NDSA:2014 Oct Regular Meeting

October 9, 2014

Agenda

1. General guidance from LC management on LC participation in NDSA: Would like to discuss a plan and timeline for transitioning LC away from the NDSA Secretariat role.
2. Release of 2015 National Agenda, sample press release, list of conferences (slide template), poster (talking points)
3. Release of NDSA fixity document from Infrastructure and Standards & Practices WGs
4. 2015 Coordinating Committee elections: according to records the following peoples’ terms are up: John Spencer, Helen Tibbo, Kate Wittenberg
5. LC is not to run elections, we can provide guidelines to run the elections

Notes

Present Christie Moffett, NLM; Micah Altman, MIT; John Spencer, BMS/Chase; Jefferson Bailey, Internet Archive; Robin Ruggaber, UVA; Jonathan Crabtree, UNC-Odum; Jane Mandelbaum, Trevor Owens, Erin Engle, Butch Lazorchak, Abbey Potter, Library of Congress
Not present: Helen Tibbo, UNC-SILS; Meg Phillips, NARA; Karen Cariani, WGBH; Andrea Goethals, Harvard; Kate Murray, Library of Congress


Since the meeting is only one hour and there is a lot to cover, the CC was able to discuss just the first few agenda items. The rest will be covered over email or in the notes.
A couple of emails were sent out just prior to the meeting. These items were quickly addressed first.

• Christie mentioned the soon to be released 2013 Web Archiving in the United States Survey report. There have been no comments from the CC on the contents of the report thus far; comments will be accepted through the 17th, after which the report will be released. It was decided that the underlying data should be make publicly available, not just on the NDSA CWG wiki. Micah volunteered to create a home for NDSA survey data at Dataverse. He responded via email following the meeting with the following citation and link to the web archiving survey data and the NDSA Dataverse.
  
  • Content Working Group, 2014, "NDSA Web Archiving Surveys", http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/27593 National Digiital Stewardship Alliance [Distributor]
    
  • The NDSA dataverse, to catalog data from past/current NDSA data collections: http://thedata.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/ndsa
    

• Butch forwarded a message about the Request for Input from The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NIRD) Program on the National Big Data Research and Development Initiative. https://www.nitrd.gov/bigdata/rfi/02102014.aspx. Butch suggested the NDSA could repurpose sections of the 2015 National Agenda and respond. Micah agreed it could be useful and volunteered to work on it. Written comments are due by November 14, 2014.
  

• General guidance from LC management on LC participation in NDSA.
  
  • The NDIIPP staff has received direction from management that the Library of Congress will be stepping away from the NDSA Secretariat role. NDIIPP staff is to begin conversations with the NDSA Leadership Group on a timeline for how the role will be officially transitioned. NDIIPP staff will provide information about the Secretariat duties currently performed. Certain secretariat support, such as running the elections and processing MOUs, have ceased. Secretariat support such as providing website, listserv, and conference calling support, will need to be transitioned over time to NDSA members.
    
  • The Library of Congress supports the participation of NDIIPP staff in NDSA working groups and products that align with the defined work priorities of NDIIPP. The Library will likely become a member of NDSA and participate as any member would. The Library of Congress’ administrative contributions are decreasing; however, participation is expected to be maintained in working groups as appropriate. The requirement that a Library of Congress staff member be a co-chair for every working group will be withdrawn.
    
  • The discussion reflected disappointment at this decision and some confusion as to why some duties are to immediately stop being supported. While the CC expressed frustration it is generally agreed that it is good to have clarity on the contributions from the Library of Congress so the NDSA can move forward to the next phase.
    
  • The opportunities for supporting the Secretariat role going forward could include merging the NDSA with another existing collaborative project, seeking grant funding to support the secretariat and other roles, or designing a more lightweight administrative mechanism that could be absorbed by a current member. A neutral convener is an advantage for the Secretariat role and this should be kept in mind when looking for a new Secretariat. However, much has changed since the NDSA was originally set up and the activities the Secretariat currently supports may not be what is required going forward. The Leadership Group should think creatively as to what the NDSA needs for sustainable support.
    
  • Several issues came up that will need to be discussed: how an annual meeting will be supported, the transfer of logo trademarks and website domains, MOU signature process, and the revision of the NDSA Principles of collaboration (the NDSA founding document): [1]
    
  • It was decided that a group should get together on a regular basis (maybe weekly) to discuss plans for the transition. It was also decided that an in-person meeting should be scheduled around CNI in Washington, DC to discuss the issues. This group could include former CC members or other founding members. Micah volunteered to send a doodle poll for scheduling each of these sets of meetings.
    

The following items were not discussed but will be covered in the notes and followed up through email.

• Release of 2015 National Agenda. The Agenda was released to the public on October 1, 2014. NDIIPP staff will not be able to support the same kind of outreach about the Agenda as they did last year but they will assist in repurposing the outreach materials from last year. Depending on interest the following materials and briefings could be prepared and scheduled:
  
  • sample press release
    
  • list of conferences (slide template)
    
  • poster (talking points)
    
  • Schedule briefings with NEH, NSF, IMLS, NHPRC, NIH on the 2015 Agenda.
    

• 2015 Coordinating Committee elections. According to our records the following CC members’ terms are up: John Spencer, Helen Tibbo, Kate Wittenberg
  
  • NDIIPP staff is not to run elections; they can provide guidelines to run the elections. In this time of transition, is it necessary to have an election? In looking at restructuring parts of the NDSA should the CC/Leadership Group also be evaluated?
    

• • Release of NDSA fixity document. On October 6th a fixity guidelines document was released from the Infrastructure and Standards & Practices WGs.