20180820 SC&A WG Meeting Notes

Owned by Aaron Trehub
Last updated: Aug 27, 2018
3 min read

FOLIO SC&A Working Group Zoom #23

August 20, 2018

Attending: Erin Faulder (Cornell University); Kathleen Feeney (University of Chicago); Sebastian Hammer (Index Data); Genie Powell (Atlas Systems); Sarah Schmidt (Duke University); Dustin Stokes (Atlas Systems); Mike Thuman (Arkivum); Aaron Trehub (Auburn University); Catherine Uecker (University of Chicago)

Regrets: Gregory Bailey (Texas A&M); Ricc Ferrante (Smithsonian); Pablo Morales Henry (Radcliffe/Harvard); Noah Huffman (Duke); Julia Kim (LC); Peter Murray (Index Data); Christie Peterson (Smith); Aaron Rubinstein (UMass-Amherst)

The meeting began at 2:00 PM Eastern/1:00 PM Central.

Agenda

1. Minutes from August 13 call at https://folio-org.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3051831. No changes discussed.

2. Q&A with Genie Powell and Dustin Stoke of Atlas Systems. There was a wide-ranging discussion with Genie and Dustin, touching on the following points:

  • FOLIO overview and status. App store analogy. Early adopters include Cornell, UChicago, Duke, and the Five College consortium in Massachusetts. Looking at 2019-2020. Chalmers University in Sweden will probably be first, since it is a smaller institution and a simpler case.
  • "Keeping the lights on" at Atlas, Index Data and other companies that are interested in FOLIO. Ways to generate revenue through FOLIO service, support, and/or custom development. Gap analysis of existing systems should generate useful business intelligence.
  • Speaking of gap analysis and "blue sky" features: people would like better integration with off-site storage systems (e.g. GFA). Question: fix or replace existing systems? Again, an opportunity for companies interested in FOLIO and SC&A issues.
  • Early adopters want to make sure that Aeon and other products on which they rely heavily will work properly with FOLIO on Day One. Aeon may be "fault tolerant", but it's a good idea for Atlas and other companies to open a line of communication with FOLIO System Operations and Management (SysOps) SIG in order to ensure compatibility: https://folio-org.atlassian.net/wiki/display/SYSOPS/.
  • Sebastian and Genie will explore "pain points" with various systems, with a view to identifying development opportunities. Examples mentioned include double-entry in ArchivesSpace and the ILS; degree of local customization required to get ArchivesSpace to work (e.g. Noah Huffman's work at Duke); and problems with SC&A materials in traditional acquisitions modules (e.g. buy vs. gift). Genie is especially interested in the last one. One possibility: Atlas could market an SC&A module independently of the FOLIO LSP.
  • The potential market for an end-to-end system that will handle everything from accession, to description, to access and discovery, to long-term digital preservation (Arkivum?).
  • Funding for SC&A-specific development and "keeping the lights on": targeted grant proposals (IMLS, Mellon, NHPRC, Mozilla Foundation); resource sharing; and crowdsourcing (e.g. Auburn's experience with Tiger Giving Day). Talk with Michael Winkler about a possible fundraising role for OLF here.
  • Monetizing collections: generally a no-go for public institutions, but it might be possible to charge differential fees for higher levels of provision and/or service. Sebastian mentioned "controlled digital lending" in this connection. "Being relevant is one way to keep the lights on" (Genie), and one way to do that is to highlight what we have and to provide copies of it.
  • Companies have concerns about sunk investment and free riders in open-source software development. Need to work out a viable business model for this kind of work.

Although the participants approach these issues from different perspectives and within different constraints, there was agreement that this kind of conversation between GLAMs and commercial companies is extremely valuable and should be continued on future calls.

3. Progress report on draft SC&A White Paper for FOLIO PC and FOLIO SIGs. White Paper: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UUqL_oGvyGSonlfgUiS2pNpYrEYdgfKh2JFRppC1RCQ/edit. Almost ready for submission to FOLIO PC, probably in early September. Need to beef up sections on acquisitions and rare-book cataloging.

4. Preview of SAA debriefs for our next call. Mike Thuman and others who attended SAA in D.C. in August will debrief the group on a later call.

The call ended at 3:00 PM Eastern/2:00 PM Central. The next call was scheduled for Monday, August 27 at 2:00 PM Eastern/1:00 PM Central at the same Zoom address.