Held on Wednesday, the 11th of June 2008
Oslo, Norway
Prepared by: Lynn Leith
Last revised: July 15, 2008
Reviewed by: George Kerscher
Published on the DAISY Web site July 15, 2008
BH introduced himself as a Board Member representing Swiss DAISY Consortium and the DAISY Consortium Treasurer. Elsebeth Tank was re-elected at the 2007 General Meeting for a second term as President for the period 2008 to 2011. Later in the year following a career change, Elsebeth stepped down from the position of President of the DAISY Consortium. Thanks were expressed to Elsebeth for the wonderful job she did during her four years as President.
Following the Articles of Association, an Extra-ordinary General Meeting was held within 45 days of a President's resignation. It was held in October in London England, with the only agenda item being the election of a new president of DAISY Consortium. Hiroshi Kawamura was nominated; he accepted the nomination and was elected unanimously.
BH introduced Hiroshi Kawamura as the new President of the DAISY Consortium. Hiroshi Kawamura began his term as President in November 2007, and the term of office is for the period 2008 to 2011. Among many other things, Hiroshi Kawamura is a Board Member, representing the Japanese DAISY Consortium.
Hiroshi Kawamura thanked BH for the introduction, and on behalf of the DAISY Consortium, welcomed everyone. Thanks were extended to NLB for organizing the meeting and for their warm hospitality. Full Members, Associate Members, Friends, and Individual Supporters were noted as being present. Praise for the Conference of the preceding day was given as was praise for the professionalism exhibited at the Board meeting prior to the Conference.
During the meeting, achievements of the past year and future challenges will be identified. A concrete strategic direction for the DAISY Consortium will be established.
Mr. Øyvind Engh, Director, Norwegian Library for the Blind, was asked to speak.
Mr. Engh welcomed all participants to Oslo. He spoke eloquently about the Norwegian Library for the Blind, the Norwegian DAISY Consortium, and the parent DAISY Consortium, and stated that it was a pleasure to host these meetings.
There were no general announcements.
The voting members were asked to identify themselves
The voting delegates were confirmed in role call.
Decision:
The voting members accepted the agenda.
Lynn Leith was confirmed as the scribe
RESOLUTION: That the minutes of the General Meeting, held in Melbourne, Australia, 2007, be accepted.
The Minutes of the GM meeting held in Melbourne were accepted.
RESOLUTION: That the Annual Report for the year 2007 be adopted.
Hiroshi Kawamura noted that at the Board meeting held two days prior, Board Member expressed thanks to the editor of the Annual Report.
The Annual Report was adopted.
BH gave a short report on these documents. As is the norm, the financial package is made up for four documents itemized in the agenda and the GM Minutes (above). The Financial Report is written by the Treasurer. All four documents were distributed to membership along with the invitation to the DAISY Annual General Meeting.
The structure of the Operating Income and Expense report was explained. On the income side, there are two sources for financing, membership fees, and fund raising income. On the expense side, there are essentially three parts, paid staff, regular yearly expenses and project costs. The DAISY Consortium manages its finances carefully in a successful manner. In income for 2007, on line 22, income was US$1,424,000; on expense side the total was US$1,379,000, leaving a positive balance of US$45,000, which is better than the budgeted balance for the year. This resulted from less being spent for projects than budgeted, and more income than budgeted from fund raising. This income was largely from the DAISY membership in support of specific software development projects. Thanks were given to RNIB and NLB for their significant contributions in 2007. The positive balance of US$45,000, brings the capital of the DAISY Consortium to US$621,000 at the end of 2007.
A time tracking system for documenting DAISY Consortium staff time has been in place for 2 years. Hours worked are allocated to projects, providing an accurate record of project costs. This is reflected in Operating Income and Expense report for each project (standards, tools, communications and marketing, administration, etc.). Organizational structure and overhead costs for the DAISY Consortium are low as compared to many organizations. These two items totaled approximately $150,000, about 11% of total expenses, in 2007. The Consortium's income, coming largely from its membership, is well invested into projects, not administration. There were no questions regarding this document.
