Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing Committee Minutes of the ALLC Committee Meeting held at Hévíz in Hungary, 13th - 14th December 2003 Agenda 1. Attendance 2. Minutes and Matters arising 3. Chair's Report 4. Secretary's Report 5. Treasurer's Report 6. Communications of the Association Journal  Humanist Computing in the Humanities Working Papers (CHWP) Web site ALLC Archives 7. Conferences 2003 2004 2005 Conference Protocols: working party 8. Zampolli memorials 9. ADHOC Working Party Introductory discussion Organisational structure Membership and relationships Finances Publications Conferences Activities and initiatives Internationalism and multilingualism Decisions and next steps 10. Journal publisher 11. Association Initiatives TEI Busa Award Bursaries Workshops Student Prize Project Support Humanities Education (ACOHUM and CHIME) 12. New Initiatives Multilingual coverage Digital library developments Cultural heritage: institutions and projects Accreditation and affiliation 13. Any other business Present: Harold Short (Chair), Jean Anderson (Treasurer), Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen (Secretary), David Robey, John Dawson, Laszlo Hunyadi, Espen Ore, Paul Fortier, Lorna Hughes, Elisabeth Burr, Concha Sanchez-Miguel. The Chair opened the meeting at 10.30. The Chair noted that the single most important event since our last meeting was the passing of our President Antonio Zampolli. The Committee began with a few moments of silence in remembrance of him. Laszlo Hunyadi presented the timetable for Saturday and Sunday. 1.   Attendance Apologies for absence were received from Thomas Rommel, Michael Sperberg-McQueen, and Marilyn Deegan. Simon Horobin and Edward Vanhoutte were also invited to join but couldn’t make it. 2.   Minutes and matters arising Paul Fortier proposed acceptance of the minutes of the Committee meeting in Georgia with slight amendments; Elisabeth Burr seconded and the Committee adopted the minutes as an accurate record of the meeting. Lorna Hughes will send materials from the NYU conference to the Archives. Jean Anderson will pass on materials from ALLC 2000 in Glasgow. Harold Short reported that the Archives at King’s have now finally moved to new premises and work can resume. David Robey reported on the 2002 conference and the publication of the materials from it. There may be some lessons to be learned from the fact that it was quite difficult to get the conference to focus on new directions. There may be issues to talk about with regard to subject coverage; it seems that there is room to develop into areas that we have not traditionally been strong in. 2003 Conference: Lorna Hughes mentioned that there is an ongoing process to try and streamline the chairing of these conferences. Developing the administrative processes seems to be an issue that could be discussed in greater detail. With regard to coverage, we did have underrepresented areas, notably history. A way to move forward would be turning to the growing digital library community and affiliated organizations. David Robey noted that the relationship between the local organiser and the programme committee chair should be spelt out clearly. Lorna Hughes reported on the publication of Georgia proceedings; she has gathered the papers together and it dawned on the ACH that the papers would come out in CHum after the journal no longer was affiliated with the ACH. She has discussed the possibility of publishing the papers with LLC as an additional issue or a double sized issue. David Robey said that for 2002 all submitted papers were published with the exception of one, on the grounds of length. These made two issues. Harold Short reported that the workshop at Rhodes went ahead. It was taught by Edward Vanhoutte, Melissa Terras and Ron Van Den Branden. At Rhodes they were very pleased by the range of people and institutions who had come to the workshop (approx. 30 participants) and the event was a great boost to them. Student prize: Harold Short is due to get from Edward Vanhoutte and Melissa Terras the papers included in the special issue of young scholars, which they edited.. It looks like we would be able to award the first student prize at Göteborg. Laszlo Hunyadi, Marilyn Deegan and Jean Anderson will form a panel to judge the prize submissions. Jean Anderson urged everyone to encourage students in their own institutions to submit papers for the prize and everyone agreed to do so. Harold Short reported that unfortunately the EU did not accept the application for funding that CHIME put in, but there have been subsequent discussions about where to go from here. Concha Sanchez Miguel reported on the CHIME project and the projects that have arisen out it. 3.   Chair's report Harold Short highlighted some of the points of his report. He hoped that we would spend some time today discussing the issue of how to remember Antonio. The TEI has got to a point where the issue of multilingual tagsets has become a major issue and we might want to think about some support for this. 4.   Secretary's report The Secretary reported on the website, which has now become multilingual, including the call for papers for the Göteborg conference. She also noted that it is still difficult to get membership figures from OUP and was pleased to hear that the Chair had been able to obtain figures up to the end of September 2003. Finally, she reminded everyone that a call for nominations for Committee members will go out with the minutes of this year’s AGM. Harold Short reported that according to the figures he was sent from OUP there were 109 individual subscriptions at the beginning of September this year. The issue of a members database was discussed and it was agreed that we would definitively want to have one. John Dawson said that his term is running out and he does not wish to be re-elected since he has served for 13 years. 5.   Treasurer's report The Treasurer presented the balances, explaining the balance sheet. She pointed out that she would like to have advance notice of things going on so that she can be better prepared for payments. She has also not received any breakdown of costs for the Rhodes University workshop and is waiting to get that paperwork. Paul Fortier pointed out that one should be conservative and prudent regarding depositing money. Because the London branch of the Bank of Scotland has improved their online and telephone banking services so immensely, the Treasurer no longer thinks it is necessary to move the account to the Glasgow branch. 