November 30, 2007, 3:00-5:00 pm GMT: Phone conference

• In attendance: Chuck Bush, Julia Flanders, David Hoover, Lorna Hughes, John Lavagnino, Elli Mylonas, Dot Porter, Steve Ramsay, Allen Renear, Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, Stéfan Sinclair, Natasha Smith, Melissa Terras, John Walsh
  
• Quorum at 15
• Additions to Agenda:
  
  • David: Busa/Zampoli awards, to be discussed under ADHO Governance
  • Allen: add discussion of conference call at the end of today's agenda [added]
  • [✔] VOTE: agenda approved
• Approval of 2007 annual meeting minutes
  • Discussion of whether to approve. Is this an official meeting? Decided: we'll go ahead and approve.
  • David: continuing discussion of funding exchange
  • Natasha: encourage more conversation on multi-lingual issues on the listserv.
  • Need a policy statement on multi-lingualism for the conference from ADHO, with authority for following years.
    
  • ACTION David to bring up multi-lingual issue for conference and conference proceedings to ADHO Conference Committee and Steering Committee
  • [✔] MOTION approval of 2007 minutes [Lorna; Melissa; Approved]
• Review of Action Items
  • Finance Report (Chuck):
    • Received payment from Jean, can send exact number to listserv
    • $57,826.50 balance; payment from Jean $25,000.
  • LLC subscriber numbers (Melissa): report posted, further discussion later in meeting
  • Website (Elli): discussion later in meeting
• Committee Updates
  • Website Report (Elli):
    • We need to update the website
      • 1st step: Freshen up the look of the ACH website, update information.
      • 2nd step: Original report from 2005 talks about fundamental additional changes; these would come later [ REPORT]
      • Add/bring up to date: Searchable abstracts for conferences.
    • Elli will provide a student to do the work, with input from the ACH Exec
      
    • We're working on a time constraint - January better for student later. Proposal for design out in February, to get feedback.
    • ACTION Elli to send out design proposal to ACH-Exec listserv in February
    • Conversation: Use wiki for meetings, minutes need to be in the passworded section of the ACH website
      
    • ACTION Elli and Dot to look at wiki/ACH website arrangement; also whether these should be password protected
    • Include on the website a history of council members and officers going back. Elli has started this [ LINK]. Eventually we'll ask people for more information.
    • ACTION Elli will report on who is doing what with the websites
    • ACTION Elli will send out username and password for officer's area of the website
    • Collecting/Indexing Abstracts: continue discussion offline. Should this be on ADHO website instead of ACH site?
  • DHQ (Julia)
    • second issue was released in the Fall, well received. Viral publicity: one article was slashdotted & boing boinged. There has been a steady increase in the number of submissions and requests for special issues.
    • Meeting in Bloomington, IN, in October. Schedule, plan for technical development this year and possibility of virtual development server.
      • virtual development server would be shared by DHQ, ADHO, anyone else who wants a piece of it
    • Second meeting at the TEI Member's Meeting (October 31-November 3) - presented at NEH Digital Humanities Initiative, about 25 people, talked about what DHQ does for open-access journal publication
    • Budget is firm - there is a surplus, as the technical assistant job was hard to fill. This position has now been filled.
    • Is there a link between LLC and DHQ websites? There is a link from DHQ site to LLC, may need to be strengthened. OUP are not generally happy about putting links to other properties.
    • ACTION Stefan will send a message to Marilyn @ OUP asking about this
    • ACTION Julia and John W. will add obvious link to LLC from DHQ
  • Membership (Melissa)
    • See report [LINK]
    • Good news - up 10% from May 2007. 225 paying subscribers.
    • Production of new leaflet to include SEDI/SEMI, change to both LLC website and print leaflet. Final drafting stage, should be done by the end of December (both print and online)
    • ACTION John L. to contact Melissa about how to get leaflets to ACH-sponsored MLA sessions
    • ACTION Melissa to pass along spreadsheet of current members to Chuck
  • ADHO Governance (Lorna)
    • Lorna: Brief update on conference from JU (Dot - get the short message from Lorna to post)
    • Jobs Database: there is agreement that this needs to be moved to a non-institutional server
    • Busa/Zampoli issue: LH: need for an ADHO prize committee to oversee the three prizes (once Zampoli is ready). ADHO has approved of this in principle. Next stage: convene committees at next conference?
      • Busa: lifetime achievement
      • Zampoli: a particular achievement/piece of scholarship
      • Fortier (sp): student prize
    • ACTION Lorna to refer our thoughts on awards to ADHO and ALLC for discussion
    • ACTION Lorna to circulate descriptions of prizes to ACH listserv
  • ADHO Conference Planning and Protocol (Ray)
    • This year's conference planning is going well.
      
