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(New software is needed to deal with the growing body of electronic texts.)
Nancy Ide and Jean Veronis Vassar College (U.S.A.) and CNRS (France)
The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) and numerous corpus collection initiatives have made realizable the availability of large amounts of electronic texts in an interchangeable format. As a result, the need for generally available, flexible text analytic software tools is substantially greater than ever in the past. Unfortunately, the software for text analysis that exists at present only begins to cover research needs, and it is often expensive and hard to adapt or extend to fit a particular research problem.
It seems unlikely that software companies will develop multi-functional, easily usable, extendable--and cheap--text analytic systems for a small academic audience. We feel that it is therefore largely up to the research community to see that appropriate software is developed and made generally available. However, the software individual researchers and labs have developed so far is often experimental and hard to get, hard to install, under-documented, and sometimes unreliable. Researchers typically do not have the manpower or expertise to develop software using the strategies that companies do. A different approach must be found.
In this essay we outline a possible paradigm for software development that we feel is appropriate for text analysis, and could enable the development of reliable and widely available text analytic software by and for a largely academic research community. Our intention is primarily to provide a starting point for the discussion of solutions to what we feel is the largest problem facing those involved in computer-assisted text analysis, now that the TEI has tackled the fundamental issue of encoding.
Existing text-analytic software (including the small body of publicly marketed software as well as privately developed software) consists mainly of integrated systems having one large, complex piece of code that handles all the functionality. We believe that this approach to the design of text analytic software is inappropriate for the needs of the research community. First, the change in the scale of usable text data, from the order of a few million words to tens or hundreds of millions, is likely to affect both what language researchers do and how they do it. It is difficult to foresee the functions that text analysis will require in the future. We are certainly at the beginning of an era of exploration and experimentation, which will require flexible software that can be adapted to one-time or new applications. The functionality of large integrated systems is usually fixed and unmodifiable. Second, large integrated systems require long periods for their development, which means that new software is not going to appear overnight. In addition, development costs are very high, which prohibits free (or cheap) distribution. Low software cost is especially important in a field where many researchers have very little grant money or institutional funds for software purchase.
Finally, large integrated systems either provide the functions you need, or it is necessary to create your own program from scratch in a low-level language such as C. For many researchers without formal computer science training, and with limited development resources, writing large programs from scratch is impractical. Even for those who can, there is often much duplication of effort. It is not at all uncommon for tailor-made systems to replicate much of the functionality of similar systems and in turn create programs that cannot be re-used by others, and so on in an endless software waste cycle. The reusability of data is a much-discussed topic these days; similarly, we need "software reusability," to avoid the re-inventing of the wheel characteristic of much language-analytic research in the past three decades.
In general, we think that text analytic software should:
We outline here several principles for a paradigm for the development of software for text analysis that could satisfy these desiderata. The approach is the opposite of the integrated system philosophy and enables the flexibility, extendibility, and reusability that we believe is needed.
PRINCIPLE 1: ATOMICITY
We believe that the research community would be best served by a set of small tools that scholars can use alone or combine to create larger, more complex programs. By small, we mean very, very small--often on the order of a few lines of code, with the absolute minimum of functionality. Functions can be "bundled" to perform more complex tasks, as needed. In this way, increasingly complex program bundles can be developed without the overhead of large system design, and with ease of modification since any program can be de-bundled into its constituent programs, each consisting of a small, easily understandable piece of code.
The use of small functions allows scholars to concentrate on the underlying logic in order to develop new functions, and eliminates the need for the training and/or time to implement algorithms at lower levels. The development of increasingly complex bundles provides good, reliable software for scholars who want a ready-made high-level tool.
For example, consider the task of computing tag collocation tables (tables indicating how many times a given tag was followed by another) for a corpus tagged for part of speech. Trying to do it with one single program demands complex data structuring and data access methods (hash tables, etc.) and constitutes a substantial programming project. However (assuming a two-column, word-tag format for the corpus), the task can be accomplished by combining four simple functions (extract the tag column, output tag/nextag pairs for whole text, sort the pairs, count duplicates), and the programming effort becomes trivial--so trivial that three of the steps are standard commands in many operating systems. The only "complicated" step is outputting tag/nextag pairs, which can be accomplished with less than five lines in any programming language, which can be easily debugged and tested.
PRINCIPLE 2: OPERATOR/STREAM APPROACH
In the present state of computing technology, it is possible to identify various approaches which provide a means to answer the desiderata given above in the design of software. One approach, the operator/stream approach, has had widespread implementation and use and is generally accepted in research and industry. It has been increasingly used in computational linguistics applications (see, for instance, the Tutorial on Text Corpora by Mark Liberman and Mitch Marcus, Association for Computational Linguistics Annual Conference, 1992).
The operator/stream approach has served as the basis for the UNIX operating system, which as a result provides a ready-made platform for its implementation. However, it is essential to note that as an abstract model, the operator/stream approach is implementable under any operating system, such as MS-DOS.
In the operator/stream approach, data flows in unidirectional "streams" between functions. Each of these functions is an "operator" that transforms the data as it passes by. Since everything is understood in terms of what goes in and what comes out, the emphasis is on what needs to be done rather than how it is done. This, again, enables a focus on overall algorithms rather than implementation details.
For example, the collocation table program above could be written in UNIX as:
cut -f2 | bigram | sort | uniq -c
"Cut," "sort," and "uniq" are standard UNIX commands. The vertical bar ("pipe") means that the output of the program on the left is sent as input to the one on the right (we use UNIX as an example because it readily accommodates the operator/stream approach, but this approach can be implemented on other systems). The four programs are independent, and at no point are compiled together in a single program.
