Hi all,

An update.

As many know, we had a nomination period last week to form an initial executive that would be responsible for administrative details of the Special Interest Group and for writing bylaws to cover elections, constituency and representation issues, etc. to be in place by next year. There was no set number and nobody who wanted to participate was turned away.

In the last week, this group has been determining the most essential offices and tasks necessary to running the SIG and staffing those positions at least initially. We are just now checking the list of positions and volunteers; I hope to publish them to the website and the list on Monday.

After this initial work is done, my proposal will be that the executive meet periodically (for example, once a quarter or bi-monthly) to review our progress and deal with executive issues by email as they arise (because of the time-zone spread of the executive, we may need to "meet" by email as well). But beyond that, that all business of the SIG take place on this list as much as possible.

There is a very attractive funding opportunity being offered by the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) that several members of the executive are working on right now (the deadline is Feb. 15). Should this be successful, it would provide some useful resources that will help develop inter-region contacts and collaborations. But of course like all grants, the chances are always greater that we will not get it than that we will!

Finally, the University of Lethbridge has provided some money to GO::DH to be used as bursaries to commission student and entry-level researcher work on the scope and range of DH around the world. Once the grant is submitted in mid-February, I hope to be issuing a call with more detailed instructions.

-dan