UC Berkeley CollectionSpace Advisory Group meeting, June 28, 2013

Owned by Rick Jaffe
Last updated: Jul 30, 2013 by Chris HoffmanVersion comment
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UC Berkeley CollectionSpace Advisory Group

June 28, 2013

Action items

  • CH to work with RJ on first draft of SLA
  • CH to assemble lists of "future" tasks and send to group
  • CH to work with MTB on prioritization process
  • Charter development might wait until we have had a couple meetings
  • RJ to schedule monthly meeting

Agenda
Introduction
Museum debrief: Could each of you take 3-5 minutes to describe how you use CSpace, how many people are using the system, and what your top priorities are?
Some group activities we will be starting (but not finishing)
- Charter
- Service level agreement
- Prioritizing work - near term and longer term
But also...
- Communications 
- Making more visible how we are spending our time
- Projects and proposals
- Community
- Costs (storage, backups)
- Represent UCB to CSpace project and to campus and to other potential collections.
- Policies and processes
Schedules and meetings
Timeline and next steps

ATTENDING: Michael Black, Holly Forbes, Andrew Doran, Chris Hoffman, Rick Jaffe (note taker)

ABSENT: Nancy Goldman

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Notes

Introductions

Andrew shows off UCJEPS -

Imaging projects: 75000 images of seaweeds; Bryophytes, about 90,000. On a good day, 1000 images a day. Image has accession number and scientific name attached. Team of 15, two camera stations, plus a scanner. Camera image 3-4MB each. Scanner image up to 7MB.

Shows Solandra specimen, with two images attached. Work out label data (for cataloging) from image of specimen sheet label. Shows cataloging record. Additional projects in the offing. Increasingly, request for eLoan (image). Electronic loans are great for grants. Wants to upload PDFs that cite herbaria specimens. Use of note fields to capture inferred knowledge and careful research done in the past. Interest from South American institutions. JStor plant science people are seeking a tool to do that project. CSpace instances per country?

Needs:

Public Interface

Labels

Reports and custom queries

We all notice that CSpace is much snappier at 2195 Hearst than at the three institutions.

Michael shows PAHMA:

Many modifications to cataloging record -- above the folder, denser layout, custom fields (collection manager, etc.)

Would like primary media.

Would like to add: Use of collections, additional authority data.

Associated event needs tweaking -- not useful as is.

Has become faster, incrementally. Still not at previous speed (TMS). Getting close. Complaints have dropped. Tied into faster network several months ago.

Reports now.

Shows Django-based web apps. Looks like part of CSpace. People know where to find them, always use the latest version.

(Andrew: Would like a batch annotate when loans come back with new information.)

Mchael: We'd like a home location field, so they know where to return objects to.

Shows Barcode Label Generator.

Yuteh has written cron script that runs every hour that looks at uploaded barcode scans and updates location field.

"No one's thinking now, "Did we make the right decision?," "Should we back out?"

Andrew: "I think the same -- the pros have come to outweigh the cons. Media, web access..."

Important request: Searching across record types. "Find everything from this place"; "Find all images of firearms."

Holly describes BotGarden: Just two months in. Still trying to figure out which is the right URL for webapps.

Priorities: make it faster.

Network issues? Older computers? CSpace is a heavy-weight web app. RAM is important. Kemi (tech support) needs to know to ask for much RAM.

Michael: Anything more than 4MB is good, 8MB is golden.

Andrew: Hi-end iMacs at VLSB not as fast as here at Earl Warren Hall.

Holly: Much slower than what we need, or than old system (SAGE)

Holly, Andrew: Hard to test, unless you're doing real-world work. Blocks of time are important. Scripts, recipes are good. Timetable important.

Holly: Waiting to get Bed Lists and other web apps in order before opening it up to hort staff volunteers. Must install Chrome on all computers for web apps to print properly.

More training needed.

Would like a way to correct errors in accession history.

Wants: Wildcards in basic search. Focus on input field.

Andrew: One more desiradata: Batch processing.

Michael: And merging different forms of a name.

Andrew: Yes.

Andrew: Would really like to not be the only herbarium using CSpace.

Holly: livingcollections.org -- IMLS-funded (with Missouri Botanical Garden and Desert (Phoenix)) CMS. Iris BG and livingcollections have iPad versions.

Michael: Webapps designed to run on iPad.

Andrew: CSpace booth at SPNCH conference.

Discussion of group goals: SLA to define and articulate responsibilities and expectations; shared approach to granting agencies, VCR, etc.; prioritizing upcoming work

Finding shared needs. (Andrew: "Slides.")

Backlog of priorities...keeping that list up-to-date.

Keeping an eye on institutions' longer-term goals.

(Conversation continues with ideas about other institutions to approach and other topics.)

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