The operator/stream approach makes modification easy, since functions are independent. For instance, it is simple to replace "bigram" by "trigram" (for tag collocates of length three) with no other modification. New operators can be inserted anywhere in the stream--for instance, to split contractions (as PP+BE for "you're") into two separate tags, one could modify the sequence to be:
cut -f2 | split | bigram | sort | uniq -c
where "split" is, again, a program of a few lines. In addition, all these functions are re-usable in other contexts.
PRINCIPLE 3: UNIQUE DATA TYPE
Communication between programs should be by means of flat, human-readable "ASCII" files only, not binary. The only data type is therefore the string. There is some overhead in this approach, since conversion from string to, say, number and back is required for numbers that are to be manipulated arithmetically, but the speed and storage capacities of present-day machines virtually eliminate this concern.
More importantly, you gain the ability to see what is going on at each step, which enables an easy test-modify-test cycle. Finally, complex data types tie programs to specific languages that implement those types. The use of ASCII-only data eliminates this dependency--programs can be written in _any_ programming language at any level: C, Pascal, assembler, SNOBOL, awk, Perl, etc.
A feature of this strategy which is of major importance is that any system can accept flat files. Therefore, data is portable between different systems. In addition, it makes it much easier to port software from system to system, since it accepts the same kind of input data. For example, a program in C is likely to work on any system with no or very minor modification.
PRINCIPLE 4: INTERNAL STANDARD FORMATS (ISFS)
To write the compatible set of tools we describe, it is essential that all programs communicate effectively. This demands that internal standard formats for data be developed, to serve as specifications for program development. The need for ISFs is obvious even in the simple example above; it is important that the output of each function conform to the input expectations of the next. Further, it is essential that these formats be public, so that any program written anywhere by anyone can use them.
ISFs are, like the functions that process them, very simple and straightforward. Many ISFs will be needed to accommodate different possible "interpretations" of the data, and their development will demand careful consideration of text types, their structures and properties. Therefore, ISF development should build upon the TEI's work on text structures and categories and ensure compatibility with it. Note that because ISFs represent only partially the information in an encoded text (that is, whatever is required for certain operations), they do not replace a TEI/SGML encoding of data, which represents all the information in an encoded text and can be used for interchange. Transduction programs to import TEI-conformant texts into one or more internal standard formats, and vice versa, will be essential.
We do not claim originality for the general flavor of the paradigm outlined above, which has been in the air (increasingly) for several years. It has, for instance, served as a basis for the philosophy underlying the UNIX operating system, and has recently been suggested as a strategy for data base manipulation.(1) However, the need for ISFs has been under-stressed in the past, and as a result, even a well-established system such as UNIX which adopts the basic philosophy outlined here is inconsistent in the internal formats required for even closely related functions.
The paradigm has clear advantages for the development of text analytic software. Most importantly, it enables a distributed software development effort to which anyone can contribute. Since modules are extremely small, individuals with small systems are just as capable of contributing as large teams. The distribution of effort also means that there is no large investment as with integrated systems, which in turn means that software can be distributed cheaply, or for free. In addition, this approach enables what we call "software evolution."
There is no need to envision the entire functionality of the system at the outset; instead, because extension is trivial (and can re-use existing functions or bundles), the system can easily grow how and when there is a demand. This is especially important in a field where special and one-time use tools are common, and new functions are likely to be desired.
We believe that it is essential that text analytic software be freely distributable to anyone who wants it. By "free," we mean free in the sense of free access, that is, access to the code, access to the specifications, access to the documentation, etc.
We borrow here from the philosophy behind the GNU Project's Free Software Foundation, which is to reduce distribution costs, and leave users free to copy, modify, and redistribute programs as they wish. We believe, however, that the distributed model will likely lead to the availability of much software that is free in the monetary sense as well, or at least, very inexpensive.
An effort to develop software of this kind should require very little in terms of centralized management, and could in fact be managed by a small group of researchers contributing a small piece of their time, and who do not necessarily have to be in the same physical location. Their job would be mainly to coordinate the acquisition of software and make it available via ftp or listserv.
Before effective text analytic software can be developed, two preliminary steps are required. First, an incrementable task list must be established in order to identify the basic functions and bundles that should be developed. Second, ISFs must be designed, building on the work of the TEI. Both the task list and the ISFs demand considerable study and care for their construction; it is essential that the magnitude of these projects be recognized at the outset and that a serious effort is applied to each.
Once established, the task list and the ISFs can serve as the basis for the development of software according to the principles and structure we have outlined above, hopefully creating a sort of "global lab" among the research community. However, it can work only if there is prior conscious acceptance of a common paradigm and philosophy within the research community, as well as by funding agencies. We hope that the suggestions we have made here provide a starting point for discussion among these groups. Whether it is the paradigm we have outlined here or another that is adopted, we feel that the text software problem must be tackled now. Hopefully, we have taken a step here toward arriving at a solution.
1. Schaffer, E., Wolf, M. (1991). "The Next Generation." UNIX Review, 9, 3, 24-31.
(This will be the 31st annual meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics.)
The 31st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics will be held June 22-26, 1993, at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
Papers have been invited on all aspects of computational linguistics, including pragmatics, discourse, semantics, syntax, and the lexicon; phonetics, phonology, and morphology; interpreting and generating spoken and written language; linguistic, mathematical, and psychological models of language; language-oriented information retrieval; corpus-based language modelling; machine translation and translation aids; natural language interfaces and dialogue systems; message and narrative understanding systems; and theoretical and applications papers of every kind.
Following the ACL-91/92 successes, there will again be special Student Sessions organized by a committee of ACL graduate student members.
