch of ECO. It was suggested that holding the launch in conjunction with an event such as the Newspaper Consultation would have the advantage of having a number of interested people already in the city. Action: M. Albert Presentations (Links with other organizations) The remainder of the afternoon of the first day, June 6, was taken up with three separate presentations.
Micromedia ProQuest was represented by Stephen Abrams, Vice President, Corporate Development, and Chris Cowan, Vice President, Historical Newspapers. They presented their Historical Newspapers product and service, using the New York Times as an example. OCLC's Digital & Preservation Co-op was presented by Daniel Boivin, accompanied by Taylor Surface, Director of Digital Projects at OCLC, who provided a demonstration of OCLC's historic newspaper digitization service. Alain Delaney gave a presentation of the services and products of the Société canadienne du microfilm and CIDG (Conseillers en informatique documentaire et de gestion). On June 7, discussion continued on the value of developing partnerships. It was agreed that it would be valuable to pursue the idea of establishing a formal link with OCLC. Other organizations that were mentioned included NINCH (National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage www.ninch.org) and TAPoR (Text Analysis Portal for Research http://huco.ualberta.ca/Tapor). C. Petter will send additional information to the members on TAPoR and L. Copeland will provide information on other possible links. Action: C. Petter B. Bell demonstrated via the HALINET site an approach being used by Ontario public libraries for local newspapers. He expressed interest in expanding the use of this approach to a provincial or national level, possibly through CIDL. This generated a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using specialty applications rather than applications that may be more conducive to integration with mainstream systems. B. Bell noted that the Oakville Public Library Network invests in a robust application that could be used by multiple communities. It was also noted that large commercially available applications do not always survive. This discussion was not conclusive and demonstrated that a national newspaper consultation was necessary. At this point there was a discussion on the relationship of libraries in general to the Dept. of Canadian Heritage and how this relationship differed from that of museums and archives. It was agreed that CIDL has a role to play in promoting libraries to government. Newspaper consultation Requirements for a large-scale newspaper project need to be identified. Local applications have significant strengths because of the content knowledge and enthusiasm, but a national standard approach would be necessary to ensure sustainability and consistency. S. Haigh presented the document, "Canadian Newspapers Online: A National Consultation", distributed prior to the meeting on a national newspaper consultation. It will concentrate on the digital aspects of newspapers. A strategic approach requires that we consult with all players to identify the role that each will play. The result would probably be an overarching access model with a strategy for funding, with decentralized content development. CIDL will provide support for the session. B. Bell volunteered to be the CIDL representative on the planning committee along with R. Manning. Action: Planning Committee E-Theses R. Manning gave a brief report on the status of E-Theses at the National Library of Canada. It is timely that we move forward since local projects are underway and national leadership is vital. He indicated that the National Library has appointed Sharon Reeves as new coordinator for the program who intends to move forward quickly. The Steering Committee expressed pleasure at this news. The fall Open Meeting should have a presentation on e-theses by the National Library of Canada. Action: L. Swain CIDL Open meeting S. Haigh distributed a proposal for the program for an Open Meeting to be held in the fall. The idea would be to bring administrators from CIDL institutions along with key technical people who need to establish networks so that they can work among themselves and discuss technical issues. The technical staff in libraries must recognize the need for a national focus. CIDL must provide leadership and the Open Meeting must have a clear, focused outcome. The agenda will be developed by L. Swain, S. Haigh, W. Wueppelmann (CIHM)) and K. Turko will work on the program and a teleconference will be held with the full committee to approve it. Action: L. Swain C. Bonnelly will investigate the possibility of having the meeting at the Château Frontenac which is where the subsequent CARL meeting will be held. Action: C. Bonnelly Inventory of Canadian Digital Initiatives The National Library does not currently have an alternate way of providing this service. It is agreed that we must be more proactive and the Secretariat is asked to pursue institutions that have initiatives to contribute. It is also agreed that if the institutions are unable to submit entries themselves, the secretariat is empowered to create entries on behalf of the institutions. The Inventory must be better promoted and it must be clear that it includes projects in progress and particularly planned projects. Only by including these can we help to avoid duplication. Effort must be made to update the CIDL Resources page. The Secretariat is asked to give more prominence to this service. Action: R. Manning The relationship with the PCH Culture Portal was discussed. L. Swain will send additional information to the Steering Committee. Action: L. Swain CIHM M. Albert presented a document CIHM Update about CIHM activities. Secretariat report R. Manning gave a report on the Secretariat activities.
