Vote!  Vote!  Vote!

Emails were sent this week asking designated members who represent their institutions to vote for the new slate of officers on the Board of Directors plus revisions made to the Digital Commonwealth By Laws.

A minimum of 15 more votes are needed, so please vote today! Voting will be extended another week as necessary.

A list of the current board officers and members is available at http://digitalcommonwealth.org/board. An essential change to the By Laws included the addition of a conflict of interest provision, necessary for the Digital Commonwealth’s transition to official nonprofit status (see below).

Another significant change to the By Laws will allow Ex-officio members the right to vote on board decisions. Most importantly, this change gives the BPL, currently represented by Tom Blake, the opportunity to fully participate in board actions. As Digital Commonwealth further solidifies its partnership with the BPL, this move was seen by the board as an essential element for stronger integration of the two organizations.

If you think you should have received an email directive to vote but did not, please contact membership@digitalcommonwealth.org

Nonprofit Status: 501(c)3 update

Why is voting so important? Because once the new officers and the By-Law revisions are officially ratified, Digital Commonwealth can submit it’s 501(c)3 application to the IRS for nonprofit status. The application is ready to go!

While an organization is waiting for processing of their application, they may operate as a tax-exempt entity. So vote today, and help Digital Commonwealth attain its non-profit status!

Repository Update at the BP

The BPL repository development team continues to make steady progress in rolling out new functionality, features, and fixes. Most significantly the batch upload process is nearing completion while work on OAI-PMH harvesting has begun. For a full September report, view this blog post: http://digitalcommonwealth.org/blog/?p=144

DC and BPL attend MBLC Legislative meeting

Both Digital Commonwealth and the BPL were represented at the annual MBLC Legislative meeting where members of the library and information community are invited to comment on line items in the MBLC budget. Details of the meeting can be read in this blog post: http://digitalcommonwealth.org/blog/?p=156. Digital Commonwealth’s statement and handout in support of the BPL’s Library of the Commonwealth digital services are available for download in PDF format:

• MBLC Legislative meeting handout
• MBLC Legislative meeting statement

Elizabeth Hacala resigns

Many Digital Commonwealth members know Elizabeth through email and phone conversations as she handled many of your problems  the past three years. Unfortunately, due to family matters, Elizabeth is resigning from her role as administrative and financial manger for Digital Commonwealth. For more about Elizabeth’s departure along with a personal note from her to the membership, please read this blog post: http://digitalcommonwealth.org/blog/?p=148.All email concerning membership questions and problems should now be sent to membership@digitalcomonwealth.org. 

Volunteers Needed: to Help with Member Management 

With Elizabeth’s departure comes the challenge of filling her service roles with the budget and membership management. The board is considering how best to replace Elizabeth, if we should have one or two new paid positions and what those might entail. In the meantime, though, Ryan Hanson, Treasurer for Digital Commonwealth, will take on a larger role in helping with budgetary matters. And hopefully volunteers will step forward to help manage membership issues.If you are interesting in lending a hand, please email  membership@digitalcomonwealth.org.

The acceptance by the DC Board of Ellen Dubinsky (Bridgewater) to serve as Secretary for the current fiscal year, now rounds out the officer positions for the Board of Directors. Karen Cariani (WGBH) has stepped up to fill the President’s position while Anne Sauer (Tufts) will serve as Vice-President. Ryan Hanson (Newton) will continue another year as Treasurer. Joseph Fisher (UMass Lowell) now serves as Past-President.

Be on the lookout soon for an email voting process to begin, since it requires majority approval by the membership to ratify the new office appointments.

The BPL has now moved into the “beta launch” phase of the the Hydra-based Digital Commonwealth repository platform. Information about the functionality available and links to the front and back end are explained in this recent blog post:  http://digitalcommonwealth.org/blog/?p=117

For the remainder of this calendar year, Amy Benson will be providing metadata production support and quality control assistance for collections digitized under the BPL/Digital Commonwealth LSTA-funded statewide digitization program.

LSTA funding has also enabled the hiring the Amy.

Many members should recognize Amy through the numerous digital-production workshops she has given in the area, often in association with the NEDCC. Amy also served on the original Executive Committee of Digital Commonwealth. She currently works as the Librarian/Archivist for Digital Projects at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library.

For more information and instructions on how to request assistance from Amy, please read this Digital Commonwealth blog post: http://digitalcommonwealth.org/blog/?p=104

With the new fiscal year and the change in the Digital Commonwealth board of directors membership also comes a change in officer positions. Now that Joseph Fisher (UMass Lowell) has completed his year of service as president of the board, Karen Cariani (WGBH) has moved up from serving as vice-president to president for the next 12 months. Anne Sauer (Tufts) has accepted to serve as the new vice-president. Since Anne has been serving as secretary this past year, that position is now vacant.

At the next board meeting in late July, open officer and committee positions will be filled. The slate of officers will require ratification by the membership. In addition, further adjustments to the By-laws are being prepared that will also require ratification. Be on the lookout for an email coming later this summer announcing the voting procedure.

The C/W MARS network arranged for a members  meeting at the Palmer Public Library on June 27th to discuss the future of digitizing and the Digital Treasures service.  Danny Pucci, Lead Digital Projects Librarian at the Boston Public Library, presented a power point presentation on the Digital Commonwealth and current partnership with the BPL that has provided LSTA-funded scanning services to members within the past two years.

There were many questions about the future plans for digitization at the state-wide level and clarification was sought on the role of Digital Commonwealth. Margaret Morrissey, public library director in Southbridge and Digital Commonwealth board member, spoke about the evolving partnership between the BPL and Digital Commonwealth.

The general consensus from the meeting was that C/W MARS would let the status quo prevail for now and take a vote on the continuation of the service at a future date.

On Monday, June 24, 2013, Digital Commonwealth of Massachusetts held a free half-day workshop focusing on developing lesson plans featuring digital content. Kim Cochrane, Curriculum Librarian, Framingham State University, and Nancy Heywood, Digital Projects Coordinator, Massachusetts Historical Society, led the workshop. For more information please view this Digital Commonwealth blog post: http://digitalcommonwwealth/blog/?p=108

Overall, the Digital Commonwealth Annual Conference was a huge success! We had 123 attendees. This was an impressive increase from the past few years, and surely reflects not only the increase in DC membership but also the enthusiasm and excitement apparent as new members tackle new digital projects, many for the very first time!
Survey results indicate that nearly half of the attendees represented public libraries while a quarter came from academic institutions. The remainder worked in schools, special libraries, archives, and historical societies.

Over half of the survey respondents gave the overall conference an excellent rating and another 30% rated it good. The keynotes were by far the most popular presentations, with Amy Rudersdorf’s talk about the Digital Public Library of America receiving a 71% excellent rating while Butch Lazorchak’s look at Digital Storytelling achieved a 61% excellent rating.  

Comments were also very encouraging, both expressed in the survey and related personally to members of the Digital Commonwealth Board, that the facilities were comfortable and convenient and the conference highly rewarding and appreciated.

The challenge to the Conference Committee now is to make the 2014 conference even better! If you would like to share other comments about the conference or volunteer to help plan future conferences, please emaildigitalcommonwealth@gmail.com