Notes from the TSI Administrative Team Meeting, March 31, 2015
Attending: Jim LeBlanc, Xin Li, Bob Wolven
Absent: Kate Harcourt
The aim of this session was to discuss what needs to happen if we wish to pursue a joint 2CUL Mellon grant to support our respective Linked Data for Production (LD4P) projects. This grant request would constitute a companion proposal to the larger grant Stanford is seeking to create and support a cloud space for a suite of LD4P initiatives using LC's BIBFRAME model. The idea for a 2CUL proposal arose from a two-day meeting on LD4P, held at the Library of Congress on March 19-20. Representatives from Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia (Bob, Kate, and Melanie), and Cornell (Jason, Naun, and Jim) attended that meeting.
Some initial next steps are already scheduled. Bob will be meeting with Rob Cartolano and Stephen Davis on Wednesday (4/1) to discuss the technical side of the LD4P commitment Columbia has in mind (e.g. the local triple store, installing tools, etc.). Chew Chiat Naun is convening a meeting of the LTS Linked Data Steering Group (including Jim and the group's IT liaison, Simeon Warner) on Thursday afternoon (4/2) to begin discussion of the project Cornell has in mind, including the grant planning process, the scope of the project, local infrastructure, relationship of LD4P to the Linked Data for Libraries (LD4L) project, and how to demonstrate the value of this work. Bob and Jim agreed to raise explicitly questions not only about local infrastructure but the possible benefits of a 2CUL collaboration on the technical component of the project(s). We will aim to make notes from these meetings available ASAP, or at least by Friday noon.
Other questions that we will need to answer (soon – the first draft of the grant proposal will be due to Mellon in mid-May):
- In addition to sharing grant management tasks, and possibly collaborating on technical components, what other benefits do we expect to derive from working together on LD4P?
- What are the explicit goals for our respective projects within and beyond the scope of the proposed grant?
- How will we articulate our interest in evaluating user response to our project data in the context of the grant?
Pending further local discussion, Bob speculates that Columbia is likely to request a smaller share of any 2CUL LD4P grant request we put together. In that case, it might make more sense for Cornell to submit the proposal rather than Columbia.
Xin will ask Michelle and Nini to schedule a follow-up session for the four of us on Monday to review conclusions from the separate Columbia and Cornell meetings taking place later this week.