The meeting will also include a program of tutorials coordinated by Philip Cohen, SRI International, Artificial Intelligence Center, of Menlo Park, California. Some of the ACL Special Interest Groups may arrange workshops or other activities.
Local arrangements for the conference are being chaired by:
Terry Patten Ohio State University Computer & Information Science 2036 Neil Avenue Mall Columbus, OH 43210 Phone: 614/292-3989 E-mail: patten@cis.ohio-state.edu.
Anyone wishing to arrange an exhibit or present a demonstration should send a brief description together with a specification of physical requirements (space, power, telephone connections, tables, etc.) to:
Robert Kasper Ohio State University Linguistics 222 Oxley Hall 1712 Neil Avenue Columbus, OH 43210 Phone: 614/292-2844 E-mail: kasper@ling.ohio-state.edu.
For other information on the conference and on the Association for Computational Linguistics more generally, please communicate with:
Don Walker Bellcore MRE 2A379 445 South Street Box 1910 Morristown, NJ 07960-1910 Phone: 201/829-4312 E-mail: walker@bellcore.com
(It will be at the Connecticut College Center for Arts and Technology.)
The Connecticut College Center for Arts and Technology, in conjunction with the departments of Music, Art, Art History, Dance, Theater, English, Mathematics/Computer Science, Physics, Physical Education, Psychology, and Linguistics has announced the fourth Symposium on The Arts and Technology, to be held at Connecticut College on March 4-6, 1993.
The Symposium will consist of paper sessions, panel discussions, an art exhibition, and concerts of music, mixed media works, video, dance, experimental theater, and interactive performance. It encourages research presentations and demonstrations in all areas of the arts and technology.
Selected papers will be published as proceedings, and will be available at the Symposium.
For further information on the symposium, please communicate with the co-directors:
David Smalley, Co-director Center for Arts and Technology Box 5637 Connecticut College 270 Mohegan Avenue New London, CT 06320-4196 dasma@mvax.cc.conncoll.edu dasma@conncoll.bitnet Noel Zahler, Co-director Center for Arts and Technology Connecticut College Box 5632 270 Mohegan Avenue New London, CT 06320-4196 nbzah@mvax.cc.conncoll.edu nbzah@conncoll.bitnet
The proposed Amendments to the ACH Constitution passed
unanimously. We apologize that only the wording of the
changes were included on the ballot and not the text of the
entire constitution. It is presented below in its entirety
as amended.
Randall Jones
ACH Executive Secretary
CONSTITUTION OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR
COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES
Approved December 1978; as amended November 1979, 1983,
June 1987, December 1992. This is the "reading" version,
with the history of changes removed.
I. NAME
The name of this organization shall be The Association for
Computers and the Humanities.
II. PURPOSE
The purpose of the Association shall be to encourage by
suitable means the appropriate uses of computers and related
technologies in the study of humanistic subjects. The
Association shall further this goal by sponsoring regular
conferences on computers and the humanities, and by
otherwise facilitating contacts and discussion among
scholars interested in the goal of the Association. The
Association for Computers and the Humanities is formed
exclusively for educational purposes within the meaning of
Section 501 (c) (3) of the United States Internal Revenue
Code of 1954.
III. MEMBERSHIP
Membership shall be open upon payment of the currently
stipulated dues to all persons interested in furthering the
purpose of the Association. Classes of membership shall be
established in the Bylaws.
IV. MANAGEMENT OF THE ASSOCIATION
A. THE OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION SHALL BE:
1. The Immediate Past President, whose term of office shall
be one year, coinciding with the first year of the
President's first year.
2. The President, who shall be elected by the general
membership and whose term of office shall be two years after
which he or she shall be eligible for re-election. Following
the expiration of his or her last term, he or she shall
succeed to the position of Immediate Past President. The
President, as the chief executive officer of the
Association, shall:
a. Preside at the General Business Meetings of the
Association and of the Executive Council;
b. Be an ex-officio member of all committees of the
Association.
3. The Vice-President, who shall be elected by the general
membership, and whose term of office shall be two years
after which she or he shall be eligible for re-election. The
Vice-President shall perform those of the President's duties
as shall, from time to time, be delegated to her or him by
the President.
4. The Executive Secretary, who shall be responsible for the
day-to-day administration of the Association. He or she
shall be appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the
Executive Council. It shall be the responsibility of the
Executive Secretary to carry out policies established by the
Executive Council and perform such duties as are assigned by
it.
5. The Treasurer, who shall be appointed and serve at the
pleasure of the Executive Council. She or he shall:
a. Maintain accurate and timely records of all income and
expenditures of the Association.
b. Be responsible for the safekeeping of all documents
relating to the fiscal affairs of the Association;
c. Reserve all dues and subscriptions to the Association and
keep the funds of the Association safely deposited in a
chartered bank approved by the Executive Council;
d. On authorization of the Executive Council, draw checks
against deposited funds. For checks in excess of amounts to
be determined by the Executive Council, the signature of a
second officer designated by the Executive Council shall be
required;
e. Prepare, with the advice of the Executive Secretary, the
annual budget for the approval of the Executive Council;
f. Report at the annual meeting of the Executive Council, or
as it shall require, on the collection and disbursements of
the Association.
B. THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
1. The affairs and business of the Association shall be
managed and controlled, subject to the provisions of the
Bylaws, by an Executive Council consisting of:
a. The Immediate Past President, the President, and the
Vice-President, ex officiis; these officers shall be with
vote.
b. The Executive Secretary and the Treasurer, ex officiis;
these officers shall be with vote.
c. Twelve Members at large shall serve terms of four years,
with one quarter of their number retiring each year. Members
at large shall be eligible for immediate re-election.
d. The Editors of _Computers and the Humanities_ and the
_ACH Newsletter_ as ex officii members with vote.
e. Invited liaison members from allied organizations without
vote.
