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UW Library Electronic Data Service

MINUTES OF THE MEETING, NOVEMBER 6, 2002

PRESENT: Susan Moskal (Chair) Richard Pinnell; Judy McTaggart (Recorder); Shabiran Rahman

Absent: Jack Cooper

  1. Minutes of the Meeting of September 18, 2002: Accepted.
  1. Business Arising:
Item 4, ICPSR CD-ROMS:

Richard reported TDR is interested in adding the list of local datasets to the web site; however, there is a concern about the format of the excel spreadsheet. The group agreed that a sample of datasets should be tried to determine what problems arise and the sample should be ones that are not marked TDR. The following titles were selected for trial: “Intra-Corporate Ownership” and “The Time Series for State of Food and Agriculture”. Richard will send these to Guelph.

Richard questioned whether there is a need to keep local data if it is available in other ways (e.g. ICPSR). He also suggested perhaps the contents of ICPSR cd’s could be put up as raw data on the TDR site. The group agreed these issues warrant further discussion.

Judy reported on what is available for cd-rom storage cases. Actions: Richard will follow up on a suggested item and report back; Susan will speak with Lorraine Beattie about budget funds for purchasing the units.

  1. Additional Agenda: Add “Data Links” as agenda item 4.

  2. Data Links (Shabiran):

Shabiran reported the current issue of Data Links is ready for distribution. She noted the article about the Grad students’ use of the Data Research Centre is not included but will be scheduled for a future issue. Shabiran will also ask Val Huggan to send the newsletter mailing list to the group for updating.

The cost issue of producing the newsletter in both pdf and html formats was discussed. It was agreed the html format would be discontinued and the next issue will be produced only in pdf . Print copies will also be produced.

  1. CARL Survey (Susan):

Susan reported the due date for submission of statistics for the CARL Data Survey, 2001/02 is November 8 th. The group reviewed the statistics and the following still need to be completed: (a) count of individual titles having multiple CD’s (Sue will finish counting these); and, (b) count of local files (Richard will try to get SNAP server account of all GIS files)

  1. TDR-OMG Report (Richard):

Richard reported TDR-OMG met on Oct.31 st. The GIS metadata project was one of the agenda items discussed. The project proposal was submitted to the Steering Committee and received approval. It was noted Brent Hall, a project sponsor, was away and unable to comment on the proposal before submission. He has since examined it and expressed concern about meeting the deadline given the scope of the project and the resources available. As a result, Richard will re-write the proposal and break it into smaller pieces (milestones). The first project will be the development of a standard for GIS metadata.

The Steering Committee has asked OMG to develop a policy regarding external users and possible fee structures. Richard and Doug Horne will write up a policy and submit it to the Steering Committee.

Scripts for the DDI project have been written; however, they have not been run against the data (Sun Survey, for example). Richard has asked Bo Wandschneider to markup other larger files for the group to examine.

The notification procedure and LC cataloguing of newly acquired DLI cd-rom’s were discussed. There is currently a substantial backlog but Larry Helfand has indicated he can absorb the workload Larry has asked that an annotated list of all datasets be given to him indicating those items that have already been catalogued and priorities for the remainder. Bo will also ensure that Larry continues to be notified.

Judy McTaggart

August 3, 2005