Constitution

1 Name:

The name of the organisation is the Digital Endangered Languages and Musics Archives Network (DELAMAN).

2 Objectives:

2.1.  to support the ethical preservation of endangered languages and cultures through archiving;

2.2.  to promote access to archival material by originating communities;

2.3.  to explore the potential of digital technologies to support objectives 2.1 and 2.2;

2.4.  to promote international best practice in digital archiving of recordings of endangered languages and cultures;

2.5.  to provide a forum for members to share information on policies, technologies and practices to support implementation of the organisation’s objectives;

2.6.  to advocate with appropriate external bodies to support the organisation’s objectives;

2.7.  to encourage open access to research data wherever consistent with ethical practices, recognising that the long-term sustainability of digital resources can be enhanced through their active use and continuing relevance to communities of users.

3 The organisation will pursue its objectives through any appropriate means, including:

3.1.  a website;

3.2.  annual meetings;

3.3.  publishing relevant documents on the website and in other appropriate forums;

3.4.  contributing to public debate on issues relevant to its aims;

3.5.  an email discussion list;

3.6.  affiliation with other relevant humanities organisations.

4 Membership:

4.1.  Membership is open to organisations who support the aims of DELAMAN and who are actively engaged in archiving in the sense of preserving primary data and other resources as defined in the list of criteria (as set out in the Appendix below)

4.2. Membership will be in one of two categories, full membership and associate membership.

4.2.1. Full membership is restricted to designated organisational members and each organisation will be able to cast one vote for Board members.

4.2.2. Associate members are organisations who are either in the process of establishing an archive and who may, in time, be eligible for full membership, or are established archives that are not seeking full membership. Members can self-nominate to move to Associate status.

4.3. The governing body of DELAMAN is the Board which will be elected by a vote of the full membership.

4.4. DELAMAN especially invites membership from members of endangered language communities who are planning to set up and manage a digital archive.

4.5. Prospective members may apply to join by completing the DELAMAN Membership Application Form. Membership will be voted on by the Board.

4.6. DELAMAN will publish a list of its members and office holders on the website.

4.7. Membership fees, if any, will be determined from time to time by the Board.

5. Governing Board

The Board is elected by the membership for a term of four years. All Board positions begin on 01 September and end four years later on 31 August. The first Board from 2012 will be split between two-year and four-year terms to allow staggered membership in future.

5.1. The Board will consist of no more than twelve members, not counting ex-officio members. The Board will elect a President.

5.2. An ex-officio (non-voting) Board member may be appointed from time to time as agreed by the DELAMAN Board.

5.3. A quorum for Board meetings will be half the Board membership plus one.

5.4. Meetings can be held online and voting can be carried out by email.

5.5. The term of the President will be two years. The outgoing President’s term will end on 31 August, and the incoming President’s term will begin on 01 September.

6 Decision making:

6.1. Decisions of DELAMAN will be ratified by a majority of the voting members present at the annual meeting, or between meetings by a vote conducted in circulation amongst the Board members.

6.2. Any change to the constitution has to be agreed to by a majority of the membership.

Appendix: Membership Criteria

A DELAMAN archive is an established and trusted digital repository created and maintained by an institution with a demonstrated commitment to permanence and the long-term preservation of archived resources with suitable rights management practices to allow access to as much of the collections as possible. The focus of the archive is on languages and musics, particularly from endangered cultures, for which there is little recorded material. It holds primary data and may also hold other kinds of information (like secondary analyses, transcripts and so on). The catalog of the collection should be available via the internet and harvestable by services like the Open Language Archives Community or the Open Archives Initiative. The archive needs to be an active archive that is currently accepting, curating and publishing collections of endangered languages materials. All full member archives will be re-evaluated every four years.

In order to assess whether a repository is eligible for membership, the following information should be provided to the DELAMAN board:

  • A link to the online catalog
  • A mission statement that shows the commitment as described above
  • A summary of the funding and/or staffing resources available to carry out this mission
  • A summary of the implemented technical infrastructure to carry out this mission (including which standards are adhered to for data and metadata formats)
  • A summary of the preservation policy including bit-stream preservation as well as strategies for format migration
  • A summary of the organisation’s track record in this context
  • A current or planned OLAC feed
  • A summary of the accessibility of the materials and any procedures that a user must go through to access the collections;
  • Are you still adding materials to the archive? If so, how often?
  • Who can deposit in the archive and how?
  • Do you have an institutional affiliation? If so, what is it?
  • Any additional information that you want us to consider.

In case the repository has successfully undergone a CoreTrustSeal or similar assessment, the following information is required:

  • A reference to that assessment or other proof
  • A mission statement that shows the commitment as described above
  • A link to the online catalog
  • A current or planned OLAC feed
  • A summary of the accessibility of the materials and any procedures that a user must go through to access the collections;
  • Are you still adding materials to the archive? If so, how often?
  • Who can deposit in the archive and how?
  • Do you have an institutional affiliation? If so, what is it?
  • Any additional information that you want us to consider.