Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 14:43:33 -0400 From: John Unsworth Subject: Report on proposed ALLC, ACH, NINCH, TEI joint exploratory committee The ACH is a small organization, and ever since I've known about it, it has hovered at the brink of sustainability. Our membership is, in fact, dwindling somewhat: we currently have 133 members, according to Chuck Bush's 2002 report. In 1998, we had 155 members, in 1999 154; in 2000, 143 and in 2001, 147. in other words, our membership has been declining by an average of 5 a year (or 3-4%) for the past five years. During that period, we have run a steady bank balance of between $11,000 to $16,000. That amount is fairly constant because we don't spend more than a couple of thousand dollars a year, as far as I can tell--for the Busa award, some memberships, domain-name renewals, web-mastering. Those expenses are more or less balanced out, year to year, by the $15 per member per year we take in (so, this year, with 133 members, just under $2000). We're healthy enough to stay alive, just as we are, for a long time, but in fact we are just big enough to survive--not really big enough to do anything much. I admire the work that has been done, on a shoestring, with mentoring and with the jobs database, but the fact remains that we do not have the financial or organizational wherewithal to pursue programs beyond the annual conference, or even to do some of the things that the mission statement on our web site says we do, namely "disseminating information among its members about work in the field of humanities computing, as well as encouraging the development and dissemination of significant textual and linguistic resources and software for scholarly research." CHUM does some of the former, but I think we would all agree that more could be done in that regard, and though we repeatedly express good intentions on things like tool-building, we don't actually ever see much progress on it, because, frankly, everyone already has a day job, the ACH doesn't have grants to offer or even grant-writing services to offer, to encourage work in a particular area, etc.. And looking over the constitution and bylaws, I note that we are (well, actually, Chuck is) on dicey legal ground with our bank accounts, since we have no legal status whatsoever. We could get set up as an LLC, for a few thousand dollars, and then could pay someone a bit more each year to put together our tax return, but a couple years of that and we'd be pretty well through our nest egg. Thinking about all of this, and being involved in several other small humanities computing organizations, each of which is also hovering at the same brink of sustainability, I wonder whether there isn't something to be said for affiliating these organizations more closely, sharing resources, and coordinating efforts. The organizations I am thinking of at the outset are the ACH, the ALLC, NINCH, and TEI. What I would like to propose is that the ACH Executive Council designate one person to take part in some exploratory discussions with representatives from each of the other organizations, to determine whether closer coordination is feasible and desirable. The TEI Board, in May, approved this idea, and agreed to appoint someone to this exploratory committee, if other organizations were also interested. David Green, of NINCH, is eager to participate. Harold will be bringing the idea up during the ALLC EC meeting at the conference. If the ALLC and the ACH both favor the idea, the committee could be constituted immediately, and could be given nine months to produce its recommendations, which could then be presented at next May's TEI and NINCH Board meetings, and at the ACH and ALLC meetings next year in Georgia. I would like to send our nominee into this discussion with some specific instructions, at least as to the areas where benefits might be found in this confederation. Here are some ideas to start with, then: Legal: TEI and NINCH are both formally incorporated non-profits. Perhaps ACH could be a sponsored activity of one or the other of these organizations, and by declaring itself such, could take advantage of the non-profit certification of the "parent" organization. Banking and book-keeping: Chuck has done yeoman's service, lo these many years, as the ACH treasurer, and the organization will always need someone to keep track of its income and expenses, but if we had legal existence, we could open our own bank account, rather than keeping money in a University account that is dependent on the location and professional affiliation of the treasurer. Moreover, perhaps the paid staff of TEI or Ninch could provide some book-keeping services to the ACH, for a modest fee. Publications: Of the $65 we charge for membership, $50 goes to Kluwer to pay for CHUM subscriptions; on the other hand, we see no income whatsoever from the 626 institutional subscribers, each of whom pays $411/year (or the seven individuals who are not ACH members, who pay $167/year). If we realized, say, 15% on these sales, we would be taking in almost $39,000/year. This arrangement is precisely the one that the ALLC has with Oxford: it receives a percentage of all subscriptions, and (perhaps not coincidentally) it owns its journal. A side benefit of this arrangement, for the ALLC, is that Oxford takes in the money, does the book-keeping, sends dunning notices to laggards, etc., and then sends ALLC its portion. I submit that our relationship with Kluwer is financially untenable, and it is strangling the Association. Since we don't own our journal (a great mistake was made there, a long time ago) we don't have much leverage here. I would like the exploratory committee to consider ways in which we might recast the publishing activities of the Association, in conjunction with other organizations--perhaps the TEI, which already runs a newsletter, could take on newsletter activities for the other organizations; perhaps we could publish in conjunction with the ALLC, in a print journal owned by the confederated organization; perhaps the ACH could take on an electronic periodical to complement these other activities--a DLIB for humanities computing, if you will, frequently but loosely coordinated with other publishing activities. Conferences: ACH and ALLC already hold a joint annual conference, at which there is usually an open lunchtime session for TEI, and in which NINCH certainly has an interest. TEI has begun having an annual members' meeting, in October; NINCH has a similar meeting, usually in December. Perhaps we could use these events more effectively to promote membership across the organizations, inviting members of one to register at the members' rate for the events sponsored by others, establishing panels for affiliated organizations (like the ACH sessions at MLA), and so on. Down the road, we might think of other conferences, like DRH, that could usefully be brought into the fold. Proliferation: If there were an umbrella organization that provided banking services, some paid staff time for things like publications and events planning, perhaps even for grant writing, templates for constitution and bylaws, etc., then it might be possible to encourage new "chapters" in other parts of the world--Australia, for example, or Japan. Down the road, we might think of other existing organizations that could be affiliated--for example, AHDS. I'm sure there are other things that will come up if this exploratory committee is assembled--training, for example, is something the TEI has been spending a lot of time on recently; the interface between humanities computing and computer science is something NINCH has been working on. These are just some topics to prime the pump. If we participate, we should give our representative some sense of where we stand on these issues, but I would hope we would also send that person into those discussions with instructions to discuss all possibilities. VOTE: The ACH should designate a representative to an exploratory committee whose other members will be representatives of the ALLC, TEI, and NINCH, to discuss the possible benefits of confederating these organizations more closely. The ACH EC would expect a report in nine months, with concrete recommendations, and it would vote on those recommendations not later than the 2003 annual meeting. John Unsworth