7 Appendixes

7.1 Feasibility Study Proposal and Initial Workshop

7.1.1 Proposal

The text of Feasibility study into establishing an Arts and Humanities Datacentre: a proposal to the Joint Information Systems Committee is available by anonymous ftp from the Oxford Text Archive. Its Universal Resource Locator (URL) is ftp://ota.ox.ac.uk/pub/ota/AHD/original.proposal.

7.1.2 British Academy Workshop

The Feasibility Study was initiated with a workshop, held at the British Academy on 29-30 March 1994. It was attended by 28 people with expert interests in the subject, drawn from a wide variety of academic and professional backgrounds. Over 50 invitations were issued, so that just over half of those invited were able to attend.

The text of the Workshop report, Towards an Arts and Humanities Data Service: Report of a Workshop held at the British Academy on 29 and 30 March 1994 is available by anonymous ftp from the Oxford Text Archive. Its Universal Resource Locator (URL) is ftp://ota.ox.ac.uk/pub/ota/AHD/workshop.report.

The Workshop participants were:

Mr Michael Breaks Library, Heriot-Watt University;
Mr Lou Burnard Oxford Text Archive;
Prof Averil Cameron Director, Centre for Hellenic Studies, King's College, London;
Mr Terry Cannon British Library, Research and Development Dept;
Dr Thomas Corns Dept of English and Linguistics, University of Wales;
Ms Shirleen Craig ISSC Co-ordinator, c/o Heriot-Watt University Library;
Dr Marilyn Deegan Office for Humanities Communication, Oxford University Computing Services;
Prof Roderick Floud Provost, London Guildhall University;
Mr Marc Fresko Management Consultant;
Miss Catherine Harbor Computer Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London;
Dr Richard Heseltine (Chairman) Librarian, University of Hull;
Dr Eddy Higgs Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford;
Prof Barry Ife Cervantes Professor of Spanish, King's College London;
Prof Howard Jackson School of English, University of Central England;
Dr Donna Kurtz Beazley Archive, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford;
Prof John Laver Chairman, Humanities Research Board, University of Edinburgh;
Prof Denise Lievesley Director, ESRC Data Archive, University of Essex;
Dr Cliff McKnight HUSAT Research Institute, Loughborough University of Technology;
Dr George Munroe Computing Centre, The Queen's University of Belfast;
Dr Andrew Prescott Manuscript Collections, British Library;
Dr Sebastian Rahtz Archaeo Informatica;
Dr Dominic Rathbone Dept of Classics, King's College London;
Mr Hugh Robertson Department of Humanities, University of Huddersfield;
Dr Seamus Ross British Academy;
Dr Kevin Schurer ESRC Data Archive, University of Essex;
Mr Harold Short Computing Centre, King's College London;
Prof Kathryn Sutherland Professor of English Literature, University of Nottingham;
Mr Andrew Wright University of North London.

7.2 Consultation Exercise

The Consultation phase of the Feasibility Study was initiated by publishing an announcement, on paper to a large but selected audience, and electronically as widely as possible. The announcement contained information about the Feasibility Study and invited responses from anyone who wished to comment.

7.2.1 Announcement of Feasibility Study

7.2.1.1 Paper Distribution

Over 500 copies of the announcement and the Workshop report were sent on paper to:

all University Librarians;
selected Fellows of the British Academy;
the Chairmen of the British Academy Research Projects;
all those who attended the Feasibility Study Workshop plus those who had been invited but had been unable to attend;
all those who attended the Elvetham Hall Conference (13-16 April 1994), both UK and Overseas delegates;
all those who attended the Conference on Telecommunications and the Visual Arts in Ravello on the 16-17 of April (55 humanists and policy makers from Europe, the US and UK);
all those who attended the summer 1993 workshop at the British Academy on Electronic Information Resources and Historians;
all those who attended the British Academy seminar in June 1994 on The Problems and Potentials of Electronic Information for Archaeology;
all those who requested copies of the British Academy/British Library report Information Technology in Humanities Scholarship;
all the projects which contributed information to the above report.

