In attendance:
Doug Bennett (by phone), Eleanor Fink, Chuck Henry, Stan Katz,
Joan Lippincott, Kathleen McDonnell, Paul Evan Peters, Duane Webster,
Diane Zorich
David's Presentation
After introductions and a review of management details to date
(the establishment of the office, computer equipment, etc.), David
Green spoke about his plans for the first months of NINCH. Broadly
speaking, he planned to build on the considerable work the group had
done so far to develop the organization along the lines indicated in
the current prospectus&emdash;collaboration (building a broad and
diverse coalition of arts, humanities and social science groups),
mobilizing the constituency via education, technical assistance and
advocacy, and developing active involvement in the global nature of
the enterprise.
He made four points.
1. First, he needed a period of a month or so in which to build a
strong base of critical knowledge about key existing and developing
"cultural heritage" digital projects. This would be ongoing work but
he needed a solid footing from which to start. This should include
discussions with those knowledgeable about advances in the sciences
and other areas--such as informatics--that would apply to the
humanities (Rich Giordano, David Bearman, etc.).
2. Secondly, he needed to construct a firm grounding in the
achievements and perceived needs of member organizations in the area
of digitizing cultural resources. "What visions for the future do
they have, if any; what are their weaknesses in this area; what do
they need in basic technical understanding? Are groups hiring
consultants to do the job for them or are they interested in doing it
themselves? How much discussion is there already between the majors
and their members about information technology and digitizing
cultural heritage?" This survey of the field should also include
funders and key individual voices of experience and wisdom in the
field to date. He noted that he hoped to begin gathering an informal
advisory group of "points of light" from many different disciplines
and perspectives.
3. Armed with an understanding of the range of individual digital
projects and a sense of the achievements and needs of members, he
would expect that by June-July would be ready to prepare a report and
a plan for moving forward. That report should contain a sense of i)
the issues most concerning groups (access, copyright, technical
knowledge); ii) a sense of real accomplishments to date; and iii) a
firmer grasp of specific needs. The plan could then move forward
rather more confidently with: i) a sense of what membership needs
-from NINCH, from business, from government, from other members, and
from the public; ii) a revised and more focused sense of mission;
iii) more of a sense of the most useful kinds of "demonstration
projects" we should move to get behind, organize, commission or
stimulate; and iv) give a clearer sense of some campaign issues that
we could organize around (something akin to a "10-million-volume
library of electronic books").
4. Fourth: he would start to build a NINCH online information
clearinghouse that would include: a database of existing projects
(what his initial research would feed into); a news service for
members to report progress and problems; and a communications
network. This he saw as essentially an online network with offline
implications: items to be printed out and included in members
newsletters, for example.
Thus, by September, David imagined we would have a firmer sense of
NINCH's program based on accomplishments and clearly articulated
needs of our constituency. Our education agenda, by which NINCH acts
as resource but also as mentor to members, should be clear; our
project ideas should be clear; what it is that we want from
government, from funders, from business, from the public, from each
other would be clearer, and, we expect, our advocacy agenda will be
clearer.
Responses to David's Presentation
Initial responses included that this was an ambitious agenda for
three months and that it should have more leeway built into it. Stan
Katz suggested it be more integrated--that research into projects and
into members' needs be done simultaneously.
Paul Peters suggested the clearinghouse be conceived of as a
strategic one, that it be selective, "the best of," rather than to
make any attempt at being comprehensive.
The 3-month Report & Plan would outline ways of implementing
strategy. It would both follow through on the 94 "Profile" in
supplying the grit, the how-to but should also keep a balance between
theory and practice. Paul Peters mentioned that the report's style
and tone would be important: that it be provocotive and interesting
as well as a practical groundlaying for future activity.
Diane Zorich raised the issue of researching what parallel
organizations were doing in this arena, to check for redundancy.
Especially with financial pressures, it would be important fairly
quickly to be able to very clearly indicate what NINCH is, how it was
different from other organizations and what it was proposing. This
led to a sense of the importance of having a firmer mission
statement. It would be important to contact NII/NTIA-related
organizations as well as cultural groups.
