According to Lorna's minutes from the meeting in Gothenburg, the voting members of the [IFDISH/ADHOC/ICHIO] steering committee are:
Non-voting members are Jean Anderson (ALLC Treasurer), Julia Flanders (Conference Committee Chair), Geoffrey Rockwell (Chair of the Publications Committee), Lorna Hughes (ACH President), Marilyn Deegan (Editor, LLC). NB: Ray Siemens is also an ex officio member of the steering commitee, to represent COCH/COSCH in our discussions. All of the above are now subscribed to the ADHOC list at Virginia (adhoc@lists.village.virginia.edu, list archives previously at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/adhoc/, but from here on at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/mailman/private/adhoc/)
At a conference call on March 15, 2005, voting members Unsworth, Short, and Hunyadi met, along with Siemens, Flanders, and Hughes, to discuss the following:
Notes from the call: Nobody has come up with a good name. We need one. ICHIO? IFDISH? ADHOC? Allied Digital Humanities Organizations (digitalhumanities.org). Harold and Lorna will put ADHO and ICHIO to a vote (or request a sense of the group) by the executive councils of the two organizations, and by the 21st of March the sense of each organization will be presented to the steering committee, which will make the final decision. Both domains are registered.
With respect to governance protocol, changes suggested by the ALLC in Glasgow will be circulated to the ACH Exec. by Harold mid-April, voted on by the end of April by ACH. These are not anticipated to be controversial changes. Once those are in place, John will officially invite COCH/COSH to membership in ADHO/ICHIO. Once the protocol is in place, both organizations should review their own constitutions and bylaws, in light of the governance protocol. Those changes should be voted in June, at the board meetings of the two organizations.
Notes from the call: Journal update: Stefan appointed asst. editor of LLC, ACH executive members invited to the journal board. LLC is publishing Atlanta papers as a special issue. Leaflet has been discussed by ALLC and ACH reps, and the last version gives. Second membership to the other organization is now possible. Web site for the journal is still not right, but Harold is working on it. Harold will also get the first quarterly update on membership information to secretaries of both organization (3/17/05 update).
Ray and Susan's book series is looking good for publication at Illinois. There is also a possibility of publishing a free online journal with Illinois, for about $2500. Recent postings on Humanist indicate that it's time to move on the journal thing. Geoff should make a formal response to the list on behalf of ALLC/ACH. JMU will prompt this week.
Notes from the call: This year's program committee used the new protocol, with no problems; the most significant difference was the lack of anonymity. ACH's executive board has reviewed the new protocols and they're happy to move ahead with them. Through Harold, ALLC needs to register a view on that point (ALLC can come to a decision by middle of April on this). The other significant change would be the selection of a program chair--formerly this position rotated; the notion now is that it would be appointed by the steering committee. Julia and Harold's annex to the conference protocol stipulates that usually several nominees for the program chair would be proposed by the host chapter, and the steering committee would choose from among them, except in exceptional circumstances. At least one suggestion for chair will be forthcoming from ALLC, via Harold, by end of March.
Publications and Conferences are standing committees, chaired respectively by Geoff Rockwell and Julia Flanders.
With respect to action item 1 (governance/identity), some pressing issues for the steering committee include the NAME of the umbrella organization, the membership of COCH/COSH in the umbrella organization, and the relationship between journal subscription and membership. The first and second items we need simply to move and vote, I believe. The third is more complicated. Back in November, Harold wrote:
"The point is that when ALLC agreed (as we have already done) to the geographically based sharing of journal income, we gave up any claim we might have made that all subscriptions to the journal represent membership of ALLC. The revenue distribution we agreed means that ALLC is entitled to claim some memberships on the basis of geography and personal preference, and equally ACH and COCH-COSH - and in due course other chapters - will be entitled to claim memberships on the same basis. I think this is important because it takes us away from the notion that subscription to LLC automatically means membership of ALLC - I think already it does not mean that."...but earlier in the same email, he quoted this passage from the ALLC constitution:
"a) Individual membership shall be open to all persons, subject to the approval of the Committee, on payment of an annual subscription, which shall be determined from time to time by the Committee. The annual subscription shall be due on 1st January in each year. Personal subscribers to Literary and Linguistic Computing shall also be individual members of the Association without further subscription."Until that language is modified, all subscribers to LLC are automatically members of ALLC. I propose the following modification to the final sentence:
"Personal subscribers to Literary and Linguistic Computing shall also be individual members of the Association without further subscription, provided that that
a) they are residents of Europe or the UK and have not chosen to belong to a different LLC sponsor organization (e.g., the ACH), or
b) although they live outside of Europe or the UK, they have opted for their primary membership to be in ALLC."
With respect to action item 2, publications significant work has been done by Stefan Sinclair and others (NB, COCH/COSH as well as ACH members) on a collective web site at http://www.ichio.org (also at http://www.digitalhumanities.org). We need to affirm this work, review the site, recommend changes if necessary, fund the work on it, and make it public before the conference this summer (for a rationale on the timing, see the next item).
With respect to action item 3, conferences, Lorna's minutes record the following:
--The Executive Councils of both ACH and ALLC have firmly and finally approved the IFDISH Conference protocol and annex materials.
--The new protocols will be used by the 2005 Program Committee to guide them in their work, and this committee should try to resolve any problems with these protocols, in consultation with the IFDISH Conference Committee.
--The IFDISH Publications committee should work on any modifications to these protocols that are required. [I think that's an error in the minutes, and this item should read "The IFDISH conference committee should work" etc.]
--The ACH president has undertaken responsibility for resolving any problems that may occur as a result of implementing the new protocols, rather than this having to be the responsibility of the Program Chair.
--The question of changing the name of the conference was discussed. It was agreed that the conference should be called ACH-ALLC 2005 next year, but that in 2006, the conference should be known as IFDISH 2006
--2006 Conference: It was reiterated that it was decided at the ALLC executive council meeting that IFDISH will appoint the Chair of the 2006 conference. This appointment should be made in a timely fashion, to allow the Program Committee to begin their work early. This had been discussed and approved by the ALLC Executive council, and at the ACH Council. The program Committee will have 4 representatives from each organization, ACH and ALLC, as has been customary, but the program Chair will be appointed by the IFDISH steering committee.
The ALLC representatives on the PC will be Lisa Lena Opas-Hanninen, Paul Fortier, Alejandro Bia and Simon Horobin. The ACH representatives will be John Unsworth, Lorna Hughes, Kevin Hawkins and Stefan Sinclair.
These agreements need to be put into action immediately, in order not to foul up the timeline for the 2006 conference.