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Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing Göteborg University, June 2004 Antonio Zampolli (1937-2003) All Committee and Association members were shocked and saddened by the death of our President, Antonio Zampolli, in a sudden and tragic accident at his home in August, 2003. The ALLC Chair and ACH President sent a joint message to Humanist, and an obituary notice, first written by a Committee member - Michael Sperberg-McQueen - for the TEI-L discussion list, was posted on the ALLC web site. Since the ALLC Chair and ACH President were, at the time, respectively the Acting and outgoing Chair of the TEI Consortium Board, the respects paid in the Humanist posting were on behalf not only of ALLC and ACH, but also of the TEI, in which Prof Zampolli played such a significant part over so many years. The Humanist posting invited association members, and other members of the humanities computing community, to make suggestions about appropriate ways to honour the memory of our late President. The letter from the Chair sent to ALLC individual members in September (and again in November) repeated this invitation. A number of suggestions were received, and the matter has been discussed at various times by the Committee. Committee members have also been in contact with Professor Nicoletta Calzolari to discuss joint memorials with the Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale in Pisa. The Association will host a Zampolli Memorial section on its web site to house pictorial and textual memories of Antonio, and members will be given details of this in summer-autumn 2004. The Committee is continuing its discussion of other memorials, including the possibility of instituting a Zampolli Prize.
Collaborative frameworks The joint ALLC-ACH work group presented its preliminary recommendations to the Committee meeting and AGM in Georgia in May. The meetings gave approval in principle, and the work group was asked to continue its work, after further consultation with the memberships of the two associations. The work group consists of: Elisabeth Burr (ALLC); Julia Flanders (ACH & TEI); Espen Ore (ALLC); Geoffrey Rockwell (ACH & TEI); Harold Short - Chair (ALLC & TEI); John Unsworth (ACH & TEI). The key recommendations were:
A letter was sent to all individual ALLC members on the subject of Professor Zampolli's death and possible memorials, and asking also for expressions of opinion both on the IFDiSH recommendations, and on the possible re-tendering of the journal publication. In relation to the IFDiSH developments, the potential 'loss of revenue' to ALLC, at least for a transitional period, were explicitly highlighted. There were relatively few responses by the 'deadline' of early December 2003, but all respondents expressed their support for the IFDiSH developments, in two cases saying specifically that they believed the possible loss of revenue was unimportant in the context of developing a framework for greater international collaboration. A similar pattern of consultation took place with the ACH membership, where the most sensitive issue potentially was breaking the link with Kluwer and CHum. There was near-unanimous support for proceeding with the IFDiSH recommendations, and on this basis the ACH Executive Council formally notified Kluwer of the termination of their association with CHum. ACH members were sent subscription invitations to LLC by OUP, including a letter from the ACH President urging them to subscribe. In spite of efforts by both the ALLC Chair and the ACH President, the subscription invitation sent to ACH members was not as clear as it might have been, and there was relatively little immediate uptake of subscriptions. The outgoing and incoming ACH Presidents have had various discussions with the ALLC Chair and with OUP to ensure that clearer instructions are given to ACH members. It will be particularly important that the subscription form for the 'new' journal, whether published by OUP or Blackwell, makes it clear that membership of ALLC and ACH is by subscription to the journal, and offers subscribers the chance to say whether they wish to join either or both Associations. As a reciprocal gesture of solidarity, following the decision by ACH to break its link with Kluser and CHum, the ALLC Committee decided, at its December 2003 meeting, to make a grant to ACH to assist in the transition to IFDiSH. Following the expressions of support by the members of both associations at the University of Georgia meetings, the work group was invited to develop the recommendations into a set of formal proposals and protocols for approval at the June 2004 meetings in Gšteborg, Sweden. For a number of reasons this process has not proceeded as rapidly as had been hoped. Nevertheless, draft procedures aimed at providing the basis for an initial transition year for the new umbrella organisation have been developed, and will be presented at the Göteborg meetings. The current proposal