6.   Communications of the Association 1) Journal Marilyn Deegan’s report is attached. The issue of journal publisher is a separate item on the agenda, and Harold proposed that we leave the discussion on this until later. Espen Ore reported on the special issue, i.e. issue 1 one of next year, on the electronic editions that he has edited. Harold Short reported on ACH and CHum – it is no longer the official journal of ACH and John Unsworth sent a letter to all ACH members encouraging their members to subscribe to the journal. This means that the ACH has no income for 2004. The issue of ALLC redistributing some income to ACH was discussed. It was also mentioned that the ACH have around 100 individual members. In addition they have many institutional subscriptions. The Committee hopes that John Unsworth will chase up members and institutions encouraging them to subscribe to the LLC. 2) Humanist Willard McCarty is still running this 3) Computing in the Humanities Working Papers (CHWP) Nothing has really happened on this front 4) Web site This was discussed earlier 5) ALLC Archives This also was discussed earlier 7.   Conferences 1) 2003 This was discussed earlier. 3) 2005 The Conference in 2005 will be held at the University of Victoria, and it will be hosted by Ray Siemens. The Chair of the Programme Committee will be Alejandro Bia. Three representatives of the ALLC for the Programme Committee have already been appointed in Georgia; we need one more representative and we should agree on this tomorrow. The Chair noted that the main issues for the 2004 Programme Committee now are the reviewing process and putting together the programme. We now have three applications for the bursary but should encourage young scholars to apply. Jean Anderson noted that the bursary application form should be revised. She would like to rewrite it and get it up in the next few weeks. Lorna Hughes noted that the large number of submissions should be reflected in the number of papers. David Robey spoke about the parity of esteem between the posters and papers. We need to look at the quality of the papers quite hard. We also need to look at the posterizing process very hard. The issue of poster status needs to be addressed. There are different cultures in different countries regarding the status of posters. Perhaps we could have a session on how to make an effective poster- we could put something up on the website. We could also get someone to prepare some guidelines on how to write abstracts, how to present papers, organizing sessions and to prepare a poster. We also need to clarify what is meant by a poster and what is meant by demonstrations. It was agreed that Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen, Paul Fortier and Jean Anderson would look at material on these issues and put together some kind of suggestion on what we might write up on it. We agreed to stick to the terminology of paper presentation and poster presentation. 2) 2004 Laszlo Hunyadi reported that he feels very positive. At Georgia we decided on a schedule and have kept to it. Multilinguality is the theme; about 15 abstracts have been submitted in languages other than English. We have a total of 150 submissions and quite a few panel and session proposals; we now have about 10 poster proposals. The reviewing process has started and there are enough reviewers - each one was given an average of 5 abstracts. Laszlo Hunyadi will start to review the reviews after Christmas. JanGunnar Tingsell and Laszlo Hunyadi are working very well together. Laszlo Hunyadi will visit Göteborg in the spring. It was agreed that Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen and Espen Ore could join him (The meeting broke up for lunch at 12.30 and resumed at 13.50) The Committee wished to thank Laszlo Hunyadi for the work he has done so far. We will return to the question of when the Committee Meeting will be after the break. 4) Conference Protocols A working party has been set up to discuss this issue and it is in the process of doing so. However, the forthcoming new organizational structure will also have an effect on the matter. 8.   Zampolli memorials Harold Short recounted the ideas that had come up in the invitations to suggest how we might best remember Antonio. These include bursaries, awards, a Festschrift, a photo gallery and others. The matter was discussed by the TEI and they would like to participate or contribute to something and the ACH would also like to have some kind of involvement. Harold Short has also spoken to Antonio’s colleagues in Pisa and ELRA is also interested in doing something. It was agreed that we would have a reminiscences section on the website with photos and accounts. Harold Short will coordinate this. We will make this a multilingual space. It was agreed that Elizabeth Burr will talk to Pisa and ELRA concerning a publication and the best way that we might contribute. We would prefer such a publication to be focused on Antonio’s own range of activities. It as agreed that we would contact the ACH regarding setting up an Antonio Zampolli award and rephrase the Busa award. It was also agreed that Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen and Michael Sperberg-McQueen would represent us on this matter. The Antonio Zampolli award could be the first award in the new collaborative framework. The general consensus was that the Busa award would be given for outstanding research at any point in an individual’s career and the Zampolli award for outstanding work in institution building and promotion of the field. There was a coffee break at 15.10. The meeting resumed at 15.45 The issue of the Committee meeting at Göteborg was discussed and it was agreed that the Committee would meet at 14.00-18.00 on Thursday 10th and continue on Friday 11 th 9.00-12.00. 9.   