The annual general meeting of ATN for 2011 was held in on the 11th of May 2011 during the NESAT XI conference in Esslingen, Germany.
Present:Johanna Banck-Burgess, Nahum Ben-Yehuda, Marianne Bloch Hansen, Carol Christiansen, Ida Demant, Margarita Gleba, Annelies Goldmann, Karina Grömer, Carmen Keβler, Anne Hedeager Krag, Ulla Mannering, Sascha Mauel, Stefan Palm, Eva-Maria Pfarr, Frances Pritchard, Lise Ræder Knudsen, Maj Ringgaard, Elizabeth Wincott Heckett, Irita Žeiere, Hanna Zimmerman.
No additional proposals were send in by the members, while three proposals were given by the editors (bullet point 7-9). Therefore the agenda was as following:
1. Elect a Chairperson
Ulla Mannering and Margarita Gleba opened the meeting by proposing to elect a Chairperson for the meeting and Ida Demant was elected.
2. The report of 2010 activities:
The website is finished and working. It is now only possible to subscribe to ATN online and reminders are sent out at the beginning of the year to remind the members/subscribers to renew their subscription. Back issues of 46-51 can be bought on the ATN website and in the future it will also be possible to buy older issues of ATN online. The editors are still working on the format. There is a regular number of contributions for ATN but the participants are encouraged to spread the word that contributions are welcome. Personal and topical bibliographies will be put on the ATN website rather than in the printed ATN format due to limited space and to ensure wider access. Contributors are encouraged to send in bibliographies to one of the editors.
3. The account for 2010 was not presented at the meeting, as it was not completed before the meeting.
The account will be completed in June 2011, and presented on the ATN website together with the accounts for 2008 and 2009. To sum up the financial situation of Society of ATN, there is almost a balance between the income and the expenses for print and postage. Centre for Textile Research (CTR) has supported ATN substantially since it was moved to Copenhagen, and will continue to do so in the future as long as it exists as an institution. Funding was received for ATN 2011 in the amount of € 4.000 from the Nordic Board for Periodicals in the Humanities and Social Sciences, NOP-HS. The Editors will continue to apply for external funding but a more long-term solution has to be found for the future funding of ATN. When applying for external funding many foundations require that the publication is Open Access. This has to be considered for the future of ATN. Also there is often a requirement of minimum 200 subscribers. ATN has not reached this number at present but has c. 120 private subscribers and 55 institutional subscribers. It was noted that the website and online payment has not resulted in the loss of subscribers but has resulted in new ones. Despite this, the number of subscribers has been stable since 2007 with a slight fall in institutional subscribers due to general budget cutbacks affecting universities and museums.
4. Despite the decisions to raise the price of ATN at the ATN Annual Meeting in 2009 and 2010, this has not been done, as the editors have estimated that it has not yet been necessary due to simultaneous reductions in the printing costs. The aim is to keep the present prices (individual € 20/150 DKK, institutional € 30/250 DKK and back issues €10/75 DKK), but it might be necessary to raise them for 2012 if costs go up. A possible raise in price was put to vote and accepted by the participants.
5. Election of member for the board for 2011 and 2012:
Eva Andersson Strand, Ulla Mannering, Margarita Gleba and Carol Christiansen were willing to accept re-election as board members. Susanna Harris (University College London, UK) was proposed and approved as an additional editor of ATN as the workload is big and there is a need for help. The expertise of Susanna Harris will be much valued also as an English native speaker. As more submissions for ATN are coming in this also requires more hands.
She will join the editorial team in November 2011.
6. Election of an auditor and 1 deputy auditor member for the current financial year:
Marie-Louise Nosch and Lauritz H. Gregersen.
7. The editors proposed to change the name from Archaeological Textiles Newsletter (ATN) to Archaeological Textiles Review (ATR) in order to raise the professional profile of the publication.
“Newsletter” sounds less professional and scientific as also noted in the peer reviews made for the evaluation of the NOS-HS application from which ATN has received funding for 2011. The society Friends of ATN will retain its name. After a discussion it was decided to keep the current name for 2011 and to change to ATR starting in 2012 after the change has been announced to the members in the ATN editorial and on the website.
8. The editors also proposed to switch to a single issue per year in order to reduce the workload and because expenses of printing and postage are rising.
One of the participants noted that it has always been a struggle to put out two issues a year and the website can supplement a yearly publication in regards to reviews, textile calendar etc. The change will also enable more focus on the scientific contents. While some members opposed this decision and expressed concern that many subscribers will not want to wait a year and noted that the website is not used by everybody regularly, the majority voted in favour of it. The single issue will be as large if not bigger as the two current issues together. ATN has grown in size in terms of the number of articles in recent years so the members/subscribers will not pay for less content. Electronic publication of ATN and possibility of approaching a professional agency to take over the practical side of the publishing were discussed. At present, ATN will only be published on paper.
Advertisement possibilities to attract more subscribers were also discussed but they require a large workload for the editors. The members are encouraged to inform the editors about other possibilities.
9. The editors proposed that back issues are to be made available on the website after 3 years since their publication.
The editors reported that digital versions of ATN since 2008 with all the figures in colour are ready and permissions to publish on the website have been obtained from the authors. Thus, back issues from 2008 (46 and 47) will be published and accessible for free on the website in 2012. Back issues will continue to be published online with a 3 year delay. Printed back issues will still be available via the website. “Print on demand” is a possibility for ATN that the editors are currently exploring.
10. Miscellaneous:
Johanna Banck-Burgess proposed that the NESAT Posters are published on the ATN website as the NESAT website is only temporary. The editors agreed in principle pending the agreement of the authors. The future of the NESAT website (www.nesat.org) was discussed and it was agreed to continue the purchase of the rights to the NESAT address.