Rowing in the Same Direction: Collaboration Across Disparate Organizations

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Rowing in the Same Direction Collaboration
Across Disparate Organizations
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Goals for Today

• Overview and update of the PeDALS project
• Persistent Digital Library and Archives System
• www.pedalspreservation.org
• Panel discussion of lessons learned by
  participants from each state
• Matt Guzzi (South Carolina)
• Richard Pearce-Moses (Arizona)
• Alan Nelson (Florida)
• Bonnie Weddle (New York)
• Abbie Norderhaug (Wisconsin)

3
PeDALS Goals

• To develop and sustain multi-state collaborative
• Began with four states
• South Carolina joined on its own dime
• Two additional states to be added in 2009
• To use middleware to automate processing of large
  volumes of records and publications
• Follows OAIS reference model
• Can be audited using RLG/OCLC
• Cost-benefit of programming v. staff processing
  requires sufficiently large body of consistent
  materials

4
PeDALS Goals

• Test LOCKSS as storage system
• Automated integrity checking and error correction
• Articulate a curatorial rationale suitable for
  electronic records and digital publications
• Create a community of shared practice
• Work as inexpensively as possible
• Build a functioning digital repository in each
  partner state

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Current PeDALS Status

• Core Metadata v. 1 completed
• First iterative review in progress
• Admin catalog database designed and implemented
• First iterative review in progress
• Admin catalog web interface nearing completion
• Simple AIP schema completed
• Proof of concept
• AZ Marriage certificates ingested
• Marriage certificates code reused for SC
  Commission orders

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Suggested Research Projects

• Vulcan mind meld
• Significantly increased efficiency of
  communication among participants. Faster! Less
  confusion!
• Cloning
• Dont waste time and take risks hiring new
  people. Just clone your good employees!
• Time Travel
• Easier to meet deadlines without losing sleep or
  sanity
• Teleportation
• All the benefits of a face-to-face meeting, with
  the time savings of teleconferences!

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Lessons Learned

• Importance of effective collaboration
• Within agencies
• Across geographic and political boundaries
• Structured, consistent activities and
  expectations instill sense of involvement and
  project ownership
• Lack of face-to-face interaction makes it harder
  to get engaged
• Working in smaller teams capitalizes on our
  individual strengths

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Lessons Learned

• Partner teams need the right mix
• Archives, library, and IT
• Team members must be
• Open to learn as you go
• Creative and innovative

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Lessons Learned

• The project as viewed by our peers
• Other repositories very interested
• By government agencies and other stakeholders
• Often excited
• Recognize project is ambitious
• Impatient with a research project they want a
  solution

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Project Challenge Communication

• Keeping everyone informed of what each group is
  doing
• Metadata Group
• IT Group
• Keeping project leaders informed of progress
• Keeping the larger group informed
• Curatorial Group

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Tools for Effective Communication

• Regular communication
• Bi-weekly update conference calls
• Committee meetings as needed
• Quarterly reports
• Go To Meeting
• VoIP can keep long distance costs down
• Simultaneous editing of documents
• Basecamp
• Central document repository

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Scrum
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Project Challenges Different Institutional
Cultures

• Library and archives
• AZ and FL part of same agency, close
  relationship
• NYS part of larger agency, some collaboration
• SC different agencies
• WI no state library, working with the WHS
  library which is the state depository library
• Archives and records management
• AZ, FL, NYS, SC archives and RM under one
  agency
• WI another agency responsible for RM

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Project Challenges IT

• Some partners maintain their own IT
• AZ and SC have complete control over firewalls,
  network, and infrastructure
• Some partners have agency-level, centralized IT
• NYS must integrate PeDALS work into its parent
  agencys overarching IT work schedule
• Some partners have state-level, centralized IT
• WI has opted to place PeDALS servers at
  U.W.-Madison, not state IT unit
• One state opted against joining PeDALS because it
  could not work through its IT infrastructure

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Project Challenges Collaboration

• No one is working on the project full-time
• Scheduling complications
• Partners spread across three time zones
• State holidays, employee furloughs, office moves,
  vacation plans
• Perception that were not working quickly enough
  reality that were making good progress, slow and
  steady

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Project Challenges Learning Each Others Language

• Working on a technical project with non-technical
  people
• Archivists and librarians dont always grasp
  limitations of project software
• Programmatic staff need basic knowledge of IT
  concepts and practices
• Database structures, etc.
• Working on an archival/library project with
  technical people
• IT staff need basic knowledge of core library and
  archival concepts
• Permanence, trustworthiness, series, etc.

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Project Challenges Consultants

• Consultants
• The adventures of finding the right consultant
• The decision to make sure each partner state had
  someone who knows BizTalk

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Future Challenge Sustainability

• Efforts to sustain the project after the grant
• Project agreements
• Models
• Common practices
• Informal collaboration
• Consortiumformal agreements

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Rowing in the Same Direction

• PeDALS creates a flexible community of shared
  practice
• Mandatory metadata and system requirements kept
  to a minimum
• Partners can continue to follow their own
  workflows
• Partners can use PeDALS standards as leverage
• NYS and WI now catalog archival e-records in
  conformance with PeDALS metadata

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• Richard Pearce-Moses
• PeDALS Principal Investigator
• Deputy Director for
• Technology Information Resources
• Arizona State Library, Archives and Public
  Records
• rpm_at_lib.az.us
• [phone]
• Matthew R. Guzzi
• Electronic Records Archivist
• South Carolina Department of Archives and History
• mguzzi_at_scdah.state.sc.us
• [phone]
• Alan S. Nelson
• System Project Administrator
• State Library and Archives of Florida
• anelson_at_dos.state.fl.us

• Abbie J. Norderhaug
• Public Records Accessioner
• Wisconsin Historical Society
• abbie.norderhaug_at_wisconsinhistory.org
• [phone] 
• Bonita L. Weddle
• Coordinator, Electronic Records
• New York State Archives
•  bweddle_at_mail.nysed.gov
• [phone]