The Balance Sheet shows the capital an organization has as of a certain date, in this case, December 31. The consortium's business year is calendar year. The most important figure is capital, which was US$621,000 at year end.
The Financial Report contains more details on finances, structure and additional information for the membership. As discussed at the Board meeting, the first sentence of last paragraph may lead to misunderstanding. The following change is proposed, replacing the sentence, "The funding of the DAISY for All project by the Nippon Foundation, which was initially scheduled to last for five years, will cease at the end of May 2008." with the sentence "The DFA Project, funded by the Nippon Foundation will be successfully complete at end of May 2008." The complete last paragraph with the change was read.
There were no questions or comments.
The change was approved.
RESOLUTION: That the Auditor's Report be received, and that the Annual Accounts and Balance Sheet for the year 2007 be adopted.
The Auditor's Report was received, and that the Annual Accounts and Balance Sheet for the year 2007 were adopted.
At Hiroshi Kawamura's request, BH clarified the meaning of this resolution.
The DAISY Consortium is an association in Switzerland where it is a legal requirement that at General Meetings of Associations, the Board is discharged. The General Meeting as the highest decision-making body takes responsibility for the actions of the Board in the previous year.
RESOLUTION: That the General Meeting discharges the Board of Directors of the DAISY Consortium for the year 2007.
The resolution was adopted, the Board was discharged.
Hiroshi Kawamura read the following paragraph to the General Meeting: "To bring the list of new Members and Friends provided in the General Meeting agenda in line with the DAISY Consortium Financial Report, the new membership of organizations, companies, institutes and individuals will be reported for the period April 1 to March 31. For the 2007 General Meeting Agenda only, the list also includes those who joined between January 1, 2008 and March 31, 2008, as they will not be included in the 2008 General Meeting Agenda under the new time frame for reporting this information. Therefore the lists provided here cover the period from January 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008."
RESOLUTION: That the decision of the President to accept the following organizations as Associate Members of the DAISY Consortium in 2007, be ratified.
The resolution was adopted.
RESOLUTION: That the companies, institute and individuals identified as joining the DAISY Consortium in 2007, is noted with pleasure.
The resolution was adopted.
Two new Full Member applications have been received.
Hiroshi Kawamura asked the Finnish DAISY Consortium delegate and the Vision Australia representative if they wished to speak to the General Meeting participants.
Päivi Voutilainen, the Finnish DAISY Consortium representative, thanked the DAISY Consortium for accepting their application for Full membership and stated that they look forward to working together with the Consortium. Tony Plump, on behalf of Vision Australia, thanked the DAISY Consortium for the opportunity to become a Full Member in its own right. Vision Australia looks forward to its continued association with the DAISY Consortium.
RESOLUTION: To recognize the two new Full Member of the DAISY Consortium in 2008.
The resolution was adopted.
BH provided an overview of the 2008 budget and noted the negative balance of US$186,000. The reason for this is that at the end of 2007 there was a capital of US$621,000 and the DAISY Consortium, as a not-for-profit organization does not have a goal to accumulate large amounts of capital. The Consortium is going forward with its projects and financing these, in part, with the capital. The second reason is that the DAISY For All Project came to end at the end of May 2008, and the DFA staff involved in software development, have become a part of the main DAISY Consortium staff group. The most important reason is that work that has been begun must be completed. The distributed budget for 2008 contains a comprehensive list of projects and related costs. If the budget projections are correct, the capital at end of 2008 will be reduced from US$621,000 to US$436,000.
There were no questions.
RESOLUTION: That the budget for 2008 be received.
The resolution was adopted, and the budget for 2008 was received.
Hiroshi Kawamura introduced this agenda item, indicated that it was added to the General Meeting agenda at Board Meeting.
At the General Meeting each year membership fees for following year are approved. For the past three years the fees have not changed. Costs however have increased. Another important factor is the US dollar fell a great deal over the past 18 months, in respect to most currencies, more than 25%. Membership fees therefore became less expensive for most of the Consortium membership. At the Board meeting earlier this week it was determined that it would be appropriate to increase the membership fees next year.