for acronym/name for the umbrella organisation is IFDiSH : International Federation for Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. The starting point in arriving at this name was the importance attached to 'digital scholarship in the humanities'. It is possible that an even better name will be proposed in the meetings in Sweden! Alongside this work, other members of the work group have developed further ideas on publications, conferences, activities and the multinational agenda. The sub-group working on conferences has produced a draft conference protocol plus annex. If endorsed by the Associations, this could be used as the basis for the 2005 conference at the University of Victoria, which would be the first IFDiSH conference. The work group papers, plus the original set of recommendations and discussion papers, may be found at:
Communications At the Committee meeting held at Hévíz in Hungary in December 2003, it was decided that an invitation to tender for the publication of the Association's journal Literary and Linguistic Computing should be issued. A consultant was commissioned to prepare a tender document, which was sent to OUP, Blackwell, CUP and Routledge. CUP expressed interest but did not, in the end, submit a proposal. OUP and Blackwell both submitted very strong proposals, and these will be discussed in detail at the Committee meeting in Göteborg, where both publishers will make presentations. Humanist continues to prosper and remains an important forum for discussion on a wide range of topics. Willard McCarty has continued to edit the discussion group even though he is on sabbatical for the 2003-04 academic year, writing a book on humanities computing. Humanist is a 'natural' publication for IFDiSH, and future support for it will be most appropriately considered by the Publications Committee of IFDiSH.
Conferences The preparations for the 2004 Conference at the Göteborg University appear to have gone very well, and we owe a debt of thanks to Laszlo Hunyadi (Chair) and the other members of the Programme Committee, and to Jan Gunnar Tingsell (Local Organiser) and his colleagues in Göteborg. The small work group on the conference protocols, consisting of Harold Short (ALLC), Julia Flanders (ACH), and Lorna Hughes (ALLC and ACH and a previous PC Chair), has prepared a revised protocol and associated guidelines within the framework of the IFDiSH developments, as reported above. If the general approach is endorsed by the Association committees, the next stage of development and refinement will be done in consultation with past PC Chairs and local organisers. Association Activities & Initiatives The TEI Consortium is now well established, and a very successful Members meeting was held in Nancy, France in November 2003. The level of membership subscriptions continues to be a cause for concern. Greater emphasis is to be given to the need and benefits of projects and departments joining the Consortium. The TEI Board, at its Nov 2002 meeting, authorised the establishment of Special Interest Groups. This was very enthusiastically adopted by TEI members, with at least 8 SIGs being set up. The first meetings were at Nancy, and were very well attended. One of the priorities for the TEI is to develop its tag-sets, documentation and training materials in multiple languages. At its December 2003 meeting, the Committee issued an invitation to the TEI to submit a proposal for developing a set of pilot materials, building on a certain amount of work already completed, particularly in Spanish. This could be funded under the ALLC Projects scheme, and would enable ALLC to provide practical support for important TEI work that also contributes to the ALLC's own multi-lingual, multi-cultural agenda. These developments should be of direct interest to the European Union, and if such a pilot project were successfully completed, it might form a practical basis for a much larger proposal to the EU. It may be an opportunity for us to demonstrate to the EU the importance and relevance of what we do, as well as helping to promote the TEI more specifically. At the CLiP conference in Florence in December 2003, the ALLC once again offered 3 bursaries of 500 Euros. Unfortunately, on this occasion no awards were made. At the same conference, the ALLC sponsored a TEI training session - 'Introduction to XML and the TEI' - under its Workshops programme. The workshop was presented by Alejandro Bia (Alicante), Elena Pierazzo (Pisa) and Harold Short (King's College London).
Acknowledgments I would like to record my appreciation for the work carried out for the Association by the Officers and the elected Committee members. Particular thanks are due to the members of the ADHOC work group, and to the Editor of the journal, who has had a great deal of work to do in managing the re-tendering process while at the same time maintaining both the quality and the publication schedule of the 2004 volume.
Harold Short |
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