7.2.1.2 Electronic Distribution

Electronic versions of the announcement, the Workshop report and the original Feasibility Study proposal were made available for access by anonymous ftp from the Oxford Text Archive.

The announcement and the text of the Workshop report were sent to the following electronic bulletins boards:

BUBL;
HUMBUL;
NISS.

The announcement was sent to the following electronic discussion groups, along with information on how to obtain copies of the Workshop report and the original proposal:

Humanist;
Lis-Link;
Unite;
Etextctr;
DBFT;
IR-L;
PACS-L.

7.2.2 Responses

The following is a list of those who responded by sending comments and information (in Institution order):

Donna Kurtz and Thaddeus Lipinski Beazley Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford;
Alison Northover Reader Services, Bodleian Library;
Peter Allan British Atmospheric Data Centre;
Alice Prochaska Director of Special Collections, The British Library;
Dennis Nicholson BUBL;
Patricia Crosett Dartmouth College;
Brian Allison Allison Research Index of Art and Design (ARIAD), De Montfort University;
Jeremy Fox School of Modern Languages and European Studies, University of East Anglia;
Nigel Birch Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council;
T. Sorrell Dept of Philosophy, University of Essex;
Paul Ellison The SGML Project, University of Exeter;
Donald Spaeth CTI Centre for History with Archaeology and Art History, University of Glasgow;
Rick Trainor CTI Centre for History with Archaeology and Art History, University of Glasgow;
Gillian Barnes Humanities Division, Computing Centre, King's College London;
Roy Wisbey School of Humanities, King's College London;
Barry Ife School of Humanities, King's College London;
Martin Frost Department of Geography, King's College London;
John Lindsay School of Information Systems, Kingston University;
Michael Cook Archival Description Project, University of Liverpool;
Stuart Lee CTI Centre for Textual Studies, Oxford University;
Jeremy Black Oxford University;
Toby Bainton Library, Reading University;
Alasdair Paterson University of Sheffield;
Frank Colson University of Southampton;
T.M. Devine Department of History, University of Strathclyde;
Ian Budden Information Services, University of Sussex;
Lorcan Dempsey UKOLN, University of Bath;
Robin Alston University College London;
J.B. Trapp Warburg Institute.

7.3 Fact Finding

A number of institutions and individuals were approached by the authors during the course of the Feasibility Study, in some cases in person and in others by electronic mail. In nearly all cases a questionnaire was used as the basis for information gathering. In a few cases the questionnaire was not considered appropriate, but useful information about the institution or service was sent to the authors. There was also a range of additional material which the authors acquired along the way and found useful.

7.3.1 Visits

The following institutions and individuals (shown in Institution order) were kind enough to receive visits by one or both the authors.

Susan Hockey Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (CETH), Princeton and Rutgers Universities;

John Sunderland Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art;

Cathy Gordon Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art;

Per Nielsen Dansk Data Arkiv (Danish Data Archives);

Hans Joergen Marker History Archive, Dansk Data Arkiv (Danish Data Archive);

Prof Denise Lievesley History Data Unit, ESRC Data Archive, University of Essex;

Michael Neuman Centre for Text Technology, Georgetown University, Washington DC; [See note 44]
Peter Doorn Netherlands Historical Data Archive, Leiden;
Arne Svindland Norwegian Centre for Computing in the Humanities (NCCH);
Espen Ore Norwegian Centre for Computing in the Humanities (NCCH);
Per Vestbøstad Norwegian Centre for Computing in the Humanities (NCCH);
Bjorn Henrichson Norwegian Social Sciences Data Archive (NSD);
Vigdis Kvalheim Norwegian Social Sciences Data Archive (NSD);
David Seaman Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia; [See note 45]
Claus Huitfield Wittgenstein Archives, Bergen, Norway.

