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RESPONDENTS: AAM: American Association of Museums AAR: American Academy of Religion ACH: Association for Computers and the Humanities ACLS: American Council of Learned Societies AHA: American Historical Asssociation ARL: Association of Research Libraries CAA: College Art Association CLIR: Council on Library and Information Resources Colorado: The Library at the University of Colorado at Boulder |
H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online MCN: Museum Computer Network NHA: National Humanities Alliance NYU: New York University Humanities Computing Center Smithsonian Institution SP/SBL: Scholars Press; Society of Biblical Literature Syracuse University Library VRA: Visual Resources Association |
By October 25, 1998, we had received seventeen responses from our 68 members (including a response from the non-member NHA).
When NINCH was in its formative stages, some people had general expectations of what NINCH would be doing, while others had more specific targets. If you had specific expectations/requirements of NINCH, what were they and how have they been met? If you had more general expectations, what were they and how have they been met?
There wasn't a clear distinction between specific and general expectations. Thirteen offered specific and only six general expectations.
Providing information:
Then there were two directions: one inward to our own community and the other outward to other publics. First the more inward concern with our own community:
Providing a forum for discussion
Related to this was establishing or improving relationships :
This is followed by the next step: working in a group, providing leadership, making connections and fostering collaborations:
In the other more outward advocacy direction, there was some interesting divergence. For example, MCN expected NINCH to "help represent cultural heritage concerns in DC and to the wider world" and very positively reported that "NINCH has helped focus attention on the wide range of institutions that share common concerns and this visibility has helped us understand our own issues, other's issues, and the wider context in which we operate." Syracuse University Library similarly expected NINCH to represent the humanities in the networked environment, giving it visibility and making clear the net is for humanities as well as for technical interests (moderately well, limited I think by resource issues).
The Association for Computers and the Humanities, meanwhile, wanted more active "policy position formulation; federal promotion of interests; involvement in the development of funding programs; and ensuring representation on major national commissions, committees, etc. (and, I think generously, felt that here we had done some "initially good work at policy & funding levels that could be better. But ACH wants us to work for better representation of our interests on federal committees (e.g. NII-type; NEH council, etc.).
Today, as NINCH is still evolving, is it: specific and practical enough as well as adventurous and exploratory enough for your organization?
The "yes/no" binary questions offered little that was conclusive: 12 thought NINCH was practical and specific enough (with 3 nos and two "maybe"s) and 13 thought NINCH was adventurous and exploratory enough (with 2 nos and two "maybe"s).
In the comments, although there were some calls to "get practical and specific" ( "develop a more focused agenda," "get more programmatic or more initiatory of projects") there was a warning "not to be distracted by demands to "do" projects. NINCH should not replace innovators but connect them and help them succeed," and what I considered very wise advice from the VRA: "We hope NINCH becomes more specific and practical. But of course we should not expect that this would occur in the early stages of evolution, as the NINCH organization has obviously needed to build membership, assess the nature of the coalition, and find its moorings. But now that it has successfully grown through this stage, an effort to be more specific, practical, and yes more adventurous is indeed in order. The NINCH sponsored sessions at various conferences and NINCH's co-sponsorship of the Town Hall Meetings on Copyright have been very valuable. But we feel that perhaps NINCH can do more to sponsor and/or co-sponsor practical workshops to deal with the more technical issues of preserving and making cultural heritage information accessible."
At the heart of NINCH's initial strategy was the determination to distribute information and generate understanding of key digital networking issues. We have done this both on our listserv and on ourwebsite. How have we done and what do we urgently need to do next? In which areas has NINCH done well/not done well?
There was a degree more conclusiveness in this range of options but many often felt unable to choose between job well done and not well done.
In terms of information and education, 13 of the 17 respondants replied that NINCH had done well in providing Legislative/Advocacy Information; Issues Education and Information; and Conference/Workshop and other Event Information. In each of these categories no-one thought we'd done "not well," though four felt they couldn't say one way or the other. When it came to Practical/Best Practices Information, only eight said we'd done well, 3 said we'd not done well and six couldn't say. For connecting between members and their projects 7 said we'd done well, 2 not well and eight couldn't say. And finally in conceptualizing and catalyzing new activity six said we'd done well, four, not well and seven couldn't say.
Three respondents noted that more work needed to be done in best practices. The Smithsonian had expected "more recommendations from NINCH and members stepping up to the plate and researching "best practices," but to date we've primarily just talked about them, or learned of conferences where they will be discussed." And College Art felt we "need to go beyond information provision, leading and coordinating efforts [in best practices]".
In terms of connecting members and their projects and catalyzing new initiatives, the Smithsonian, recognizing that it was "very difficult to act as catalyst in a decentralized, distributed environment," hoped, nonethless that "we'll see more of this as NINCH matures," and the VRA, similarly recognizing the evolutionary issue, reported that "NINCH has done an admirable job in its early years. This has been especially true in sharing information and informing its members of key issues. But NINCH will need to do more to initiate and shepherd projects among its members."
Describe specific or general activities you hope/expect NINCH to engage in:
Are there specific issues that need focused work from NINCH?
So few responded separately to tquestion five to identify specific issues that I'm combining the results of these two questions.
First on the information and education front: "We would expect NINCH to continue to help organizations develop consensus understandings of the issues" (MCN); "continued international source of information on networking projects; more internal education/advocacy through meetings and workshops on implementation of new technologies and on digitizing projects; (Smithsonian)
Some spoke of NINCH's "technique" "Do more of what NINCH is best at: facilitating and moving policy/programmatic discussions onto next levels" (AHA), while CLIR was "concerned with the variety of NINCH activity: need to focus."
A number mentioned the theme of linking members and projects more forcefully:
ACLS focused on the difficult role of the catalyst: "NINCH is becoming a catalyst for programs and initiatives..., a plausible but very difficult role, especially for an entity with limited human and financial resources. At the same time, however, there is a deep need in our community for contextualized, communicable understanding of the current issues in information technology and scholarly communication, and a "scout" to programmatic opportunities in that domain. Bridge-building with computer scientists is an example of the application of that role. We would hope NINCH could be, as it has been, a collective resource in that area."
Allied with such linkage is CAA's call for leadership (and the organization of leadership, especially in the digital image arena in the absence of the Getty Information Institute) and VRA's call for guidance from NINCH in analyzing and generalizing the practical advise of specific communities:
"NINCH does a good job of informing its members of the many conferences and workshops that are conducted throughout the year and across the globe. But many of these are intended for specific communities; the archival and library communities, the museum community, or the publishing sector. Maybe NINCH can help to find what is common to all and to share it amongst its members?"
VRA thus recommends again that NINCH " sponsor workshops and initiate projects among its members that are general enough to be applicable to several communities, but specific enough to be practical to all." This is similar to ARL's call for the "exchange of information among community segments."
On the advocacy agenda: aggressive lobbying for representation and funding and better representation on federal committees (e.g. NII-type; NEH council, etc (ACH); continuing endeavours to gain recognition for the importance of funding humanities computing initiatives (NYU)
In terms of specific issues or projects:
What projects have you engaged in that have been informed or augmented by your association with NINCH?
This was perhaps disappointing at not getting at more specific digital projects that members are engaged in. Notable responses included: