November 14, 1995
Attendance: Susan Rosenblatt, University of California, Berkeley; Carol Mandel, Columbia University; Ross Atkinson, Cornell University; Selden Deemer, Emory University; Dale Flecker, Harvard University; Sarah Thomas, The Library of Congress; Wendy Lougee, University of Michigan; Peter Hirtle, National Archives; Heike Kordish, New York Public Library; Gloriana St. Clair, Pennsylvania State University; Marvin Bielawski, Princeton University; Anthony Angiletta, Stanford University; Joe Rader, University of Tennessee; Donald Waters, Yale University; Patricia Battin, Consultant; George Farr, National Endowment for the Humanities; Henry Gladney, IBM Almaden Research Center; Deanna Marcum, Commission on Preservation and Access.
The meeting was convened at 10 a.m. by Pat Battin. The morning session was devoted to broad-ranging discussions focused on a sharper definition and clarification of the Task Force's charge articulated by the Policy Board in the summary of their September 26, 1995, meeting. Consensus on several general themes emerged as the group wrestled with establishing a shared understanding of objectives, principles, priorities, and terminology.
General agreement was reached on the following topics:
The group agreed that terms such as "technical functionalities" or "best practices" were preferable to the use of "standards" which implies undesirable and unattainable rigidity in the digital environment. The objective is to achieve a collaborative agreement on basic functional principles while keeping all options open in a volatile environment.
After considerable discussion concerning the extreme volatility in this area, it was agreed that we need a concise description of the technical state-of-the-art as well as a comprehensive list focused on the near-term of the functionalities necessary to enable the scholarly community to run programs at one institution and read, manipulate, and print the information at another. Examples of the latter are levels of access, user interfaces and tools, common widely used generic browser capacity.
Since libraries in the digital world will no longer have comprehensive custodial responsibility for those materials used by their constituents, a set of services must be put in place to enable the efficient access to and use of information sources. It was agreed that the primary components of this basic architectural framework to enable widespread sharing of scholarly information are the following:
After reaching the agreements described above, the group established an action plan with specific assignments to be completed before the next meeting tentatively scheduled for January 29-30, 1996. Additional meetings were tentatively scheduled for the fourth weeks of March and May 1996. Marcum and Battin will explain the reasons for the changes to the Policy Board and seek their endorsement of the proposed process.
The committees will communicate by e-mail, fax and/or conference calls during the next two months. In each instance, the Convenor will initiate the process. Each committee is responsible for defining its charge within the context of the group's discussions. The charges should be completed within two weeks and communicated to the Planning Task Force on the PTF Listserv hosted by Berkeley. Comprehensive reports plus recommendations for pilot projects arising from the committee's deliberations will form the agenda of the two-day January meeting.
General charge: Define the requirements, report on the state-of-the-art, and recommend what action, if any, needs to be taken by the Task Force.
Economic Issues:
General charge: Investigate possibilities for economic models that influence the technical requirements needed, e.g., subscriptions, free service, shared service, etc. Also consider the economic implications of collaboration and new relationships between publishers and providers.
General charge: continue the work of the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information with specific reference to the DLF concerns.
General charge: Define mechanisms for enabling access at the collection level to digital information.
General charge: Define principles, policies, and technology needed to insure desired level of authenticity, intellectual property rights, privacy, and security for academic community.
Library of Congress