membership

[Fotis Jannidis]

Coming from a larger meeting of German editors I have a question to the council and the board: The amount charged for a membership in the TEI consortium is so high, that 
it is quite prohibitive for German academic institutions. At the meeting we tried to find a way to involve German editors nevertheless with the TEI council, not the least 
because the meeting showed that the TEI guidelines are used in many projects. 
There has been made a proposal which looks rather sound to me, so maybe we could discuss it here: We will try to found a society and this society would become a 
member of the TEI. The society should be constituted by a group of German institutions somehow involved in editorial practice or just in using TEI (historians, literary 
editors, dictionary work groups, linguists etc.). If we find 20 members the fee for each member would be ca. 250 € and at the moment we think it is a reasonable hope to 
find so many members willing to pay.

On the plus side: 
If the society succeeds in finding 20 members there would be another institutional member of the TEI. 

Problems: 
All members of the society would have access to the services provided by the TEI for its members. There is the danger, that no other German institution would become a 
member of the TEI, because it would be cheaper to become a member of the German society. But this danger is not really one because most German academic 
institutions wouldn't be able to spend this kind of money anyway. 

Is this acceptable for the TEI? What do you think? 

Fotis Jannidis