Another related point discussed at the Board meeting is that for planning purposes for both the DAISY Consortium and its membership, and for the sustainability of the work of the DAISY Consortium, it would be useful to establish guidelines with respect to membership fees and future increases. The Board therefore proposes the following: for fees beyond 2009, a membership fee increase of 5% for Full Members, Associate Members, and Developer/Friends. For Individuals Supporters and Publishers/Advocates the fee will remain the same.
The proposed guideline is for an increase in membership fees of 5% each year, with the decision being made at the General Meeting for the following year. The decision to be made at this time is to adopt the proposed 5% increase in the membership fees for 2009, as outlined here, and to adopt the proposed guidelines for an increase in years following. The entrance fee for Full Members will remain fixed at US$30,000.
RESOLUTION: That the proposed membership fee increase of 5% for 2009, and that the guidelines for an increase in the years following, be adopted.
The resolution for 2009 membership fee increase and guidelines for an increase in years following was adopted.
Arne Kyrkjebø, representing the Norwegian DAISY Consortium, was put forth for the position of Treasurer by Hiroshi Kawamura. BH provided a brief summary, indicating the Treasurer is elected from within the Board according to the Articles of Association, and that he had been filling the position of Treasurer. BH explained that as he is not continuing his position with SBS (Swiss Library for the Blind), he would not continue on the Board representing SBS, and will not carry on as the Treasurer. A new Treasurer must therefore be elected. BH will be taking on a staff role with the DAISY Consortium.
The position of Treasurer is an important position as it represent the DAISY Consortium legally, and the Treasurer is responsible in relation to legal signature. Hiroshi Kawamura thanked Bernhard Heinser for his contribution as Treasurer, and also thanked Arne Kyrkjebø for accepting the position.
As set out in the Articles, the positions of President and Treasurer have legal responsibility. To minimize any potential risk that might arise from having the election of these two positions in the same year, it was proposed that the duration of post for the incoming Treasurer be from this point until the General Meeting in 2009; at that point Arne Kyrkjebø will be re-elected for the next four year period. This will provide a two year overlap of these two positions and there will be no potential vacancy.
Hiroshi Kawamura was pleased to present Arne Kyrkjebø for the position of Treasurer of the DAISY Consortium. The voting members accepted the proposal.
RESOLUTION: That the names of the persons serving on the DAISY Board of Directors and the Full Members which they represent are noted as follows:
The Board representative for the new Finnish DAISY Consortium will be appointed in the near future and the information conveyed to the President. The Swiss DAISY Consortium will appoint a new Board representative in the near future and will convey the information to the President. Members not present will confirm and report their Board representative as soon as possible.
There were no objections. The resolution was adopted.
Project updates in areas such as software development, the Web site and communications were provided.
The Web site continues to be upgraded; wikis and forums are being introduced. The front ends are fully accessible; it is more difficult to make the backend, where people participate, accessible. We are working close with the W3C and the Web accessibility initiative in this area. It is going well.
The DAISY Planet monthly newsletter, daily news, news feeds (RSS feeds), and the calendar of events continue to be maintained and refreshed.
A revision of the DAISY Standard is being considered and the DAISY Consortium has petitioned NISO for a revision of the standard.
Information on other projects is available in the projects area of DAISY Web site. A very brief status summary for each was provided.
Development is moving well; a full release of AMIS 3 expected in the near future. After the full release, it will be in maintenance mode. Future upgrades will be considered at a later date.
Activities will be moved largely into the revision of the DAISY Standard, which will be enhanced to improve braille production with a focus on international braille development and refreshable braille. The project within the DAISY Consortium will wind down.
DFA is a project of the DAISY Consortium that exemplifies our ongoing commitment to developing countries. Funding will be sought for advanced activities, and the project will be incorporated into the DAISY Consortium group of core projects. The Consortium is very grateful to the Nippon Foundation for the past funding that enabled us to make immense advances in developing countries. Summary meetings are scheduled for late July/early August to be held at the Nippon Foundation location.
This project is not moving forward at the present time. There are plans to move forward later this year, but much depends on upgrades to DAISY Web site.
This project is moving forward well. A specification is expected from this working group this summer, along with at least two working server-side implementations and at least two reading systems that will interact with it. Servers are at RNIB and Vision Australia. The players are from HumanWare and Plextor.
