UW Library Electronic Data Service | Library

MINUTES OF THE MEETING, NOVEMBER 1, 2004

Present: Christy Branston; Jack Cooper; Sandra Keys (Facilitator); Judy McTaggart (Recorder); Richard Pinnell; Shabiran Rahman

Minutes of the Previous Meeting, October 4, 200: Approved.
Business Arising:

Previous Business Arising:

Item 5, Funds for Datasets: Shabiran confirmed EDS has 2 budget lines – one for licenses, etc. and one for $1,500. She noted CANSIM is currently being paid from the $1,500 and this should be looked at. She will follow up on this.

Item 6, Archiving UW Data: Richard will discuss this issue with Mark at their next meeting (2 weeks). Shabiran noted Christine will be attending a conference in Washington and the issue of institutional archiving may be discussed there. She will ask Christine to bring back any appropriate materials.

Item 4, TDR/SWORDC Summary: Shabiran reported the promotional material has been sent out. Jack noted he has informed the WATITS planning committee that TDR would be willing to present. He will check if the schedule has been finalized and report back to the group.
Item 5, TDR Report: Richard noted he has sent the group all messages related to the move to Nesstar. Larry Helfand has been making global changes to the URL and Richard has not heard if there are problems. He will follow up with Betty Graf.
Item 6, TDR “Reps” Meeting Summary: Christy has added the TSX, CHASS, and election studies links to the TDR page. Richard noted there should also be a link on the page for the Spatial Data Lab (GIS data). He will send the link to Christy.

Additional Agenda:

Add as agenda item 10: Purchasing Memberships for Data (Christy)

Data Day (Shabiran):

Shabiran reported the information about Data Day has been sent out It will be held on November 19 at WLU (Library, 3 rd floor), 9 a.m. – noon. Bo Wandschneider and John Goyder will present, as well as two faculty members from Laurier. Shabiran has given Bo and John a power point presentation that compares what the different centres do. They will incorporate this into their presentations.

Nesstar Update (Richard):

Richard reported the public release date for Nesstar is uncertain. It was scheduled for early January; however, concern has been expressed at Guelph about a mid-term release and the fact that service staff would not be adequately prepared. Richard suggested releasing it to the public in January and in early December for the staff (this allows almost a month for hands on practice). The group discussed whether the release should be delayed and agreed that – whatever release date was decided – staff training could still be provided in December (possibly the weeks of Nov.29-Dec.4 or Dec.13-17). The need to get moving on publicity was also stressed. Action: Richard will take the feedback to TDR.

DINO (OCUL Data Group, Data IN Ontario) (Sandra):

Sandra reported she has volunteered to become a member of DINO (OCUL data group, Data IN Ontario). The group will meet on Dec.7 th at Humber College. She will send the information to the group.

Disabling Access To Other Library Disks From the EDS Machine? (Shabiran/Christy):

Christy noted that currently there is a need to stay with students when they are using data on the EDS machine – this can often take considerable time. She asked if it would be better to have a student login that allows access to only certain drives. The group agreed this should be investigated and that it would be desirable to have an authentication system where the students use their UWDIR info. Action: Christy will take this request to Systems.

Possible Wish List/CKRN Items:

The group agreed to handle this agenda item by email.

EDS Advisory Meeting:

The group agreed that an Advisory Committee meeting should be held this term. There is a need to convey to faculty the suggested change of direction and solicit their feedback. A Nesstar demo was going to be an agenda item for the meeting. Richard suggested this might be added on to the staff training session (perhaps Michelle would give a demo to the Advisory Committee following the staff session). Action: Richard will confirm training date with Michelle.

Purchasing Membership for Data (Christy):

Christy reported she is working with a student who requires Canadian Urban Transit data. She noted a $50 membership fee is required in order to access the data and the student has asked if the Library would purchase a membership. Christy asked if the funds could come from the EDS budget or perhaps from the general fund (Jane). It was noted the Library typically does not purchase memberships and that more information was needed before a decision could be made. Action: Christy will find out more about what the membership entails and who would be able to access the data.

Next Meeting: Dec.6 th, Porter 407, 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Facilitator: Christy

Judy McTaggart

August 3, 2005