Advisory Board
Meeting
16 October 2012
@ British Library
Agenda:
11.00
11.10
11.20
12.10
12.40
13.00
13.30
14.00
14.10
14.50
Welcome & notes of last meeting
Budget Update
Platform update & development log
PDF update
Accessibility report
Content update
Call for Content & Adrian on BL
Lunch
OCR Project
MARC records Update
Evaluation Report
AOB and DONM
Welcome and Introductions / Attending
 Joanna Ball, Research Liaison Manager, University of Sussex
 Laurel Brake, Professor Emerita of Literature and Print Culture, Birkbeck,
University of London
 Justin Champion, Professor of the History of Early Modern Ideas Royal
Holloway, University of London
 Adrian Edwards, Lead Curator, Printed Historical Sources, The British Library
 Gabriel Egan, Professor of Shakespeare Studies, De Montfort University(Chair)
 Simon Elliot, Chair in the History of the Book, Deputy Director, Centre for
Manuscript and Print Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London
 Scott Gibbens, Service Representative, JISC Collections
 Jonathan Gibson, Academic co-ordinator, HEA English Subject Centre, Royal
Holloway, University of London
 Jerome de Groot, Director of Research Training in the Arts, University of
Manchester
 Bonnie Latimer, Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature, University of
Plymouth (NEW!)
Welcome and Introductions / Attending
 Vic Lyte, Senior Manager, Mimas
 Rachel Marshall, British Library
 Elizabeth McHugh, Electronic Resources Manager, University of the Highlands
and Islands
 Caren Milloy, Head of Projects, JISC Collections
 Chris Mounsey, Lecturer in English, University of Winchester
 Michael Popham, Head of Digital Initiatives, Bodleian Digital Library Systems &
Services, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
 Paul Rayson, Director of UCREL and Lecturer in Computer Science School of
Computing and Communications, Lancaster University
 Amanda Salter, Librarian, Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries and Education,
University of the West of England (NEW!)
 Matthew Steggle, Reader in English, Sheffield Hallam University
 Adrian Streete, Senior Lecturer, School of English, Queen's University Belfast
 Ceri Sullivan, Professor, School of English, Bangor University
 Erica Swain, Subject Librarian - English, Communication & Philosophy / Religious
Studies & Theology, Cardiff University
Apologies received
 Simon Bell, Head of Partnerships and Licensing, The British Library
 Giles Bergel, JPR Lyell Research Fellow in the History of the Book, Merton College,
University of Oxford
 Kelly Centrelli, PhD Candidate (English Literature), Royal Holloway, University of London
(NEW!)
 Godfried Croenen, Reader in French Historical Studies, University of Liverpool
 John Gilmore, Associate Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literary
Studies, University of Warwick (NEW!)
 Stephen Gregg, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Bath
 Catherine Grout Programme Director, e- Content, JISC
 Tracey Hill, Head of Department of English & Cultural Studies, Bath Spa University
 Andrew Murphey, Head of the School of English, University of St Andrews
 Beth Palmer, Lecturer in English Literature, University of Surrey
 Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, Lecturer in Early Modern English Literature, Wadham College,
University of Oxford
 Mark Townsey, Coordinator of Postgraduate Research, Lecturer in Modern British
History, University of Liverpool
 Samantha Tillet, Project and Service Manager, The British Library
Notes of the last meeting and matters arising
 Members are invited to agree the notes of the
last meeting as an accurate record
Main matters arising are agenda items today
Outstanding action include:
FE members
Documentation for students
Development Funding
Platform Update
Since our last meeting…
http://www.jischistoricbooks.ac.uk/
 Stable URLs. These provide permanent URLs to navigate directly
to individual pages within a book as well as to the results list for
title or author.
 Improvements to the page viewer:
• Variable zoom (zoom controls 100-400%)
• Thumbnails (so you can quickly identify which pages you want to
view in more detail )
• Next/previous book
• Hide the top and side panels of the viewer.
 PDF upgrade - Faster file generation, improved PDF image quality
and OCR within the PDFs.
 Web interface enabling librarians to download their institutions
usage statistics.
Platform Update
In the coming months… (Annex A)




PDF document shows upcoming development includes:
New sort options
Indication if full text is available or not
New actions to allow you to email records, download records to
reference management software or save records to list
 New MyBibliograpy: you can save results to your own
bibliography. Once you have saved items they are saved here until
you delete them.
Slightly further forward…
 Autonomy licence renewal to allow unlimited indexing (limited
only by computer hardware)
 19th Century Collection from Oxford/Google partnership to be
integrated
Development Log
The development log has been updated..
(Annex B)
 Following the last meeting the development log has been updated
with items completed and those in progress.
 All items we have received via email since the last meeting were
repeats of items already on the list
 A couple of items have not yet been investigated due to difficulties
getting available expertise to analyse metadata provided
 The few items that have not been progressed all relate to additional
searching options
PDF Update
Some issues with the new PDF feature…. Members
to discuss and advise….







