TCP Board Meeting
Minutes
October 21, 2004

Attending:

Board Members: William Gosling (Chair, University of Michigan), Betty Bengston (University of Washington), Mark Dimunation (Library of Congress, for Deanna Marcum), Marianne Gaunt (Rutgers University), Ronald Milne (Oxford University), William Miller (Florida Atlantic University), Jeff Moyer (Gale, for Richard Foley), Remmel Nunn (Readex), Mary Sauer-Games (ProQuest Information and Learning), David Stam (Syracuse University), William Walker (University of Miami)

TCP Staff and Guests: Ross Coleman (University of Sydney), Shawn Martin (University of Michigan), Mark Sandler (University of Michigan), Paul Schaffner (University of Michigan), Perry Willett (University of Michigan)

Unable to attend:
Nancy Davenport (CLIR), David Ferriero (New York Public Library), Sarah Michalak (University of Utah), Carole Moore (University of Toronto),

I. Welcome

William Gosling opened the meeting, welcomed new members including representatives from two new publishers joining the TCP effort including Remmel Nunn from Readex and Jeff Moyer from Gale, and Mary Sauer-Games from ProQuest.

II. Evolution of the TCP Board

Since the TCP has evolved from one project in cooperation with ProQuest to now three projects in cooperation with three different commercial publishers, it is useful to consider how the Board might adapt to accommodate the changing situation. The Board discussed whether it was fitting for it to evolve as a TCP Board concerned with all potential TCP projects (including those to which individual members of the Board may not subscribe) and how its meetings could be structured to address overarching TCP objectives as well as the specifics of individual projects.

The representatives of the three companies began the discussion by highlighting the things they would feel uncomfortable revealing in front of their competitors. These included pricing, their contributions to the TCP, and general marketing strategy. It was agreed that the Board should attempt to structure its meetings so that all members could be present and, if at some point there was a need to divulge sensitive information, the Board could hold an executive session in which that could be discussed.

III. Project Recruitment updates

Mark Sandler then discussed the upcoming event celebrating the JISC launch of EEBO and EEBO-TCP. The JISC is contributing significantly to the project and will allow us to create thousands of new texts. It will also increase the number of potential users to all higher and further education institutions in the UK.

Shawn Martin then updated the board on current partner recruitment over the past year which was quite significant. Over thirty institutions joined since the last Board meeting. Among those were the Oberlin group of liberal arts colleges the Consortium of Prairie and Pacific Libraries (COPPUL) in Western Canada, as well as UCLA and UC-Berkeley. Prospects are also very good for the coming year, and TCP continues to grow with recruitment of 30 new partners in both the Evans and ECCO initiatives. Board members also suggested several independent research libraries and large public library systems as potential recruits for TCP as well as some international institutes and organizations.

IV. Budget Review

Discussion of the current TCP Budget then began. The Board considered a new proposal to structure the budget so that TCP allocates our outreach and administration costs across all three projects based on production output rather than itemizing costs individually. It was agreed that this should work for now, but should be reconsidered later because outreach costs for EEBO should be less when the project comes to a close. It was agreed that at some point, the outreach and administration costs should be viewed as “billable hours,” and allocated as such, but in the meantime the budget as presented will work.

The Board then considered several scenarios detailing the future growth of the project. Mark Sandler presented figures showing past growth and gave some projections for future growth. It was agreed that TCP should aim to recruit 28 new partners before the next Board meeting, and that would ensure the creation of 25,000 texts and could present TCP with a stronger case as it goes for second round funding, grant funding, and other sources over the coming years.

V. Board Discussion Items

Rights of Use

The Board discussed the increasing number of requests the TCP has been getting to use TCP text in other projects. Shawn Martin presented some examples of previous decisions and asked for board advice on how to go about future ones. The Board agreed that decisions made so far had been easily justifiable and that it would be possible for TCP to sell its text to commercial publishers according to a fee schedule to be developed. It was agreed that TCP staff should draft more specific guidelines and circulate them among the Board for further consideration.