ADHO Working Party Introductory discussion Organisational structure Membership and relationships Finances Publications Conferences Activities and initiatives Internationalism and multilingualism Decisions and next steps Harold Short introduced the topic by reporting on the responses he had had from members. Although not many people replied, the ones who did were very positive. ACH has already broken the link with Kluwer. We need to discuss some issues to give guidance to our representatives on the workgroup that will be discussing the matter further. It was agreed that Harold, Espen and Elisabeth will continue to represent us on the matter. The Committee reviewed the summary of recommendations and discussed the issue of chapters and the possibility of belonging to more than one of them. It was agreed that the concept of paying an additional fee to belong to more than one chapter would be reasonable. There must be some formal mechanism for the election of representatives to the umbrella organisations so that if needed they can prove that they are the official representatives of the organisation. Another thing that needs to be formally addressed is a structure for how to change the agreement between the chapters. We need to take into account the fact that there will be some need for joint finances, e.g. the journal costs and the financial administration. A lengthy discussion on the issue of the journal, the broad scope it covers and the name. The issue needs more consideration. It is also connected to the issue of an electronic publication, a pre-print publication and a broader scheme for publications. It was agreed that Harold Short would liase with Geoffrey Rockwell on these issues. The issue of publishing income and membership was also discussed, but it was agreed that the ADHO representatives should consider the issue and come back with some recommendations. They should also discuss the issue of regional chapters and come with recommendations regarding this. We are committed to the issue of multilingualism and feel that it must be incorporated into the agreement. (The meeting closed at 17.05 and reconvened at 10.10 on Sunday morning.) The Chair began by presenting membership figures and projections for membership when the ADHO umbrella organisation is in place. As was mentioned yesterday, the ACH will have no income next year because they have broken their link with Kluwer. The concept of giving the ACH some funds was discussed and it was agreed that the ALLC will give the ACH 6,482 GBP to represent their share of the income for 2002. 10.   Journal Publisher Harold Short went briefly over the background to this issue, reminding everyone of the discussions last year and earlier this year. The key issue is that OUP are very keen to keep Lit. and Ling. Computing and were keen to promote the new electronic developments that are taking place there and have offered us an early inclusion in that process. Blackwell remain eager and we have now also been approached by Routledge. We need to decide whether we will go out to tender; we also need to decide whether we would go out to an open tender or a closed tender and if we chose a closed tender would we invite only OUP and Blackwell or would we also include Routledge. A lengthy discussion ensued. The main concerns were financial: what might the effect be of possibly changing publishers while changing organisational structure. The issue of the financial status of the two publishers was also raised. Martin Hockey has generously offered to review any tender documents that arise should we go out to tender. David Robey proposed that we back our Editor and go out to tender, Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen seconded and the Committee was unanimously in favour of it. The Chair noted that in relation to his report and item 8, we now no longer have a President and perhaps we should form a small workgroup to sound out suitable candidates and report back to the Committee. We should have this agreed upon before the Göteborg conference. It was agreed that Harold Short, Lisa Lena Opas-Hänninen and Paul Fortier shuld form a small committee to deal with this matter. 11.   ALLC Initiatives 1) TEI The meeting was held in Nancy. The subscription level is still well below what is hoped for. Most of the budget goes toward the editors and meetings. The intention is that the next version of the Guidelines, P5, would be published next year. The ALLC, ACH and ACL no longer have representation on the Board by right. This is a moment of opportunity in relation to multilingualism. There is an opportunity for the TEI to seize an initiative to develop multilingual tagsets and translations of TEILite. It was proposed that Alejandro Bia be invited to send us a project proposal for this. 2) Busa Award LL reported 3) Bursaries Jean will redo the instructions for the bursary application and Harold will review it. The last two CliP seminars the ALLC was prepared to sponsor two bursaries. She pointed out that this year there were no applications but that may be due to the wording on the application form. It was agreed that a new form will be made for the CliP bursaries. Jean Anderson will also organise a journal subscription for the 3 CLiP bursary winners last year and the two ALLC bursary winners from this year. 4) Workshops We have had 2 workshops this last year, one in South Africa at Rhodes that we talked about yesterday and the TEI one in Florence last week. 5) Student Prize The issue was discussed yesterday. 6) Project Support Elisabeth pointed out that if we want to support projects that intend to look for funding from the European Union. The issue of a single fixed deadline and the restrictions it posed was discussed at length. It was agreed that the wording would be changed to say that there is no deadline, but that normally we would award up to 5000 GBP per year and normally we would expect to give a decision within three months. 7) Humanities Education (ACOHUM and CHIME) Covered yesterday. While many of these items had already been discussed, some comments were made on them at this point. 12. New Initiatives 1) Multilingual coverage This has already been discussed. The website is multilingual now, the conference website is multilingual The significance of multilingualism in the Call for papers in attracting more submissions. The use of the flags as markers was discussed. Concha raised the issue of multilingual publication and pointed out that for many non-native speakers of English it is a process of writing in their native language and having the text translated. 2) Digital library developments Several members are involved in a Mellon Foundation project for the development of digital library tools. 3) Cultural heritage: institutions and projects 4) Accreditation and affiliation 13.   Other business Jean Anderson offered to host the next mid-year meeting in Scotland. The Committee wished to record its thanks to Laszlo for organizing this meeting.

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