NDSA:September 16, 2013 Standards and Practices Working Group Notes

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Minutes: September 16, 2013

New Members to the Working Group:

1. Deborah Kempe: Chief, Collections Management and Access, Frick Art Library; and NYArt Resources Consortium <http://nyarc.org/>.

Project: Audit and Certification:

1. The work is organized around three activities:
   1. CommunityContext: Developed a set of brief milestones in the form of a timeline that documents the development and current status of self-assessment, audit, and certification of digital repositories.
   2. Implementation Examples: These efforts are focused on a template for recording information from institutions that have undertaken a self-assessment or audit in a standard form.
   3. Options for Undertaking a Review : Artefactual has the current version of the Drupal-based TRAC Review site. They expect to post a downloadable and standalone version on the Artefactual site soon.

Project: Staffing Survey Report:

1. Project nearing completion:
2. Final report draft is complete
   1. Members of the Standards Working Group can review it prior to final submittal: <http://bit.ly/17tps4k>
   2. We are also working with LC on publishing options and hope to publish it on their website with and include a handle identifier.
   3. The data files have also been archived successfully at ICPSR.

Project: PDF/A-3 Scoping Project:

1. Project members are working on a report, but it's still in the draft phase.
2. When the draft is finalized, the PDF/A group will release it for review  by the full standards working group.

Project: Wikipedia "Digital Preservation" Project

1. Project members feel they have made significant progress and completed the work they can do effectively; additionally, their increasing responsibilities mean they need to hand the project off. To make the handoff successful, though, they request assistance and clarification of some issues
2. Issues to address include
   1. Scope and structure of the entry
      1. Is the article's current direction addressing the need the working group identified initially?
      2. Digital Preservation cannot be covered in one article. It is a complex set of articles. Project members found that articles that this entry should link to have not been created.
         1. Do we write them?
         2. Do we incorporate the information into our central article.
   2. Articles created outside this project, but relevant to it, vary in their accuracy and currency. Editing and revising these articles creates editorial and logistical complications.
   3. Wikipedia's documentation policy, which mandates that high-level observations must have documentation and cannot rely on the writer's own knowledge.
   4. It has been very hard to get working group members to participate in this project. Several possible strategies were proposed , including getting a Lib School class, internship,etc., to participate.
      1. To take over writing.
      2. Or pull in others from outside as an outside review group?
3. For the October Agenda: These issues were laid out in more detail in Stephen's email to the working group (16 Sept 2013). Working group members will review the email in preparation for making this a larger agenda item next meeting.

NDSA Report Publication Practices:

1. As part of the NDSA's Outreach Toolkit, "the Outreach Working Group is developing formatting and design guidance for NDSA reports to create a common 'look and feel.'"
2. Although the guidelines are still under development, preliminary ideas regarding that guidance may be seen at: http://www.loc.gov/extranet/wiki/osi/ndiip/ndsa/index.php?title=Outreach_Toolkit#NDSA_Report_Information
3. The report "Issues in the Appraisal and Selection of Geospatial Data" serves as an interim template: <http://www.loc.gov/extranet/wiki/osi/ndiip/ndsa/images/1/15/AppraisalSelection_whitepaper_ndsa-draft6.doc>

Pre-Project Discussion: What Role Should This Group Play, Moving Forward?

1. Are there National Agenda issues we should address? If so, what are the best ways to move those issues into discussion?
   1. NDSA IdeaScale site: http://ndsa.ideascale.com/a/ideafactory.do?id=4760&mode=recent&discussionFilter=active
      1. IdeaScale allows members to determine which tools are valued most
      2. We can also use IdeaScale to communicate outside NDSA
2. Using the Self-Assess and Audit Project as a model, we can extend our review of other management tools and provide guidance for identifying content needing preservation.
   1. Point to existing tools
   2. Use Levels of Preservation as a guide
      1. Levels of Preservation depends on the project or dataset under review.
   3. Provide examples to back up the expectations.
3. What needs to happen will grow out of local efforts. We're all in different places regarding our initiatives. Is there a way to share our efforts to bring issues to the surface?
   1. Some interest in meeting at IDCC: http://www.cni.org/event/idcc14/.
   2. How can we focus the conversation?
   3. We need to determine how much work our members can absorb before we can establish a realistic means to spread the Working Group's responsibilities.
   4. Some members have roles that are focused on monitoring developments, and they note it is hard to know how to jump in and contribute to the Working Group in a way that is useful.
4. What other activities should we consider?
   1. Speakers?
5. What do we want to know more about vis-a-vis standards and best practices
   1. List issues important to us
   2. Perhaps get speakers or have discussions.