This is the DAISY Consortium's most successful project to date. Another activity planned for the Pipeline is the online Pipeline project in Norway. In France the Pipeline has been implemented in Member organizations systems.
The work of this project has concluded, the specification is complete, and the working group will be winding down. Some of the things expected for the future are recommendations for implementations, training tools, and guidelines. Funding will be sought to move MathML forward. To avoid being over extended funding has to be identified for any new project.
This project is in maintenance mode; project information is available in the projects area on the DAISY Web site. The DAISY Board has prepared a position paper that addresses use of 'protection' for content. The position paper and the Board's recommendation are on the DAISY site in the 'policies' area.
The concept of "Save As DAISY" in all applications is being promoted. Partners in other companies include ADOBE, SUN and IBM are being sought. Microsoft is moving forward with phase 2 of Microsoft "Save As DAISY". MathML will be supported; it will cover all language groups. Help is being sought in all languages to ensure the software works in all languages. George Kerscher asked that people contact him to help with this. This is a Microsoft funded project. The DAISY Consortium is being asked to assist with testing and technical consulting.
This project is operational but there is not a lot of activity. The potential however is huge. It will continue, more as an interest group, until funding is found to move it along as an active project. Some companies are moving forward with SVG, which is a W3C standard.
There are three components to this project. The SDK, a generic multimedia authoring tool for DAISY production and other types of material, has been released. It is versatile, supporting the use tools from SDK for implementation in the revision of the DAISY standard. When previous standards were released, tools to support them were not in place. When the next revision of the Standard is release, tools will be in place. Obi is an "audio-centric" authoring tool. Tobi is a multimedia authoring tool that will incorporate text.
ZedVal is regularly updated and is incorporated into the DAISY Pipeline to ensure books can be migrated from one generation of DAISY into another. The DAISY 2.02 Validator is also in the Pipeline.
All are open source activities surround the DAISY Standards; some started outside of the DAISY Consortium and have been brought into it. Participation in other standards activities will continue: W3C, IDPF, and others.
Thanks were extended to the Norwegian Library for the Blind for their contribution to DAISY Pipeline development and to RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) for their contributions to the open source Pipeline and Tobi developments. $50,000 was awarded by the Mellon Foundation to TPB (Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille) for their work with Pipeline. TPB has in turn generously given the awarded funds to the DAISY Consortium.
The DAISY Board has approved a new vision and mission statement, focusing the Consortium's strategic direction. Areas of work are divided into technical strategic directions, communication strategies, and financial/fund raising/business strategies. Over this year there will be a focus on development of these three areas which will result in an overall strategic direction that the DAISY Consortium will publish and which will guide the work of the Consortium. From these three areas will also come the three respective work plans.
Hiroshi Kawamura referenced the requirements gather for the revision of the Standard and stated that the submitted requirements are a very important resource – a wish list for future DAISY specifications. For example, the Swedish Institute of Special Education which is responsible for textbook production for all students with any disabilities, posted a request for support for motion pictures and sign language. When the strategy of the DAISY Consortium is discussed, we should look at how we are seen by potential DAISY users. Those requests reflect the wishes for the future of DAISY. It may not be possible to incorporate all requirements at once, but we need to respond step by step in our strategy.
The DAISY Consortium is preparing to submit a proposal for phase two of DFA funding from the Nippon Foundation. This foundation is moving to new direction which focuses on leaders with disabilities, and leaders who may impact the decision making of developing countries, in Asia particular. They are also interested in higher education for students who are blind or have a visual impairment.
A meeting of leaders who are blind, hosted by the Nippon Foundation, will be held July 21 – 24 in Bangkok. Hiroshi Kawamura has been invited to give a lecture on the future of ICT for persons with disabilities on July 22, demonstrating the Foundation's interest in the work of the DAISY For All Project. Monthian Buntan is also one of the key lecturers.
DAISY For All representatives from fifteen developing countries will meet in Tokyo to develop a concrete proposal for the Nippon Foundation. The report will include the progress of DFA, the outcome and future. By the next Board meeting in Amsterdam a final response from the Nippon Foundation will have been received.