Assessment: there was a discussion about developing an assessment
mechanism so that after six months NINCH could measure its direction
and progress. "Process evaluation" was a dynamic method mentioned by
Kathleen McDonnell that encourages a constant reassessment of
assumptions.
Paul emphasized that we should think of NINCH as a lever: it's not
what NINCH directly achieves but what coalition members are able to
do because of NINCH's activities.
On the other hand Joan thought it important that NINCH produced
some product fairly quickly. Stan concurred, seeing the evolving
"news service"--at first through two listservs to be set up by
CNI--as a good first step. These two listservs would be:
- NINCH-Announce--a general news release space, not for
discussion;
- NINCH-Members--a spontaneous, more colorful space for paid-up
members to get a regular sense of how NINCH is moving forward.
A "show of sophisticated knowledge," and a "digest of pertinent
information" were clearly two early objectives that NINCH should
possess.
Paul added a word from CNI experience on the importance of being a
sentinel and to be able to announce a future development to a
constituency. "People notice when you say 'watch this space'"
Washington:
The board issued a warning about the "attractive nuisance" of
Washington and its host of meetings--it was important to be keen but
wary, to tread the fine line between seeking feedback and getting
lost in the sea of possibility.
However, It was noted this was a good time for educating the
current Congress and for David to educate himself about Congressional
activity. One part of the plan should be to develop a strategy for
educating the new Congress.
Membership Details
The levels of membership were agreed upon: member (upto $1,000);
policy committee ($1,001-$10,000); management committee (over
$10,000).
It was decided that members' payments should follow ACLS' fiscal
year: thus the first of the initial three-year membership would cover
October 1 1996 through September 30, 1997. Members would be asked to
pre-pay if possible to help with cash-flow; the original three
sponsors would probably need to carry NINCH's expenses for the first
pre-October period.
Doug Bennett had composed a press release and a pledge letter that
was to go out by March 4 to the press and to organizations that had
indicated they were interested in joining and had pledged membership
at a certain level. David felt that a second related letter (the same
letter with a few changes) should go to those organizations that had
heard about us, possibly come to meetings but had not responded to
the call for pledges.
It was planned that David would then send a follow-up letter by
the end of March on stationery, welcoming members, indicating the
initial plan, the formation of the listservs, the building of the
clearinghouse and news service and indicating an October 1 date for
the next Policy Committee meeting.
Some Relevant Meeting Dates
March 25-26, CNI Task Force meeting
April 26-27, ACLS
May 1-3, Art Library Society of North America (Miami)
May 4-8, AAM (St Paul)
May 15-17, ARL (Vancouver)
July 19, CNI Steering Committee
July 29-30, ARL Board meeting
Oct 8-11, EDUCOM (Philadelphia)
Oct 16-19, ARL
Oct 30-31, Museum Computer Network
Dec 6-7, CNI Fall Meeting
American Arts & Letters Network
Chuck Henry made a presentation on the development to date of the
American Arts & Letters Network (AALN).
AALN is being conceived of as a principle support of NINCH, though
it won't be NINCH's voice.
Rather than develop its own material, AALN will be a scholarly
filter to material available on the World Wide Web. Its goal is to be
a trusted and trustworthy guide to quality educational and scholarly
sites on the Web.
Partly as a response to growing disappointment to the gross
material available on the Web, AALN intends to re-capture some of the
original impetus behind the Web: that of a collaborative, interactive
space, using MOOS, MUDS and other devices and tactics.
Members of ACLS were seen as the primary and first audience for
AALN and it is expected that the network will be helpful in
developing scholarly and teaching tools.
Paul commented that, as part of the problem in this arena is
seeing the forest for the trees, not only would AALN provide a good
filter but that NINCH could then provide its own "narrative" for
relevant Web material mapped out by AALN.
Planning and Review
Meeting: February 20, 1996