Meetings: DPLA West and other meetings | CAS / CDL / Apple (April 2012, San Francisco & Oakland)

22-28 April 2012 was a busy week in the Bay Area with Chris Freeland (BHL Technical Director). The main purpose of the trip was to attend the DPLA West meeting held at the Internet Archive:

• On April 26, 2012, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, in conjunction with the San Francisco Public Library and the Internet Archive, convened a series of meetings of the six DPLA workstreams at the San Francisco Public Library to discuss key issues pertaining to the DPLA and its core objectives. The goal of these meetings was to chart out agenda items for the next six months of work, as well as to provide a forum for workstreams to share updates and ideas with one another. -- DPLA West Workstream Meetings Press Release (26 April 2012)

While in the Bay Area, we also paid a visit to our BHL colleagues at the California Academy of Sciences (CAS). We also headed down to Cupertino to visit with the Apple iTunes U team. iTunes U had worked with BHL to create a series free BHL-centric resources for users of iTunes. While at Apple HQ (on Infinite Loop), I bought my first iPad at the Apple staff store.

Wikimedia (and the entire Wiki community) was a long time proponent of BHL. We were able to schedule some time with senior Wikimedia staff at their San Francisco headquarters to discuss common goals and projects.

A key portion of the Bay Area visit was a stop on the East Bay where Chris and I took the BART across the Bay to Oakland for meetings and presentations for the staff of the California Digital Library (CDL). At the time, BHL had been working with CDL (as they had content in the Internet Archive harvested by BHL). A few years earlier, in June 2009, BHL signed agreement for CDL content and at the time, CDL was the 3rd largest provider of items after Smithsonian and MBLWHOI Library (9,796 titles).

  

Here's my presentation for the meeting.

• Kalfatovic, M. (2012, April 24). The Biodiversity Heritage Library: A Vast Library of Life. Information Meeting: California Digital Library (CDL), Oakland, CA. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19710064.

As a bonus, Chris and I headed over to Berkeley after the meeting and went to Chez Panisse for dinner.

Meeting: 2012 BHL Institutional Council Meeting (15-16 March 2012, Cambridge, MA), Changing of the Guard

The 2012 BHL Institutional Council meeting, held at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, was a landmark for many reasons.

In addition to the usual reports from the BHL membership and BHL staff members (Tom Garnett, Chris Freeland, Grace Costantino, and Bianca Crowley) there was a report on the "Life and Literature" conference held the previous fall at The Field Museum in Chicago.

There were also discussions of the strategic plan as well as spending plans.

Included tours of the Mayr Library collections and a celebratory dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club.

As Deputy BHL Program Director, I gave a presentation that focused on the contributions of Smithsonian Libraries to the BHL. 

• Kalfatovic, M. (2012, March 15). Smithsonian Libraries & The Biodiversity Heritage Library: 2004 - 2012. 2012 BHL Institutional Council Meeting, Cambridge, MA (Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18903011

Changing of the Guard

This meeting also saw significant changes to the leadership of BHL which were the topics of discussion by the BHL Steering Committee.

Cathy, Tom, Graham with custom BHL vests

The original Executive Committee (Graham Higley, NHM London, Cathy Norton, MBLWHOI Library, and Constance Rinaldo, MCZ Harvard) stepped down or into new roles. This was also the last meeting of Tom Garnett as BHL Program Director as he stepped down to retire. It was at this meeting that I was appointed BHL Program Director, officially taking up the role in a few weeks.

It would also turn out to be the last BHL meeting for Chris Freeland as Technical Director as he took a new position at Washington University later in the year.

Connie, Tom, and Cathy

Tom at the Blackboard

Graham and Nancy Gwinn, Smithsonian Libraries

Group photo on the steps of the MCZ