2. The Executive Council shall be the basic policy making
organ of the Association. The function and duties of the
Executive Council shall be:
a. To appoint the Executive Secretary and Treasurer;
b. To approve the budget submitted by the Treasurer and to
set the dues and other financial conditions of membership;
c. To determine the place and time of the annual meeting co-
sponsored by the Association;
d. To establish and terminate Standing Committees and
Special Interest Groups;
e. To accept reports as required from such committees as it
shall appoint;
f. To maintain liaison with other professional associations
in related fields;
g. To elect representatives to appropriate federations and
councils;
h. To establish, subject to the approval of a majority of
the membership, appropriate Bylaws;
i. To transact all such other business which furthers the
purpose of the Association and which is not subject to the
approval of the General Business Meeting of the Association.
V. CONFERENCES
A. An annual meeting shall be held at least once every year
at times and places determined by the Executive Council.
B. The program for the annual meeting shall be established
by a Program Committee appointed by the Executive Council.
The program so established shall be subject to approval by
the Executive Council.
C. The Association shall co-sponsor, at the discretion of
the Executive Council, similar conferences with other
organizations.
VI. MEETINGS
A. GENERAL BUSINESS MEETINGS.
1. A General Business Meeting of the Association shall be
held in conjunction with each annual meeting sponsored under
the auspices of the Association. Thirty members in good
standing shall constitute a legal quorum.
2. Other business Meetings may be ordered by the Executive
Council and called by the President. At these, fifteen
members shall constitute a legal quorum.
B. EXECUTIVE COUNCIL MEETINGS.
1. A regular Meeting of the Executive Council shall be held
each year, on a date and at a location determined by the
Council.
2. Additional meetings may be convened by the President on
his or her own initiative or on notice signed by seven
members of the Council.
3. A quorum shall consist of any seven members in addition
to any two of the officers. If a quorum of the Executive
Council is present and wishes to conduct official business,
but the President and the Vice-President are unavailable,
the Executive Secretary may preside. If the Executive
Secretary is also unavailable, the Executive Council may
elect a chairman pro tem to preside.
4. At any meeting of the Executive Council, other persons
may be invited, at the discretion of the Council, to
participate in Council meetings without vote.
5. Notice of meetings of the Executive Council shall be
given to its members by the Executive Secretary in
sufficient time for the members to be able to attend this
meeting. No public notice shall be required. Notices of
special meetings shall specify the matters proposed to be
dealt with at such meetings.
VII. AMENDMENTS
The Constitution or the Bylaws may be amended as follows:
Either the Executive Council or the General Business Meeting
may approve an amendment by a two-thirds majority. Then a
mail ballot shall be sent to the entire membership and
forty-five days allowed for return. The counting of the
ballots shall be conducted as for elections. The
ratification shall require a two-thirds majority.
VIII.DISSOLUTION
Upon dissolution of the Association, the Executive Council
shall, after paying or making provisions for payment of all
the liabilities of the Association, dispose of all the
assets of the Association exclusively for the purpose of the
Association in such manner, or to such organization or
organizations organized and operated exclusively for
educational purposes or shall at the time qualify as an
exempt organization or organizations under section 501 (c)
(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code of 1954 (or
the corresponding provision of any future United States
Internal Revenue law), as the Executive Council shall
determine. Any such assets not so disposed of shall be
disposed of by the Court of Common Pleas of the country in
which the principal office of the Association is then
located, exclusively for such purposes or to such
organization or organizations, as said Court shall
determine, which are organized and operated exclusively for
such purposes.
BYLAWS OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES
Approved August 1979, Amended 1983, 1987, 1992
I. MEMBERSHIP AND DUES
A. THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE ASSOCIATION SHALL CONSIST OF:
1. Regular Members. Any person may become a Member of the
Association on the payment of an annual fee fixed by the
Executive Council; he or she shall be eligible for holding
office and shall have a voice in the affairs of the
Association.
2. Joint Members. A husband and wife may become joint
members of the Association upon payment of one and a half
times the dues for Regular Membership, and with entitlement
to only one copy of whatever publications Regular Members
receive.
3. Student Members. Any full-time student may become a
Student Member upon payment of one half the dues for Regular
Members, renewable for a total of three years. An unemployed
member shall be construed as having student status.
4. Life Members. Any person may become a Life Member upon
paying either fifteen times the dues for Regular Members,
payable in advance, or by paying four installments, at four
year intervals, of four times the current dues for Regular
Members at the times of payment.
5. Honorary Members. Honorary Membership may be conferred on
any person, for life, upon the recommendation of the
Executive Council, approved by a majority vote of the
Association at any General Business Meeting thereof. Such
Honorary Members shall, without payment of any fee whatever,
enjoy all the rights and privileges of a Regular Member
except that of voting or holding office in the Association.
B. PRIVILEGES OF MEMBERSHIP
1. Each Regular Member, Student Member, Life Member, and
Honorary Member in good standing in the Association shall
receive, as part of the privileges of membership, a
subscription to any publications of the Association.
2. All classes of membership, except as otherwise specified,
shall be entitled to reduced prices on such publications as
the Association may arrange, to reduced registration fees at
the annual meeting, and to other benefits as may be
negotiated by the Executive Council.
C. PAYMENT OF DUES
1. Honorary Members and Life Members shall not be required
to pay annual dues.
2. The annual dues payment for Regular Members shall not be
less than fifteen dollars.
