Action points:

1
Session 4
2
Group 1

• Action points
• Union catalogue of forestry libraries (see IUFRO
  603 international directory of forestry info
  services role for gfis)
• Agreed standard for forest Metadata
• Controlled multilingual vocabulary/thesaurus for
  forestry
• Ontology for forest information systems
  synonyms, legacy terms etc. retained
• Funding EU, FAO, IUFRO EFI, national Govts
• Pilot projects which can be used in various
  projects to ease funding difficulties
• IK how to earn money to sustain work recording
  in appropriate formats, preserving these formats
  together with Metadata for the info

3
Group 2 3

• Silo mentality needs to be broken down
  encourage talking to others in similar
  projects/work
• Policy for retaining archives of scientists
  (non-formal and formal information to be captured
  and retained)
• Lets keep talking
• Dont collect for collectings sake purpose
• Retain threatened key skills, e.g. taxonomists
• Interoperability of basic data sets exploit the
  market to develop the tools

4
Groups 4 5

• Importance of gateways (GFIS) to discourage
  duplication of effort
• Open access discussion problem for DC and
  developed world who bears the cost? Can IUFRO
  be used to lobby for open-access journals/other
  publications?
• Role of editorial boards could they be more
  proactive investigating open access models?
• Forestry and its cheaper journals are
  endangered when libraries need to make cuts
  over several disciplines
• Increased journal prices when societies turn over
  their jnls to large publishers

5
Panel comments

• Common themes between genetic resource
  collections and library collections
• Who pays? Where does the funding come from the
  taxpayer? Or other?
• If info is to be freely available it cannot be
  available for free.
• Exercise judgements in collecting information
• Process of collection can change information
  itself alters perception of reality
• If there is a need, the market will respond to
  that need. Alternative is by regulation/convention
  
• Convergence of multi-disciplinary aspect of
  research and the development of tools
• Open access cannot be driven wholly by needs of
  poorest members of society models for making
  info available for this community can be developed

6
Contd.

• Borders IK and other, published/unpublished
  digital/non-digital oral/written
• forestry iceberg is huge information that is
  hidden and needs to be made visible in future
• silos share similar challenges need to cross
  these borders effectively
• Challenges in extension and public as well as
  between scientists
• Gfis requires mobilising different players
  system less important as focus than the people
• Connect dispersed forestry community through
  joint activities
• Open access revolutionise way information is
  published to serve the dispersed community mind
  maps to assist

7
Contd.

• Borders IK and other, published/unpublished
  digital/non-digital oral/written
• forestry iceberg is huge information that is
  hidden and needs to be made visible in future
• silos share similar challenges need to cross
  these borders effectively
• Challenges in extension and public as well as
  between scientists
• Gfis requires mobilising different players
  system is less important as focus than the people
• Connect dispersed forestry community through
  joint activities
• Open access revolutionise way information is
  published to serve the dispersed community mind
  maps to assist

8
Contd.

• Use what we do know rather than reinventing the
  wheel
• Timeless nature of some data
• Cochrane-style reviews of existing information
  necessary pressure of time makes this difficult
  (IUFRO example)
• Incentives needed if their time is short
• If primary data is not in the public domain, that
  presents a problem for meta analysis

9
General comments

• Pressure to generate income conflict between
  making money from data sets and making these sets
  available
• Pressure to find revenue in climate of reduced
  taxes
• Information does need to be effectively
  marketed to prevent loss
• Different perceptions of quality of free
  information (published (-?), software ()
• Role of advertising in web products
• People remain important
• Make collections policies transparent to avoid
  duplication and focus effort
• Importance of selling our messages strongly
  can we find a more visually interesting way of
  communicating our messages?
• Large demand for wide range of information
  messages
• Focus what we need to collect and maintain