The 2009 General Meeting will be held in Seoul, South Korea, on June 4, and will be hosted by the Korean Braille Library.
RESOLUTION: That the invitation to the 2009 General Meeting be accepted. The resolution was adopted.
Hiroshi Kawamura invited the General Meeting participants to provide updates of activities within their organizations or companies following lunch.
A summary of the joint IFLA/DAISY Consortium project was provided. The Steering Committee has four DAISY representatives and four IFLA/LBS representatives. It is a four year project. The DAISY Consortium has reviewed the project charter. Vision Australia has committed very strongly to this project.
The RFB&D Online service will be launched this summer. DAISY books in WMA will be available to RFB&D members this August. The files can be downloaded, moved to a computer and moved to an MP3 device. Later in the fall, RFB&D will make all of their DAISY books available online to their members as well. RFB&D has a new Web site, www.learningthroughlistening.org for parents, teachers and students specifically. It includes for example, work plans and work lessens. WMA books have navigation to page level only, they cannot be played on ipods. These books will be protected using MS protection. Members can logon and select either the DAISY version that will be sent on CD (until the fall), or they can choose to download the WMA files. To do the latter, they have to accept the license. In a music player the page numbers appears as the song title. This is more oriented to learning disability and Dyslexic groups.
This fall TPB (Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille) will make its DAISY books available for students to directly download. There will be no protection on the books. This service is currently provided to libraries and universities, but not directly to students. In autumn 2009 it will be available for any print disabled student.
In Japan people with dyslexia are not included in the copyright exception. A DAISY book with full text and audio, "the Gift of the Magi" by O'Henry, narrated by John Churchill has been produced to demonstrate the benefits of DAISY books for those with dyslexia.
An invitation to the DAISY Technical Conference which will be held September 22 and 23, 2009, in Leipzig Germany was given by Elke Dittmer. Two hundred or more participants are expected.
There will be a DAISY Board meeting in Kyoto, February 3 and 4, 2009. An invitation on behalf of the Japanese DAISY Consortium was extended by Hiroshi Kawamura to Associate Members who may attend the Board meeting as observers. An associated conference may also be held in Kyoto at that time. It was also noted that cooperation on research is required. The research will be conducted by ATDO which has just received confirmation of government funding to have international study examining the comparative use of DAISY in class rooms. Researchers will be dispatched to North America and Europe. The results will be made available in Japanese and English. The autism group will be included in the research studies. Hiroshi Kawamura informed the participants that he will send a request for help to have study visit at various DAISY Member organizations and service sites. The Japanese government will launch a new law on the availability of textbooks in alternative format in classroom.
As members of the DAISY Consortium we are working hard to make accessible content available, and also to cooperate with publishers. To do this, Dedicon along with publishers associations, are organizing a conference in Amsterdam that is focused specifically on accessible content. It will be held November 6 and 7 this year. An invitation was extended by Maarten Verboom to all present. There will be practical workshops by publishers and producers of accessible information. Information about this conference will be sent to DAISY lists. A tentative program is already prepared. Between 150 and 200 participants are expected. It is planned to have summary of the conference published.
Plextor is working on bringing their new portable DAISY player to the European market before the end of the year.
A new version of Dolphin's EaseReader that accepts DAISY XML input and also generates books "on the fly" is available. There are also upgrades for both EasyPublisher and EasyConverter from Dolphin.
Kjell Hansson thanked Bernhard for all his years of work on the Board of the DAISY Consortium, noting that Bernhard has had a great deal of affect on the structure of the Consortium and that since he took the position of Treasurer the Consortium's finances "have worked like Swiss clockwork". Kjell and Bernhard met twelve years ago in a conference room with Hiroshi Kawamura, Stephen King and Ingar Beckman Hirschfeldt. It was in that room that the DAISY Consortium was founded.
Hiroshi Kawamura officially closed the DAISY General Meeting in Oslo, giving special thanks to Øyvind Engh, Arne Kyrkjebø and the other staff at the Norwegian Library of Talking Books and Braille for hosting these meetings and the Conference.