3. The annual dues for members shall be payable on the first
of January for the calendar year then commencing. A notice
of dues payment shall be included with the ballot sent to
each member as described in the Bylaws, Section II.B.
D. REMOVAL AND RESIGNATION OF MEMBERS
1. The privileges of the Association shall be withdrawn from
any member who has not paid his annual dues by the first of
April of any given year.
2. Any member of any class may withdraw from the Association
by notifying the Executive Secretary.
II. ELECTIONS
A. At each annual meeting of the Executive Council it shall
appoint a Nominating Committee consisting of the President
and four other members of he Executive Council. Each year
nominations will be made for Executive Council vacancies;
every other year nominations will be made for President and
Vice President.
At some time before 1 October the Nominating Committee shall
transmit to the Executive Secretary nominations of at least
double the number of positions which shall become vacant on
the Executive Council at the next election. Care shall be
taken by the Nominating Committee to see that suitable
candidates are selected from persons who are ACH members in
good standing and represent as wide a variety of disciplines
as possible. Nominations of eligible candidates may also be
made by the membership of the Association, provided that
each nomination is signed by two members in good standing in
the Association, that the nomination is in the hands of the
Nominating Committee in sufficient time to be considered
prior to the 1 October deadline.
B. After receiving the list of nominations from the
Nominating Committee, the Executive Secretary shall
distribute to each voting member, along with any applicable
dues notice, a ballot listing all persons nominated to run
in the election. The ballot or an enclosed letter, or both,
must also indicate the number of seats that are to be
determined (which shall also be the maximum number of
persons for whom members may vote). The address to which the
ballot must be sent, and the final date by which the ballot
must be returned in order to be counted. All ballots
received by the specified deadline shall be opened and
tallied by the Executive Secretary in the presence of one
other ACH Member. The results will be transmitted to the
Executive Council, Officers, and all candidates for office;
any of those people may request a formal recount at the
Executive Council meeting. The Executive Secretary will keep
the ballots for six months.
III. VACANCIES
A. In the event of the resignation of any elected member of
the Executive Council, save in the third year of his or her
term, the resulting vacancy shall be filled by electing one
additional member at the normal annual election for the
Executive Council. The member who receives the least votes
of those elected on that occasion shall serve only during
the residual term of the resigned member. This procedure
shall also be adopted, mutatis mutandis, in the case of
multiple vacancies.
B. If the position of Immediate Past President becomes
vacant for any reason, it shall not be filled until the
President can assume this position.
C. If the position of President becomes vacant, the Vice-
President shall assume the office and responsibilities of
the President.
D. Any officer in the organization who does not remain a
member in good standing may be removed by vote of the
Executive Council.
IV. STANDING COMMITTEES
The Executive Council shall establish standing committees,
appoint their members and chairpersons, and accept their
reports. These committees shall include:
A. A Program Committee, the members and chairpersons of
which shall be appointed at each annual meeting. This
Committee shall represent the ACH in the organization of the
program for the next annual meeting, as well as other such
conferences and meetings as the Executive Council shall
determine. The programs so established shall be subject to
approval by the Executive Council.
B. A Nominating Committee.
C. A Committee on Bibliography.
D. A Committee on Research Activities.
E. A Committee on Text Encoding Initiative.
V. SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS
Members shall be encouraged to form Special Interest Groups.
With the approval of the Executive Council, they may hold
sessions during the annual meeting, distribute newsletters,
and in other ways further their particular concerns within
the general framework of the Association.
VI. COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVES FROM RELATED
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
The Council may approve having an official liaison to any
related learned society or professional association. ACH and
the related association would agree upon a person named to
be the liaison who would be a member of both organizations
to serve as long as both organizations deem it appropriate.
The role of the liaison is to encourage a broad exchange of
information and to promote exchange sessions and panels at
regular meetings of the related association. The related
association would be invited to organize a session at each
annual meeting. A liaison would attend all ACH Council
meetings, but, unless he or she is also a member of the
Executive Council, would not vote. The liaison would also
attend the board or council meetings of the related
associations, unless alternative communication channels are
set up within that organization.
VII. REGIONAL AFFILIATED ASSOCIATIONS FOR
COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES
The Association encourages the formation of regional
Associations, and is willing to negotiate cooperative
agreements and mutually beneficial dues structures. A
potential regional ACH may apply to the Executive Council
for start-up costs, and may also apply for more formal ties.
In either case, the regional ACH will determine its own
governance structure and budget. The Council may dissolve
its sponsorship for such an organization at any time, so
long as it gives six months' notice in writing to the
leadership of that organization.
VIII.FISCAL YEAR
The fiscal year of the Association shall be the calendar
year.
IX. RULES OF ORDER
In all matters not determined by the Constitution or the
Bylaws, the proceedings for the Association shall be
governed by the latest edition of _Roberts' Rules of Order_.
This informal "rule" was approved by the Council and
members at ICCH/87:
ACH members who wish to propose a conference for ACH
sponsorship should write a letter to the President. This
should outline the theme, possible major speakers, timing,
and local arrangements and facilities. The President may
consult informally with other officers, Council members, and
colleagues to improve the quality of the proposal (if
needed). Then the proposal must go to the Executive Council
for approval. It was agreed that the budget request should
be $500 or less. If time is short, Council approval can be
solicited through the mails. Only in extraordinary
circumstances would ACH approve of a conference to be held
in an ICCH year. The Council may request that one or more
ACH officers or Council members serve on the program
committee for such a conference. ACH will assume that
members will get reduced rates to attend.
The ACH will be organizing two sessions at the 1993 Modern Language Association Convention, Toronto, December 27-30, 1993.
