Digital Histology Interest Group or DHIG

Thank you Lisa and Haviva to get the ball rolling.

I also spent this weekend thinking about the project. As outlined by Lisa, the physical housing of the collection may be a major problem. I am not sure that AAA would be able to take over the management of the virtual slide collections and to provide IT support. Therefore, I would offer to find out whether the University of Michigan could act as the host for the international virtual slide repository. As I outlined in a previous email, we have a system in place that has worked well for our 200 GB Michigan slide collection. Here are a few practical ideas/suggestions: We already have in place a system of server accounts called M+box. Each account has up to 200 GB in space and each of the various donated virtual slide collections regardless of their file type would have its own M+box. Besides a local administrator, a representative of the donor institution would have downloading ability and new slides could be added as they become available. National and international colleagues who want to download a collection would be given reader-only access to the requested M+box, allowing them to download the specific collection. This would work for people with a fast Internet connection and I had colleagues from England, The Netherland and the US successfully using this system for our virtual slide collection. For colleagues without a suitably fast Internet connection, the resources could be downloaded on a small external hard drive and mailed directly by FedEx or airmail. Recently, I used this more old fashioned method for colleagues in Brazil and Saudi Arabia. After copying the hard drive content, they would mail it back.

We would need a website that could be part of the AAA website. There appears to be an agreement that a permission of the copyright holder in combination with a Creative Commons License would be an excellent solution. We would still need to come up with a viable recharge system to keep the repository open, even after the grant funds have eventually dried up.

I just talked with my chair and she was supportive that we here at the University of Michigan should be able to provide a physical home for the international repository. I am confident that I can get support from our Dean's office and I have an email in with our Medical School's chief IT person. If I can get him on board to provide IT support, I feel confident that we have a workable infrastructure.

Lisa and Haviva, I will contact you separately and give you access to the Michigan collection (M+box) and you can take a look and test it out. Bob Oglivie is already a user and has downloaded our collection.

Please let me know if this is a viable option to proceed and whether I should continue to solicit local support.

Awaiting your input

Michael

Thank you Lisa and Haviva to get the ball rolling.

I also spent this weekend thinking about the project. As outlined by Lisa, the physical housing of the collection may be a major problem. I am not sure that AAA would be able to take over the management of the virtual slide collections and to provide IT support. Therefore, I would offer to find out whether the University of Michigan could act as the host for the international virtual slide repository. As I outlined in a previous email, we have a system in place that has worked well for our 200 GB Michigan slide collection. Here are a few practical ideas/suggestions: We already have in place a system of server accounts called M+box. Each account has up to 200 GB in space and each of the various donated virtual slide collections regardless of their file type would have its own M+box. Besides a local administrator, a representative of the donor institution would have downloading ability and new slides could be added as they become available. National and international colleagues who want to download a collection would be given reader-only access to the requested M+box, allowing them to download the specific collection. This would work for people with a fast Internet connection and I had colleagues from England, The Netherland and the US successfully using this system for our virtual slide collection. For colleagues without a suitably fast Internet connection, the resources could be downloaded on a small external hard drive and mailed directly by FedEx or airmail. Recently, I used this more old fashioned method for colleagues in Brazil and Saudi Arabia. After copying the hard drive content, they would mail it back.

We would need a website that could be part of the AAA website. There appears to be an agreement that a permission of the copyright holder in combination with a Creative Commons License would be an excellent solution. We would still need to come up with a viable recharge system to keep the repository open, even after the grant funds have eventually dried up.

I just talked with my chair and she was supportive that we here at the University of Michigan should be able to provide a physical home for the international repository. I am confident that I can get support from our Dean's office and I have an email in with our Medical School's chief IT person. If I can get him on board to provide IT support, I feel confident that we have a workable infrastructure.

Lisa and Haviva, I will contact you separately and give you access to the Michigan collection (M+box) and you can take a look and test it out. Bob Oglivie is already a user and has downloaded our collection.

Please let me know if this is a viable option to proceed and whether I should continue to solicit local support.

Awaiting your input

Michael

Thank you Lisa and Haviva to get the ball rolling.

I also spent this weekend thinking about the project. As outlined by Lisa, the physical housing of the collection may be a major problem. I am not sure that AAA would be able to take over the management of the virtual slide collections and to provide IT support. Therefore, I would offer to find out whether the University of Michigan could act as the host for the international virtual slide repository. As I outlined in a previous email, we have a system in place that has worked well for our 200 GB Michigan slide collection. Here are a few practical ideas/suggestions: We already have in place a system of server accounts called M+box. Each account has up to 200 GB in space and each of the various donated virtual slide collections regardless of their file type would have its own M+box. Besides a local administrator, a representative of the donor institution would have downloading ability and new slides could be added as they become available. National and international colleagues who want to download a collection would be given reader-only access to the requested M+box, allowing them to download the specific collection. This would work for people with a fast Internet connection and I had colleagues from England, The Netherland and the US successfully using this system for our virtual slide collection. For colleagues without a suitably fast Internet connection, the resources could be downloaded on a small external hard drive and mailed directly by FedEx or airmail. Recently, I used this more old fashioned method for colleagues in Brazil and Saudi Arabia. After copying the hard drive content, they would mail it back.

We would need a website that could be part of the AAA website. There appears to be an agreement that a permission of the copyright holder in combination with a Creative Commons License would be an excellent solution. We would still need to come up with a viable recharge system to keep the repository open, even after the grant funds have eventually dried up.

I just talked with my chair and she was supportive that we here at the University of Michigan should be able to provide a physical home for the international repository. I am confident that I can get support from our Dean's office and I have an email in with our Medical School's chief IT person. If I can get him on board to provide IT support, I feel confident that we have a workable infrastructure.

Lisa and Haviva, I will contact you separately and give you access to the Michigan collection (M+box) and you can take a look and test it out. Bob Oglivie is already a user and has downloaded our collection.

Please let me know if this is a viable option to proceed and whether I should continue to solicit local support.

Awaiting your input

Michael