Archivematica Product Support Program

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Meeting minutes 2020-10-21

21 October 2020, 3:00 pm UTC

Attendees

  • Artefactual: Sara Allain, Sarah Romkey, Justin Simpson, Jesús Garcia Crespo, Kelly Stewart
  • Bodleian: Susan Thomas, Matthew Neely, James Mooney, Ruth Turvey
  • IISG: Eric de Ruijter, Robert Gillesse, Lucien van Wouw
  • Max Communications: Geoff Blissitt, Tim Schofield
  • Picturae: Wim van Dongen
  • Wellcome Collection: Tom Scott, Jonathan Tweed

Regrets: none

Agenda

3:00 UTC - Meeting starts (Sarah Romkey)

3:05 UTC - Housekeeping (Sara Allain)

3:10 UTC - Artefactual update (Kelly Stewart)

3:20 UTC - Terms of Reference (Sarah Romkey)

3:35 UTC - Use cases for reporting (Sarah Romkey)

3:50 UTC - Development to sponsor (Wim van Dongen)

4:10 UTC - Call for new members (Justin Simpson)

4:25 UTC - Meeting wrap-up (Sarah Romkey)

Notes

Housekeeping

  • Nothing to report

Artefactual update

  • Led by: Kelly Stewart
  • KS: Artefactual has been very busy! Lots of business development and external client work but also doing a lot of internal work
  • KS: Since July, we have initiated an internal project that focuses on support of Archivematica - what is core, which integrations are essential, what parts are add-ons. Included people from across the company. Project wrapped up last week.
  • KS: This week we are preparing for our two-day Artefactual Con, our internal conference to reflect on the past year and prepare for the year to come.
  • KS: We do not anticipate any in-person camps in 2021, nor likely any travel for any reason for at least the first half of 2021.
    • There have been requests to have a virtual camp which we are looking into, will take a lot of planning and coordination.
  • KS: Things we’re seeing in the landscape:
    • Enduro - is now in production with the Norwegian Health Archives and almost in production with a second client. Also exploring the use with a number of other clients. We’re also figuring out how to bring Enduro inline with management of our other projects
    • Fair amount of interest in E-Ark specification. We don’t have any plans around this right now but we’re seeing increased questions.

Terms of Reference

  • Led by: Sarah Romkey
  • SR: Have had some off-schedule meetings to discuss and refine the TOR. Sarah feels that it is in a good state now.
  • WvD: discussed with Picturae management and everyone approved
  • RG: IISH also happy
  • ST: Bodleian also happy
  • TSchofield: Max Communications also happy
  • SR: Approved! We will add the date adopted and add it to https://psp.archivematica.org

Use cases for reporting

  • SR: started discussing one or two meetings ago. Wanted to start tying together responses provided by members as well as work being done by Picturae
  • WvD: has been working with Ross, Peter, and Tessa to improve AIPscan. AIPscan is an external tool that looks at Archivematica AIPs, should be easy to add additional endpoints as well for extending.
    • Will be demoing for Picturae clients tomorrow
    • WvD [demo of AIPscan]
  • RG: is the purpose for preservation?
  • WvD: for all kinds of reporting, for example also for management reporting, most of Picturae’s clienst need to know how many TBs certain connected municipalities are using for billing purposes
  • WvD: will send link to available documentation on AIPScan, for example the priority assessment by the Artefactual and Picturae team of the list of uses cases of City Archives of Amsterdam, which also includes more info
  • EdR: how will it be available?
  • WvD: has discussed with Joel, planning to make it open source; is an independent app
  • JS: code is currently on the artefactual-labs GitHub repo, under an Apache license. Next discussions will be around making it maintainable alongside Archivematica and other products.
  • SR: this project will really benefit from openness - a lot of people ask for reporting functionality but without a clear vision of what they want; this will be a good base that people can start from and build on. Modular approach gives a lot of potential.
  • GB: Query Builder is similar, implemented for Imperial College; should start thinking about how these tools could be integrated. Perhaps another demo of Query Builder would provide some ideas about where the two tools could complement each other.
  • GB: currently adding a new feature to Query Builder that allows Imperial College to tag material with the department where it originated.
  • GB: planning to make Query Builder wildly available
  • SR: will start to put together a document that ties these reporting threads together; will contact members in the next month or two to strike up interest.

Development to sponsor

  • WvD: discussed with Picturae management yesterday and would like to be able to produce tangible results - suggests that the PSP could pick some items from the development roadmap/backlog to tackle some small things to start with.
  • WvD: this also gives developers a chance to build some experience in working with Archivematica code.
  • RT: Bodleian currently working on recruiting a new developer, scope for the work that that person will do is fairly set but they’re very committed to contributing that work back to the project. Jesús is also involved in recruitment process.
  • WvD: can we earmark funding from this group to work on development that is of interest to the members?
  • JS: optimizing METS file is a good example a project that benefits many people; it also has ramifications on tools like AIPscan and Query Builder
    • E-Ark is another way of serializing similar data
  • JS: suggests picking an area of interest to all members and running a design workshop around it
  • GB: when was the last time that the community was asked what they’d like to see?
  • JS: that’s what this group is for; it’s also reflected in our development funding approach
  • SR: we attempted to do a public roadmap/product vision a couple of years ago and had very little uptake from the community; it led to the PSP
  • SR: will start a document to start brainstorming for a design workshop; set up a meeting for triaging ideas as well as a design workshop.

Call for new members

  • SR: TOR can be published, will add blurb to PSP website
    • Should we target new institutions? Should we be looking for any sort of balance between types of members?
  • JS: not seeking a radical expansion of the membership, just want to give other orgs an opportunity
  • JS: suggests that if an institution expressed an interest, that should be shared with whole PSP. All communication shouldn’t just be through Artefactual.
  • ST: interested in knowing more about institutions who express an interest
  • GB: if there are institutions who are interested but can’t actually join, could invite them as guest presenters to share their development plans
  • JS: great idea - we know of at least three consortia who are doing things with AM who are not represented here
  • JS: we’ll put together a call for new members in the next week or two

Other topics

  • GB: almost all of Max’s clients also use AtoM but we rarely talk about it in this context
  • JS: we know of a lot of people who use both and a lot of people who use only one; we recognize that access is an integral part of preservation and that it’s definitely a concern of this group. Even within the company we treat them fairly separately. Would be a good topic for the design workshop discussed earlier.
  • WvD: echoes Geoff’s note, but with regards to Memorix
  • JS: integration is a key concern. Ties back to the idea of Archivematica core - what should an access system expect from AM?
  • SR: Artefactual’s software and development team has recently decided to try to treat Archivematica and AtoM as one backlog of work, with the hope of better understanding the overlaps between them.

Meeting wrap-up

  • SR: last meeting of 2020! Is there any sort of overarching reporting out that we want to do to the community?
  • SR: would like to work on a report with someone from outside of Artefactual so that it’s not just our view
  • GB: World Digital Preservation Day is coming up - 5 November 2020
  • SR: Artefactual’s Business Development unit is working on something for WDPD, will check in with them to see if we can include something about the PSP
  • RG: moment of lamentation that we aren’t meeting in person!
  • EdR: next year we’ll drink two beers together in person to celebrate

Meeting wrap-up

  • Next meeting - January, date/time TBD
Last updated on 10/30/2020
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