Proposals are invited for the following topic: "Software for the Study of Literature: What is available, how it is used, perspectives for the future."
Please send papers or abstracts by February 28, 1993 to:
fortier@uofmcc.bitnet
Please note that participants in the MLA Convention must be members of the Modern Language Association no later than March 1993.
The _ACH Newsletter_ is now published in electronic form, and is currently being distributed in that form to some 150 ACH members.
Any member wishing to receive the newsletter through electronic mail should send an e-mail note to the editor at the address below.
Each issue of the electronic newsletter is a little over 50K in size.
Eric Dahlin HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.bitnet HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu
The 1993 AAAI Spring Symposium, "Building Lexicons for Machine Translation," has been scheduled for Stanford University, Stanford, California, on March 23-25, 1993.
This symposium provides a forum for researchers from the fields of MT and the lexicon to focus on the intersection of the two fields.
For further information, please communicate with:
AAAI 445 Burgess Drive Menlo Park, CA 94025 E-mail: sss@aaai.org
We are pleased to announce that Eric Dahlin, Elli Mylonas, and Mark Olsen were elected as members of the ACH Executive Council.
We wish to thank Karen Kossuth, Hans Rutimann, and Michael Sperberg-McQueen whose terms of office ended in December.
The 1993 CALICO Annual Symposium will take place on the campus of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, on March 8-13, 1993.
CALICO (Computer Assisted Learning and Instruction Consortium) is a professional association that focuses on the uses of computers in modern language learning.
The symposium will bring together educators, developers, government representatives, vendors, and many others interested in the field of language learning with computer assisted instruction.
Pre-conference workshops will take place on Monday and Tuesday, March 8-9. The courseware fair will be held on Wednesday, March 10. A varied series of presentations will given on Thursday, March 11, through Saturday, March 13.
The keynote address will be given by John Rassias of Dartmouth College.
For further information on the CALICO symposium, please communicate with:
CALICO
014 Language Center
P.O. Box 90267
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708-0267
Phone: 919/681-6455
Fax: 919/681-6485
E-mail: calico@dukemvs.bitnet or
calico@dukemvs.ac.duke.edu
The two ACH sessions at the New York (1992) MLA Convention were dedicated to discussion of Mark Olsen's widely circulated position paper: "Signs, Symbols, Discourses: A New Direction for Computer-Aided Literature Studies."
In the first session Gina Greco and Peter Shoemaker presented "Computer-Aided Literary Studies: Addressing the Particularities of Medieval Texts," in which they discussed modes of production and transmission of texts using manuscript technology (a collaborative model, which did not stress a canonical text), showing how computing power is needed fully to model this reality. Copious examples drawn from Chretien de Troyes were used in support of this position.
Ellen Spolsky, in "Have It Your Way--and Mine: The Theory of Styles," drew on cognitive psychology to demonstrate that human memory is dynamic, unlike the printed page or magnetic memory; this suggests that a new approach to computer analysis of literature is needed if we are truly to study the phenomena underlying literature.
In the second session Joel Goldfield's "An Argument for Single-Author and Other Focused Studies Using Quantitative Criticism" drew on his earlier work on Gobineau to provide examples suggesting that hermeneutics can be improved by computer resources, and concluded that there is no reason to abandon a focused approach. Dennis Taylor, in "Literary Texts and the State of the Language: The Role of the Computer," demonstrated, on the basis of his work on Hardy, that only the computer has the power to facilitate analysis of the state of the language actually used--and transformed--by the author.
Discussion was facilitated by Chuck Henry, and Stephen Matsuba. Mark Olsen gave a spirited reply to the papers, and audience participation was enthusiastic. More than a hundred people attended these sessions and the ACH should be grateful to the participants for providing such a high quality example of what computers can do for literature studies in the premier forum for specialists of literature.
The Cambridge Language Survey (CLS) is an international, multilingual survey of language coordinated by Cambridge University, UK.
Its main activities are the development of sense-tagged corpora within an integrated language database (corpora indexed to their meanings in electronic dictionaries).
The materials will eventually be made available to the scholarly community, including corpus materials and software tools for NLP. For further information, send a note to:
Christina Hottner Cambridge Language Survey Shaftesbury Road Cambridge CB2 2RU, U.K.
The 1993 international ACM Conference on Hypertext will be held in Seattle, Washington, on November 14-18, 1993. It's sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery and its special interest groups (SIGLINK, SIGOIS, and SIGIR).
Hypertext is by nature multi-disciplinary, involving research in many fields, including computer science, cognitive science, rhetoric, and education, as well as many application domains. This conference will interest a broad spectrum of professionals in these fields including theoreticians, behavioral researchers, systems researchers, and applications developers. For further information, please communicate with:
Steven Poltrock Boeing Computer Services P.O. Box 24346 MS 7L-64 Seattle, WA 98124-0346 Phone: 206/865-3270 E-mail: ht93@atc.boeing.com
The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) has recently announced four new fascicles of the second draft of the TEI Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange.
These are Chapter 7 (PR), which discusses the TEI base tag set for prose; Chapter 13 (TE), which describes encoding for interchange of terminological data; Chapter 22, which discusses the TEI header; and Chapter 42 (GR), which describes the subset of SGML used in the TEI Interchange Format.
The four fascicles can be retrieved from the TEI list server by sending the following commands as e-mail messages to either listserv@uicvm.bitnet or listserv@uicvm.uic.edu:
get p2pr xxx
get p2te xxx
get p222 xxx
get p2gr xxx
substituting for "xxx" the abbreviation for the desired format. Use "doc" for a plain screen-readable file, "tex" for a LaTex file, "ps" for a PostScript file, and "p2x" and "ref" for SGML files. For additional information, send a note to:
C. M. Sperberg-McQueen E-mail: u35395@uicvm.bitnet
(Association for History and Computing holds its sixth annual conference in the U.K.)