7.3.2 Questionnaires

Completed questionnaires were received from the following individuals and institutions:

Donna Kurtz Beazley Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford;
Donald Spaeth CTI Centre for History with Archaeology and Art History, University of Glasgow;
Sarah Davnall Manchester Information Data Sets and Associated Services (MIDAS), University of Manchester;
Stuart Lee CTI Centre for Textual Studies, University of Oxford.

7.3.3 Documentation

Extensive documentation was received from the following individuals and institutions:

Patricia Young Canadian Heritage Information Network;
Ann Okersen Coalition for Networked Information;
Josefien Bersee DANTE;
Susan Siegfried Getty Art History Information Project;
John Haeger Research Libraries Group.

7.3.4 Additional Material

Additional material was received from or in relation to the following:

SURFnet, The Netherlands;

Ashmole Archive, King's College London (from Hafed Walda);

Association of Digital Publishers, Dayton, Ohio;

Abstracts for First International Conference, ELVIRA (Electronic Library and Visual Information Research);

The GENIE project, Loughborough;

GIS Digital Data Directory, Oxford Brookes University (from Paul O'Carroll);

Special Collections, University of London Library (from Julia Walworth);

INFOLINGUA, University of Montreal;

Consortium for Lexical Research, Computing Research Library, New Mexico State University;

Norwegian Documentation Project, The Faculty of Arts, University of Oslo, Norway (from Christian-Emil Ore, via Espen Ore);

Corpus of Insular and Anglo-Saxon Illuminated Manuscripts, Purdue University (from Tom Ohlgren);

WATCH project, Library, University of Reading (see Appendix 8.3.1 Network and metadata projects );
NetEc (Networking Interaction in Academic Economics), University of Surrey;
Electronic Antiquity, University of Tasmania.

7.3.5 Consultation Document

The following set of questions was used as a basis for enquiry during interviews with particular projects and was also circulated electronically for comment.

1. Mission What is your centre's mission?
Does it support teaching, research or both?
In what respects do you think it excels?
With what other centres would you compare it?
What does it do which a conventional library does not?
2. Staffing and Establishment How many staff are employed at your centre (full/part time)?
What functions do the staff perform?
Is there a clear career pattern for the staff?
What is the relationship between the centre and its host institution (if any)?
To whom is the centre accountable?
Where, in broad terms, does funding for the centre come from?
What are the chief areas of expenditure?
3. Holdings What kinds of material do you hold?
What is your acquisitions policy?
Do you ever refuse material?
Do you purchase material?
Do you generate materials?
How are accessioning decisions made?
Who is responsible for documenting the materials you acquire?
Who is responsible for cataloguing the materials you acquire?
Who is responsible for archival storage of the materials you acquire?
4. Services What kind of user services do you currently provide or plan to provide?
What charges (if any) are attached to your services?
Who uses your services ?
Do you collaborate with other centres or projects?
5. Planning What major problem areas do you foresee over the next five years?
What major opportunities do you foresee?

7.3.6 Conferences

Project team members were also able to make informal contact with several relevant individuals and projects by attending some key conferences and symposia which took place during the Feasibility Study. Several of the ideas in the present report were first discussed, both formally and informally, with delegates at the following events:

Second Elvetham Hall Conference on Scholarship and Technology in the Humanities: Networking and the European Cultural Heritage, Elvetham Hall, Hampshire, April 1994;
Consensus ex Machina: the annual joint conference of ALLC/ACH, Paris, April 1994;
SGML Europe, Montreux, April 1994;
World Wide Web, Geneva, May 1994;
CETH Workshop on Documenting Electronic Texts, Rutgers University, May 1994;
SIGIR 94, Dublin City University, June 1994;
Association for History and Computing International Conference, University of Nijmegen, August 1994;
Computers and Teaching in the Humanities, University of Glasgow, September 1994.

Back to table of contents
On to next section
Back to previous section