Action: R. Manning Next meeting The next Steering Committee meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 9, immediately prior to the proposed Newspaper Consultation. Canadian Newspapers Online: A National Consultation Toward a National Strategy to Strengthen Access to Canadian Newspapers OnlineThe National Library of Canada, in collaboration with the Canadian Initiative on Digital Libraries, Canadian Newspaper Association, Canadian Association of Journalists, and Association for Canadian Studies, will host a two-day consultation on online Canadian newspapers. The session aims to define a cooperative strategy to strengthen, on a national basis, online access to contemporary and historical newspaper content for Canadians. Location Auditorium and meeting rooms National Library of Canada 395 Wellington St. Ottawa, ON Dates October 7-8, 2002 Background Canadians have long recognized the value of the newspaper in their daily lives and in their pursuit of knowledge of the past. As the 'first draft of history', newspapers offer an unparalleled source of information on the communities which they reflect and serve. They connect Canadians to their past, to their communities and to each other. The usage of the National Library of Canada's vast collection of Canadian newspapers, both on-site and through interlibrary loan, is a testament to the their utility to the family historian, to the student, to the lifelong learner, and to the media. In this respect, the National Library of Canada is no different from its counterparts in other countries, where special care is taken to ensure access to the domestic press. Since its inception, the National Library of Canada has collected Canadian newspapers. Currently, the collection is the largest in the country and continues to grow through donation, legal deposit and purchase. Even with an ever-increasing collection, the National Library recognized in the mid-1980's that its holdings would never be complete, as strong collections already existed in each province and territory. Thus, the Decentralized Program for Canadian Newspapers was created, whereby responsibilities for collection, preservation and access to the domestic press were shared between the provincial/territorial institutions and the National Library of Canada. While the National Library provides access to Canadian online newspapers for its clients through its general reference service, it does not currently collect Canadian online newspapers within its Electronic Collection of Canadiana; nor is it currently engaged in the digitization of historical backruns of Canadian newspapers. Recognizing that the corpus is too large, and the economics too daunting, for one institution, or even one sector, to do it all, the Library seeks broader discussion with the community of stakeholders in Canadian newpapers. Issues Many issues provide the basis for this consultation. Among them are:
There are two complementary ways to achieve more comprehensive and long-term access to digital Canadian newspapers:
The planned agenda will address both of these. Goals of the Consultation
Invited Participation
Proposed Agenda Monday, October 7 - National Library Auditorium
Afternoon: "Born Digital" - Long-term Access to Canadian Online Newpapers Panel:
Moderated discussion Summary and concluding remarks - Russell Mills Tuesday, October 8 - National Library Auditorium and Meeting Rooms Morning: "Reborn Digital" - Digitization of Backruns of Canadian Newspapers
Afternoon: Defining A Strategy
CIHM Update, May 2002Magdalene Albert, Executive Director Canada in the Making, a government publications project, is progressing as expected as we head into year three of a projected 5-year span. CIHM digitized over 250,000 pages last year (April 2001 - March 2002) and completed two new educational projects: Exploration, the Fur Trade and Hudson's Bay Company and Canada in the Making. Early Canadiana On-line (ECO) surpassed the one million image mark early this year and in March 2002 recorded the highest number of hits: over 2 million; more than 14,000 pages are being read daily. This spring we also had the first assessment done on the educational resources, which indicated that they were well received by students and teachers alike. I've appended the Executive Summary, for your information. If anyone would like an electronic copy of the full report (65 p.), please let me know. In order to save costs and have greater control over the production process, we brought the OCR process in-house a few months ago. We have also begun investigating bringing the scanning process in-house and plan to have a scanner in place in this fiscal year. Our method of financial reporting has changed from a microfiche to a digital focus, which provides more meaningful information about our operations to CIHM board, stakeholders and to Canadian Heritage. Last year there was concern among CIHM member libraries about the state of affairs and a need for better communication. A vision session was held early June. President Jean-Claude Robert has followed up with a White Paper which will be discussed at the AGM end of May. A final copy will be distributed to CIHM stakeholders. CIHM is renewing its relationship with the National Library and is currently working on a joint digital directories project. Members are better informed about CIHM through our bi-monthly newsletter CIHM Bulletin ICMH, which began publication October 2001. Public access surfaced as an issue during the past year with Canadian Heritage. Following discussions, a compromise was reached which saw a percentage of images from Canada in the Making being made available on the free part of the ECO database. This percentage was equivalent to the percentage of funding Heritage contributed to the project (30%). In a separate move related to the educational web resources, the Executive approved free access to the entire database to all Canadian elementary and high schools as of 1 July 2002. I am appending a list of highlights for your information, which gives you a snapshot of last year's events and achievements. The planning for our next project Early Canadian Periodicals has already begun* and the Periodicals Advisory Committee members will be announced at the AGM. * CIHM generally starts the planning for a project a couple of years in advance. We are expecting to complete our government publications project before embarking on the filming/scanning for the periodicals project. |