The Sixth Annual U.K. Conference of the Association for History and Computing will be held at the University of York, March 25-27, 1993.
The Association for History and Computing seeks to act as a forum for all those interested in the development of IT applications in research and teaching in history in universities, colleges, schools, archives and museums.
The 1993 conference of the U.K. branch of the association will concentrate on "new horizons" in historical computing in the following areas:
The cost of the conference will be around 89 pounds sterling, including a registration fee of 15 pounds. Reductions will be available for non-residents. If you are interested in attending this conference, or would like to exhibit or contribute to one of the conference sessions, please communicate with:
E. Royle Department of History Vanbrugh College University of York Heslington York YO1 5DD, U.K. Phone: 0904-432974 E-mail: er1@vaxa.york.ac.uk
The Census of Antique Art and Architecture Known to the Renaissance (Census), a unique art history computer database of text and video images, was recently announced at the University of London's Warburg Institute by the project's sponsors: Warburg Director Nicholas Mann; Matthias Winner, Director of the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome; and Michael Ester, Director of the Getty Art History Information Program (AHIP).
The Census is a database of antique monuments, sculpture, reliefs, and objects, with Renaissance sketchbooks, manuscripts, drawings, and documents related to them, together with modern information on them from travel guides, photographs, and scholarly monographs.
The Census monitor and twin video screens allow any combination of images, along with related text, to be called up by the user. This makes possible, for example, the on- screen comparison of a photograph of an ancient monument with a depiction of it in a Renaissance drawing or print, shown together with transcriptions of related texts on the monitor.
Information: Getty AHIP, 401 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 1100, Santa Monica, CA 90401, Phone: 310/395-1025, Fax: 310/451-5570.
1993 Mar 8-13 -------- CALICO '93 Annual Symposium. College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S.A. Pre-conference workshops: March 8-9. Courseware fair: March 10. Presentations: March 11-13. CALICO, 014 Language Center, P.O. Box 90267, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0267. Phone: 919/681-6455, Fax: 919/681-6485. E-mail: calico@dukemvs.bitnet or calico@dukemvs.ac.duke.edu Mar 25-27 --------- New Horizons in Historical Computing. Sixth Annual Conference of the Association for History and Computing. University of York, York, U.K. E. Royle, Department of History, Vanbrugh College, University of York, Heslington, York, YO1 5DD, U.K. Phone: 0904-432974. E-mail: er1@vaxa.york.ac.uk Apr 28-30 --------- Fourth European Symposium on Natural Language Generation. Pisa, Italy. Michael Zock, LIMSI-CNRS, BP 133, 91403 Orsay Cedex, France. Phone: (+33) 1-69 85 80 05, Fax: (+33) 1-69 85 80 88. E-mail: zock@limsi.fr Local arrangements: Giacomo Ferrari, Dipartimento di Linguistica, Via S. Maria 36, 56100 Pisa, Italy. Phone: (+39) 50-247 73, Fax: (+39) 50-441 00. E-mail: ferrari@icnucevm.cnuce.cnr.it Jun 16-19 --------- ACH/ALLC '93. The joint annual international conference of the Association for Computing and the Humanities (ACH) and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC). Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. Michael Neuman, Academic Computer Center, 238 Reiss Science Building, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 20057, U.S.A. Phone: 202/687-6096, Fax: 202/687-6003. neuman@guvax.bitnet or neuman@guvax.georgetown.edu Jun 21 ------ Workshop on Intentionality and Structure in Discourse Relations. Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. Sponsored by the Special Interest Group on Natural Language Generation (SIGGEN) of the Association for Computational Linguistics. Owen Rambow, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, IRCS, Suite 400C, 3401 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Phone: 215/898-0334, Fax: 215/573-2048. E-mail: rambow@unagi.cis.upenn.edu Jun 22 ------ Workshop on Very Large Corpora. Ohio State University. Sponsored by the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), Chemical Abstracts, Mead Data Central (MDC), and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). Kenneth Ward Church, AT&T Bell Laboratories, 2b422, 600 Mountain Ave., Murray Hill, NJ 07974, U.S.A. Phone: 908/582-5325, Fax: 908/582-7550. E-mail: kwc@research.att.com Jun 22-26 --------- ACL-93, 31st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics. Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. Local arrangements: Terry Patten, Computer and Information Science, 2036 Neil Avenue Mall, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210. Phone: 614/292-3989. E-mail: patten@cis.ohio-state.edu Other information: Don Walker, Bellcore, MRE 2A379, 445 South St., Box 1910, Morristown, NJ 07960-1910. Phone: 201/829-4312. E-mail: walker@bellcore.com Jun 28-Aug 6 ------------ 1993 Linguistic Institute. Sponsored by LSA and ACL. Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. Department of Linguistics, 222 Oxley Hall, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210. Phone: 614/292-4052, Fax: 614/292-4273 E-mail: linginst@ling.ohio-state.edu Sep 12-14 --------- CALL '93. Conference on Reactive and Creative CALL. University of Exeter, Exeter, U.K. Organizer: Keith Cameron, Department of French, Queen's Building, The Queen's Drive, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QH, U.K. Phone: (0392) 264222/+44 392 264222, Fax: (0392) 264377. E-mail: cameron@exeter.ac.uk Conference correspondence: Daphne Morton, CALL '93 Conference, Department of French, Queen's Building, The Queen's Drive, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QH, U.K. Sep 15-17 --------- EUROCALL. Emancipation Through Learning Technology. University of Hull, U.K. June Thompson, CTI Centre for Modern Languages, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, Phone: 0482 466373, Fax: 0482 465991. E-mail: eurocall@hull.ac.uk Oct 1-2 ------- Conference on Electronic Journals. University of Manitoba, Winnepeg, Canada. Institute for the Humanities, University of Manitoba, 108 Isbister Bldg., Winnepeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2, Canada. Phone: 204/474-9599, Fax: 204/275-5781. E-mail: umih@ccu.umanitoba.ca Nov 14-18 --------- ACM Conference on Hypertext. Sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery. Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. Steven Poltrock, Boeing Computer Services, P.O. Box 24346, MS 7L-64, Seattle, WA 98124-0346. Phone: 206/865-3270. E-mail: ht93@atc.boeing.com Dec 2-4 ------- Colloquium on Musical Informatics. Milan, Italy. Organized by the Italian Association of Musical Informatics. Comitato Organizzatore del X Colloquio di Informatica Musicale, c/o L.I.M.--Laboratorio di Informatica Musicale, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Informazione, Universita degli Studi di Milano, via Comelico, 35, I-20135 Milano, Italy. Phone: +39 2 55006.338/.382/.380 (answering machine), Fax: +39 2 55006.373. E-mail: maclim@hermes.mc.dsi.unimi.it 1994 Aug 14-18 --------- Fourth International Conference on Bible and Computers. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Werkgroep Informatica, Faculty of Theology, Vrije Universiteit. Gregory Bloomquist, E-mail: gbloomq@acadvm1.uottawa.ca
OFFICERS
Nancy Ide President Dept. of Computer Science Box 252 Vassar College Poughkeepsie, New York 12601 ide@vassar.bitnet Paul A. Fortier Vice President Dept. of Romance Language University of Manitoba Winnepeg, Manitoba Canada R3T 2N2 fortier@uofmcc.bitnet Randall Jones Executive Secretary Dept. of German Brigham Young University Provo, Utah 84602 hrcjones@byuvm.bitnet jonesr@jkhbhrc.byu.edu Joseph Rudman Treasurer Dept. of English Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 rudman@cmphys.bitnetACH EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
Malcolm B. Brown Academic Computing Dartmouth College Kiewit Computation Center Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 malcolm.brown@dartmouth.edu Eric Dahlin Humanities Computing Facility University of California Santa Barbara, California 93106-3170 hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.bitnet hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Christian Delcourt Universite de Liege Faculte de Philosophie et Lettres Place Cockerill, 3 B-4000 Liege, Belgium u017101@bliulg11.bitnet Marianne Gaunt Alexander Library College Avenue New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903 gaunt@zodiac.rutgers.edu Joel D. Goldfield Dept. of Foreign Languages Plymouth State College Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264-1600 jdg@coos.dartmouth.edu Mary Dee Harris Language Technology 2153 California St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20008 mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu Glyn Holmes Dept. of French The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario Canada N6A 3K7 gholmes@uwovax.uwo.ca Estelle Irizarry Dept. of Spanish Georgetown University Washington, D.C. 20057 irizarry@guvax.bitnet Anita Lowry Information Arcade University of Iowa Libraries Iowa City, Iowa 52242 Willard McCarty Centre for Computing in the Humanities Robarts Library, 14th Floor University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario Canada M5S 1A5 mccarty@epas.utoronto.ca Elli Mylonas 321 Harvard St., #310 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 elli@ikaros.harvard.edu Michael Neuman Academic Computer Center 238 Reiss Science Building Georgetown University Washington, D.C. 20057 neuman@guvax.bitnet Mark Olsen ARTFL 1050 E. 59th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 mark@gide.uchicago.eduLIAISONS
Nancy Frishberg Linguistic Society of America P.O. Box 282022 San Francisco, CA 94128-2022 Mary Dee Harris Association for Computational Linguistics Language Technology 2153 California St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20008 mdharris@guvax.georgetown.edu Carol Zuses Modern Language Association MLA 10 Astor Place New York, New York 10003 mlaod@cuvmb.bitnet mlaod@cuvmb.columbia.edu David Owen American Philosophical Association Dept. of Philosophy University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721 owen@ccit.arizona.edu J. Penny Small American Philological Association 7 West 96th Street Apartment 9D New York, New York 10025-6539 jpsmall@cancer.bitnetEX OFFICIO MEMBERS
Eric Dahlin Editor, _ACH Newsletter_ Humanities Computing Facility University of California Santa Barbara, California 93106-3170 hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.bitnet hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Glyn Holmes Editor, _CHUM_ Dept. of French The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario Canada N6A 3K7 gholmes@uwovax.uwo.ca Elaine Brennan Editor, HUMANIST Women Writers Project Box 1842 Brown University Providence, Rhode Island 02912 elaine@brownvm.bitnet Allen Renear Editor, HUMANIST Box 1885/CIS Brown University Providence, Rhode Island 02912 allen@brownvm.bitnet
The _ACH Newsletter_, the newsletter of the Association for Computers and the Humanities, is published four times a year by the Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Editor: Eric Dahlin E-mail: HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.bitnet HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Phone: 805/893-2208 Address: Humanities Computing Facility 4421 South Hall University of California Santa Barbara, California 93106-3170 U.S.A.
Submissions of material of interest to computing humanists are welcome, and should be sent to the editor by electronic mail, using markup for any characters which can't be transmitted.
The electronic version of the _ACH Newsletter_ is prepared from the files used to produce the paper edition. A few formatting changes have been made to adapt the text to electronic transmission but the content of the two versions is identical. A complete table of contents has been included for the convenience of e-mail readers. This page was last modified on