Present: Eric Ackerman for Gail McMillan (VT), Lucious Edwards (VSU), Edward Gaynor (UVA), John Kneebone (LVA), Paul Koda (GMU), Jodi Koste (VCU), Joyce Ogburn, Jay Gaidmore (ODU) Susan Riggs (W&M), and Elsie Stephens Weatherington (VSU), chair, Tom Loftus, Consultant, Guests: Daniel Pitti (UVA), Lyn Hart and Dale Harter (LVA).
Chair asked for a volunteer to take minutes. A decision was made to have each Committee member take minutes in rotating alphabetical order. Jay Gaidmore was the recorder of minutes for this meeting.
Introductions
Edward Gaynor introduced Daniel Pitti, an expert on Electronic Archival Description (EAD). Daniel presented a workshop on EAD.
EAD Workshop
Daniel Pitti gave an overview of EAD, its development, and its uses. He described an archival finding aid, provided background information on the history of EAD, explained the objectives of EAD and the interest of the international community regarding EAD. He described the experiences of a similar effort by Online Archive of California (OAC). In the OAC, the finding aids were centralized at Berkeley. The Project Director visited the participating institutions to conduct training workshops. Daniel spoke about his desire for more statewide efforts with a nationwide or even international Union database the ultimate goal. Finally, he stated that he and Tim Hoyer of University of California-Berkeley would be willing to share information with VIVA about writing and submitting grant proposals.
Subcommittee Reports
Survey
Jodi Koste reported that surveys from all participating institutions had been submitted. She reported on the survey’s findings including, subject areas, finding aids, time period of collections, equipment, digitization progress, and others. 20th century material predominates; most institutions equipped with scanner, while no one, with the exception of UVA, has SGML editing software. Discussed the subjects central to everyone’s collections and reported that African American, Music, Literature, the Arts and the Civil War were the most extensive subject areas.
Meeting went into a discussion on what the central theme for the project would be. It was suggested that the African-American experience in Virginia be the central theme because it cuts across topics and covers all institutions. Lucious Edwards reminded the committee that the historically black colleges of Virginia were presently excluded since only the doctoral institutions are participating in the first phase. It was recommended that if this subject is chosen, Virginia State and Norfolk State should be included in Phase 1. Lucious also stated that the definition of an African-American collection should not only include those collections originating from African-Americans, but also those where the African-Americans are discussed, written, and spoken about. It was decided that Norfolk State and Virginia State would be included in the first phase of the project, along with the six doctoral institutions (UVA, W&M, ODU, VCU, GMU, VPI). It was suggested that the coordinators of the participating institutions look through Mike Plunkett's Afro-American sources in Virginia: a guide to manuscripts to see if any collections from their repositories should be added. The participating institutions should send the following information to Jodi Koste by October 16:
Family history was also suggested as a possible topic. It wasn’t chosen because finding aids may not have stressed this aspect of history. John Kneebone suggested that broader themes be chosen for the second phase of the project which will include digital surrogates.
Discussion on centralizing project at UVA will wait until OAC grant is read - this will help with administrative setup.
The Chair will discuss with the Steering Committee the possibility of funding a training workshop in January for the committee members.
Meetings
Scope of Project and Timeline Subcommittee meeting will meet October 30 in Charlottesville. Full Committee meeting will take place November 12, 1998 in Charlottesville.
http://spec.lib.vt.edu/viva/minutes980923.html
added October 6, 1998 (GMc w/ESW)