SUMMARY

Representatives of the founding members of AMICO met at the Art Institute of Chicago. They discussed a broad range of issues which required action before the formal establishment of the organization could be ratified by the AAMD Board of Trustees. The AMICO founding members reviewed the planning documents and accepted the overall framework as presented. Details of operations remain to be worked out, by a series of Working Committees, that were charged with agendas. Archives & Museum Informatics presented a proposal to support AMICO as management consultants through its start-up period. This must still be accepted by the AAMD. Critical Dates in the coming 6 months and a To Do List were agreed.

CONTENTS

I. Decisions

- Membership

- Outreach

- Governance

- Distributors

- Content of the Library

II. Success Factors

- Quality of the Library

- Access

- Support

- Programs and Services

III. Working Committees

- Executive Committee and Board

- Technical Operations Committee

- Users and Uses Committee

- Rights Committee

IV. Possible Advisors

V. Role of Archives & Museum Informatics

VI. Critical Dates

VII. To Do by October 10, 1997

I. DECISIONS

Among the decisions made by the group were:

A. Membership:

• Founding membership will be closed at the organizations committing to AMICO and paying membership dues prior to the formal ratification of AMICO as an AAMD initiative, scheduled for October 14, 1997 in NYC. (Commitment letters and checks are due with the AAMD by close of business October 10 in order to provide time for coordination of a press release to be issued by all founding members).
• Only founding members will participate in the "Testbed" project being launched now which will offer a library of digital object for university licensing in 1998/99.
• New members are welcome to join AMICO at any point, but for logistical reasons they will neither participate in the Testbed project nor receive the AMICO Library in 1998/99. Instead they will begin to participate in 1998 in creation of data to be contributed for the Fall 99 AMICO Library.

B. Outreach:

• Members determined that outreach to potential AMICO members and users was important and confirmed their commitment to open communication. All documents will be made public as soon as drafts were approved. The AMICO process will remain public. A service to analyze the data of potential members will be developed in order to provide them up-front assistance in joining AMICO.

C. Governance:

• Members agreed that AMICO will initially be organized under the AAMD Educational Foundation (an existing 501 (c) 3) and that an acting executive committee will be appointed by Hugh Davies [the current AAMD President] to act for the AMICO Board until January 1998. In January 1998, at the AAMD Annual meeting in Los Angeles, the full AMICO Board [constituted of the Directors of Founding Members] will meet and make any further decisions about governance and elect its representatives. AMICO will be separately incorporated in 1998.
• In order to guarantee stability of membership, institutions (rather than individuals) will be AMICO members. The membership of the Director of an AMICO organization in AAMD is not an essential condition to full membership in AMICO.

D. Distributors

• AMICO will work with existing distributors to deliver its Library to target user groups, including the members. Distributors will be enabled to develop specific products suites by relating the library to other reference tools, creating 'slices' of Library for specific users, and developing particular user interfaces.
• Distributors will operate under contract with AMICO, and will be granted a limited license to redistribute the Library. They will be responsible for managing and tracking user licenses and fees, and will share in income from fees.

E. Content of the Library

• The members agreed that the quality and content of the Library will be what distinguishes AMICO from what is available on-line, or through locally sponsored projects. Concerns were voiced about how the Library will be created, particularly for the testbed, where there is a very short lead time. It will most likely be comprised of what is in existence or planned. However, it is desirable that the Library include "the Best' Museums have to offer, whether in terms of the works of art, or the documentation of them.
• The size of the Library will be a significant factor in attracting university testbed participants and foundation funding. A survey of what is available will be conducted as soon as possible. In the longer term, AMICO needs to determine means of working with users to identify their needs and interests.

II. SUCCESS FACTORS

In a wide ranging discussion, members identified the following conditions which they felt were crucial to AMICO's success. These included the Quality of the Library, Access, Support and AMICO Programs and Services.

A. Quality of the Library:

The AMICO Library needs to:

• be integrated (across contributing institutions and data types)
• have breadth (but until it is quite comprehensive it must document what can be found by users)
• include the "best" representation of each work available to the museum, e.g.:
  • deep data of different types
  • authority of information
  • currency of information
  • high quality of images

B. Access:

It was anticipated that AMICO users would value:

• flexible delivery and terms of use
• assurances of the continuity of the library and its continued development over time (completeness of content)
• ease of administration
• ease of use
  • in teaching
  • across distributors
• simply searched but powerful
• affordable pricing structures

C. Support:

Members felt that AMICO and its distributors should provide:

• outreach to users
• direct user to AMICO communication [not just filtered through distributor]
• examples of how to use the AMICO content in teaching situations/scenarios
• user training and support
• a means for scholarly commentary and communication back to the museum
• consistency of experience across the Library
• Truth in Advertising

D. AMICO Programs and Services:

In addition, members felt that AMICO would have greatest value if it pursued:

• Interdisciplinary resource materials
• Internationalism
• Implementable, stable, market sensitive standards that members could use
• Services that are of value to members
• Mechanisms to ensure user input into service development

III. WORKING COMMITTEES

IV. POSSIBLE ADVISORS

Members discussed the benefits of involving some individuals with special understanding of what AMICO needed to do and whom AMICO needed to reach on an informal advisory group. The group might never meet as such, but individuals could be contacted for assistance and rewarded by recognizing their contribution as advisors. Among those proposed, and the process was left open for further nominations and ultimate decision by the executive committee, were:

• Derek de Kerckhove, McLuhan Program, University of Toronto
• John Vaughan, American Society of University Presidents / Stanford University
• David Green, NINCH
• Mary Levering, US Copyright Office
• Clifford Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information
• Nancy Macko [or someone within CAA Intellectual Property/Electronic Information Committee]
• Linda Roberts, Department of Education
• Sheldon Fisher, Department of Education
• Stephen Weil, Smithsonian Institution
• Neil Harris, Art Historian, University of Chicago
• Jules Prown, Art Historian, Yale University
• Greg Crane, Art Historian, Tufts University
• Ron Johnston, University of Washington VP/Provost
• Peter Lyman, University of California, Berkeley
• Howard Besser, University of California, Berkeley
• Pamela Samuelson, University of California, Berkeley
• Joe Lewis, Cal State Northridge
• Ed Paschke, Chicago
• Doug Rowan, Corbis ?
• Robbie McClintock, ILT, Columbia University, New York
• Esther Dyson, Release I.0, NYC
• Tim Burners Lee, WC3
• Czeslaw Jan Grycz

V. ROLE OF ARCHIVES & MUSEUM INFORMATICS

David Bearman and Jennifer Trant presented their proposal submitted to the AAMD to facilitate the planning and administration of AMICO, through a three year phased start-up. At the end of this time, A&MI would withdraw completely, having established AMICO as an independently operating not-for-profit corporation with a permanent staff, operating procedures and a schedule for becoming completely self-financing.

A detailed task list was presented for Year I, that included Organizational, Operational and Strategic activities, and that offered a level of support to AMICO similar to that available in its planning phase. If accepted by the AAMD, this proposal would enable A&MI to staff the AMICO Working Committees, develop relationships with distributors, design and negotiate the implementation of data enhancement plans, and assist in fundraising. Working methods would be similar to those used successfully in the planning phase. Full details are available in the proposal circulated at the meeting.

VI. CRITICAL DATES

A forward schedule of AMICO Activities was reviewed and revised. Members also discussed plans for activity around upcoming meetings of professional societies, using these both as opportunities for representatives to work on Committee tasks and as times to present AMICO and its work to others. Meeting where a core group is already assembled with help limit travel expenses and use our time as efficiently as possible.

Upcoming AMICO Dates [to be merged with the AMICO Timeline]:

VIII. TO DO

Before leaving the meeting, members made concrete assignments to themselves of work to be completed in the very near future, including (by Oct. 10, 1997).

TO DO by Oct. 10, 1997

A. Name Representatives for AMICO

• Provide Name, Job Title, and Full Contact information (mail, phone, fax, email) for:
  • Principal AMICO Contact [to be copied on all reports etc. to Director]
  • Technical Operations Committee
  • Users and Uses Committee
  • Rights Committee

• Send test data to A&MI.

  Email jtrant@archimuse.com or dbear@archimuse.com if you have any questions.

• Choose a total of 10 objects in your collection
  • Select at least one "typical" record. Indicate which one this is.
  • Select the other records to reflect the fullest depth and the most different data types that you could provide. Indicate whether any such data could be available for the testbed year. (It would be very desirable to have as wide a range as possible for the testbed).

• Export all the data you are willing to contribute to AMICO about this work from your local systems
  • Do not change the structure of your database records [Include your fields as you have them.]
  • Save the files in a format that is as standard as possible without losing any meaning or structure in your data content
    • Database files in DIF or tab/Comma delimited ASCII rather than in their own software export format
    • Word processing files should be saved as.RTF not ASCII,
    • Images should be sent as uncompressed files

• Put the data on floppy disk (1.4MB), Zip Cartridge (100MB) or Syquest cartridge (up to 200MB)

• Include a hardcopy list of all data files sent:
  • file names and note about why you've selected this work, or included this file
  • documentation of the data types supplied, including details about file formats so we can read them!

• Include a list of the fields extracted from your database, along with copies of any documentation that is available about your local database structure, cataloguing procedures, or the format of data that you collect

• Include any guidelines you have developed for image capture or description, including file naming conventions.

• Send the Test Data Package to arrive by October 10, 1997 to:

  Archives & Museum Informatics
  5501 Walnut St., #203
  Pittsburgh, PA
  15232
  

B. Identify contributions for Testbed project

• Provide list of total number of works to be contributed with breakdown:
  • For western art: # of ancient, medieval, Renaissance, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th centuries by country
  • For non-western art, the civilization and its own large time periods can be used

• Note that for the beginning of the year, we will need to know the full profile of the test dataset:
  • # of works with fielded text and image
  • # of works that also have free text documents
  • # of works that also have structured texts [marked up in SGML for example]
  • # of works that also have bitmaps of documents
  • # of works that also have multiple images, other than normal light images
  • # of works that also have Quicktime™/video files
  • # of works that also have sound files
  • # of works that also have motion video plus sound

C. Museum Fundraising Profile [in both electronic form and hardcopy]

• One page description of the museum and its collection
• Letter of support for AMICO from Director, stating benefits of participating in the Consortium
• biographical paragraphs for AMICO Contact and each Committee representative

D. Press Release for simultaneous issue on Oct. 14

• Standard text will be drafted by the AAMD office.
• This may be customized by each institution.
• The AAMD release, and the founding documents, will include ONLY THOSE MUSEUMS whose checks AND letter of commitment have been received in the AAMD offices by October 10. (Invoices have now been sent from the AAMD office.)

D. Bearman and J. Trant
Archives & Museum Informatics
September 25, 1997