Price Increase

Mark Sandler then presented a proposal to the Board regarding a price increase and some possible ways of doing so. The Board agreed to a 20% increase to commence on April 1. It was also suggested that we might wish to investigate the impact of this increase on smaller institutions and determine what they might like to see in terms of structure and price.

Multiple editions

Shawn Martin then presented an idea put forth by many faculty requesting second editions of text for inclusion in TCP (rather than selecting only the first) if faculty and scholars offered to pay for them. The Board decided that this should not be a problem if scholars or their institutions wished to pay for the text and TCP staff should take into consideration further administrative costs if needed.

Evolving TCP Model to fit community goals

This discussion came up in several contexts throughout the meeting. TCP has become a large project serving many different scholars and partnering with many new companies. Therefore, it would be beneficial to add new revenue and sustain the project beyond the three commitments currently in place. Nevertheless, this does add complications in administration and current contracts. The Board discussed several possibilities.
Potential grants were discussed to fund publicly accessible texts for the project. It was also suggested that TCP set itself up as a model of potential study for things like digital preservation, collection development, education at both a college and K-12 level, and scholarly access and communication. It was noted that further expansion of the TCP, especially for grant funding might cause problems with some of our existing contracts with commercial publishers and that any grant funding we receive should be used to expand the project rather than fund current commitments (i.e. go beyond the 25,000 committed to in EEBO).

The Board also discussed the possibility of an ongoing partnership in which members pay a kind of subscription that keeps the TCP project going “for the common good.” It was thought that there might be potential for creating a kind of membership organization at least among the best customers of the TCP. The Board agreed that after EEBO-TCP approaches people from a position of strength with 25,000 texts due to be completed, it would be beneficial to pursue this as a possible model for continuing TCP growth.

VI. Project Development and Production Updates

ProQuest

Mary Sauer-Games updated the Board on the many new developments with the EEBO product. They have sold to 43 new institutions this year, have included new material like the Thomason tracts, and have added 6,500 TCP texts to their database so far. To date, they have had over 61,000 view of TCP text.

Readex

Remmel Nunn then discussed the developments for the Evans product. So far, over 106 institutions have subscribed to Evans and they are further developing the Shaw-Shoemaker database. He also discussed the recent selection task force meeting held in Worcester, MA. The greatest challenge will be to select those texts in the coming months.

Gale

Jeff Moyer then updated the Board on its progress with the ECCO product which contains over 26 million pages and 155,000 volumes. To date, they have 60 customers including 6 Canadian and 11 international institutions. They have also done OCR for the ECCO product and are interested in how the TCP text will work and integrate with their OCR.

Australia

Ross Coleman from the University of Sydney was a guest of the Board in the afternoon to discuss opportunities for the three commercial publishers and TCP in Australia. He detailed the structure of the libraries in Australia and suggested that TCP might be able to maximize its impact by selling jointly with the commercial publishers and that they have a strong tradition of consortial purchasing. Therefore, it would be best to sell to the consortium rather than one by one.

Production

Perry Willett and Paul Schaffner then presented the Board with the latest production updates. Perry, who had come from a TCP partner institution and was now in charge of TCP production remarked on the amazing ability of the staff to meet production targets and goals. Paul discussed what some of those goals were and remarked on the 8,000 texts produced so far and that roughly 14 to 21 books per day are managed through our process. He also discussed the difficulty in deciphering the many unusual characters in early printing.

Outreach

Shawn Martin then updated the Board on the many outreach efforts this year (exclusive of new partner recruitment). In addition to conferences and publications, TCP has piloted new projects at the University of Toronto, National Library of Wales, and the University of Chicago. Scholarly projects around the world are increasingly asking for TCP’s help and partnership in their own projects. TCP now has two teams of School of Information students studying the effects of TCP on education, and initiatives set in motion last year like the Academic Advisory Group and requests for records have been successful. Overall, it has been a very good year for TCP in terms of both recruitment and other outreach.

VII. Planning for next meeting

The meeting adjourned approximately 3:00 p.m. and TCP staff will be in touch with Board members regarding additional materials and plans for the next TCP Board meeting.