    • New software (conftool) - all issues raised to developer last year were rolled into this year's software. Software this year better meets our needs. Anticipation is that further issues will be resolved for future years.
    • SEDI-SEMI has adopted conftool as well, for national conference. Also adopted controlled vocabulary. ADHO message - reap benefits of larger community
    • committee: submissions are strong and healthy, more than last year initially.
      • 144 papers
      • 8 sessions
      • 27 posters
    • Consider implementing a survey/request for specific feedback from users. Harvest this year and pass to developers, roll into for next year.
    • ACTION on someone to make this survey happen (Ray?)
    • Reviewing process: check in with Susan Hockey as ADHO conference chair for policy. Double blind reviews (as done in the past) are difficult; now single-blind reviews.
    • ACTION David to take conftool issues and review policy issues to Susan Hockey.
    • Issue of reviewers for conference proposals: How many do we have? How many do we need?
      • List of reviewers from last year is in the front matter of the conference program
        
      • Some people who have done it in the past won't review this year, so we are asking new people to do reviews, to make list more comprehensive
      • The default is that reviewers will stay from year to year unless they request otherwise, but this year people replied to the message to say that they don't want to stay on as reviewers.
      • New system - active reviewers from previous year, plus a list from Susan Hockey, 10-15% opt-out rate, plus another 10-15% as reviews went out. Expect the same this year.
      • We are aiming to get 2 or more reviewers per item - last year, we over-assigned reviews, in the hope of getting 2. Net result, conscientious reviewers tended to do a lot of reviews, while some did none.
      • Sarah is in the process of contacting people to be reviewers, waiting to see who responds.
      • Suggestion for next year: Issue a call to Humanist for reviewers, with the CFP and/or with the CFP extension
      • Discussion of DH Conference
        • Suggestion that there should be no extension in the first call for papers - make the first deadline solid.
        • Suggestion to write up a standard CFP, which could be added to by local organizers, but which would remain mainly unchanged from year-to-year
          • Make this standard CFP available on the website under "conference protocol"
        • We need a policy for what languages papers will be accepted in
  • Outreach, Employment, Mentoring

    • Take this offline: ACTION Dot to contact Matt Z. to report to exec. committee within the next month or so.

  • Nominations Committee (Susan)
    • Recurring theme to rejection of nominations is the requirement to attend ACH annual meeting. Many people indication they will not attend the meeting unless their papers are accepted.
    • Issue of funding for travel
    • Extended discussion of attending meeting in person vs. dial-in/Skype or access grid/video conferencing. Agreement that members of the Exec. should commit the time to be present at the entire meeting, and the preference is for physical attendance. In addition, members of the ACH Exec are elected representatives of the organization and should commit to attend not only the meeting, but the entire conference as well.
    • Issue of re-nominations: There is no formal policy, it is now up to the Nominations Committee.
    • For the future: is October 1 too early to get a list together? It's in the bylaws, not at liberty to change it.
      • ACTION Nominations Committee to discuss this issue in the annual report
    • ACTION Susan to provide an institutional memory document for future chair of nominations committee; perhaps draft guidelines after annual meeting
    • Suggestion: Executive Secretary ex officio on Nominations Committee? As an adviser. (no action taken)
• ACTION: Dot to create an annual calendar of deadlines, action items, available to all
• Memorandum of understanding: refer to discussion on listserv (ACTION: Lorna)
  • Representation on other Association's committee meetings is part of this
  • Put in language that makes reciprocity clear, we would welcome other chairs when required, we hope that that will be same on the other way, etc. etc.
• Funding for travel to meetings: refer discussion back online (ACTION: David)
  • Perhaps create a travel bursary that people can apply for, with a very small pot of money (hardship fund). Add to bursary committee, rather than starting something different?
  • Exec Committee will agree via email to some principles re: travel to the annual meeting

• Opinions on the mid-term conference call. Did it work? Should we do it again?
  • Yes! Let's do it again, in the winter.
  • Refer further discussion online
• ACTION Dot to initiate online chat about what to report back to the ALLC committee meeting (December 15).

-- Main.DotPorter - 03 Dec 2007