The new PDF functionality is designed to provide a better quality PDF with smaller file
size and includes OCR functionality
If you wish to download a book or pages from a book you enter the details and shortly
after you get an email with a link to the PDF
This link is protected and you need to be either on campus or have access via
Shibboleth (or open athens)
We have had some problems where the email has not been received in a acceptable
timescale. This is either because
 1. The file has failed to generate due to problems with the OCR
 2. The file has failed to generate due to system issues
 3. The file is very large and is taking a long time to process
In order to mitigate these problems we have authorise the following solutions: install
an additional PDF server, an error email to be sent if the process fails and some
programming is being investigated.
It has also been recommended that we restrict the download option to 250 pages. In
some cases books or over 1000 pages have been downloaded at once.
Is the page restriction solution acceptable? Users can still go back in and request the
next 250 pages if they wish
Accessibility Report
Members are invited to discuss…. (Annex C)
 Vic Lyte of Mimas will present the recent
accessibility audit undertaken by Mimas on the
JISC Historic Books platform.
 Members are invited to discuss this report and its
recommendations
Quick Recap!
Following the discussions…
What does this mean for the
development budget?
Members are invited to discuss…. (Annex D)
Improving the OCR of ECCO, EEBO and the
British Library content
Dan Burnstone will present the findings of the
recent study to explore how JISC could
become involved in Laura Mandell’s project.
Widget
(quick
edits)
UK
HE
&
FE
JISC
Historic
Books
TypeWright
software
(expert
editing)
TEI-A used to
send the
textual
changes back
and forth
18th
Century
Connect
Centralised
Server &
Editorial
Board
Date & time
stamped with
versioning
Proquest /
Cengage /
British
Library
Content Update
Members are invited to note….
 JISC Collections Call for Content (Caren)
 What is in the British Library collection? (Adrian)
Providing UK HE and FE with MARC records for JHB
Caren Milloy and Rachel Marshall will provide a
verbal update on discussions within the British
Library to release the ESTC data under an open
licence
Recommendation 3: JISC Collections should work
with the British Library, ESTC North America, and
other stakeholders to achieve the release of ESTC
data under a license that explicitly allows re-use.
Evaluating progress and success
Members are invited to discuss….. (Annex E)
 Using the data that we have immediate
access too:





Benchmarking usage of JHB against ProQuest /
Cengage (bi-annual)
Benchmarking usage (annual)
Surveys by JISC Collections & Mimas (annual)
User testing – performance, accessibility (annual)
Feedback on lists / helpdesks / twitter (quarterly)
80000
JISC Historic Book
Usage 2011 – 2012
by collection
70000
No. of Downloads by all subscribers
60000
50000
BL
40000
EEBO
ECCO
30000
20000
10000
0
Aug-11
Sep-11
Oct-11
Nov-11
Dec-11
Jan-12
Feb-12
Axis Title
Mar-12
Apr-12
May-12
Jun-12
Jul-12
90000
JISC Historic Book
Usage –
comparison
between beginning
of 2011 – 2012 and
2012 – 2013 year
80000
70000
60000
50000
2011/12
2012/13
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
August September October November December January
February
March
April
May
June
July
JISC Collections HE Annual Satisfaction Survey
Responses for JISC Historic Book 2011 – 2012 year
JISC Collections FE Annual Satisfaction Survey
Responses for JISC Historic Book 2011 – 2012 year
Top 10 users of JISC Historic Book 2011 – 2012 year
The top 10 users accounted for 62% of all downloads
Institution Downloads
Queen's University Belfast
77798
University of Southampton
61183
University of St Andrews
47061
Newcastle University
42649
University of Wolverhampton 40399
Wellcome Trust
33834
Oxford Brookes University
31428
University of Strathclyde
26435
University of Stirling
24957
Aberystwyth University
24178
Date of next meeting and AOB
February 2013