Dear Keith, Ray, and Roger,

I need your help to crunch some numbers for a National Endowment for the Humanities Scholarly Editions grant application. My goal is to get salary support, travel, and fees for imaging manuscripts.

I can include all of you, as well as Alastair, in this grant under the category of "consultants." The NEH officer says that the four of you at Lancaster can't be treated as regular project staff, because such salaries are paid or cost-shared by the sponsoring institution--and that role can only be taken by SLU. However, NEH Scholarly Editions runs into this situation of overseas collaboration all the time, and has recognized it by using the consultant category.

The project staff at SLU that I'm proposing at present, supported by a combination of grant money and institutional cost-sharing, consists of me (75% of my time), one person from Computer Science (25%), one person from the Professional Writing Program (i.e., Web Design) (25%), one research assistant (100%), and secretarial support (?%). Whether the numbers on all this will fit within the available scope of the grant depends on the other portions of the grant, especially the cost of imaging (I've got letters out to all the collections that would be involved, to get the figures).

What I can get for the four of you is travel and some consultation fees. Since I can't begin to compensate as consultation fees the time that I assume Roger, Ray, and Alastair will actually be putting into the project, we'll call much of your time "donated" and that will help the grant (though it can also inflate the budget in a way that throws off my required percentages, but we'll see if that does happen, before trying to deal with it).

So I need help arriving at credible figures and your job descriptions (and I'm asking in the form that NEH asks it):

1) How many DAYS can I say Roger, Ray, Keith, and Alastair will EACH spend ANNUALLY (see below for job descriptions)?

2) Compensation can be calculated either on the basis of some standard Louisiana scale for consultation or on your salaries (in Alastair's case, the sum or a portion of his fellowship, in so far as his time can legitimately be said to be devoted to writing a portion of the edition, and not to coursework). I'll find out what that Louisiana scale of remuneration is, but I suspect it's lower than a portion of your salaries. Can you give me salary figures and how many days that would represent, so I can calculate a DAILY RATE OF COMPENSATION, please?

3) DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES: tell me if the following is accurate, and, if not, how it needs revising. Look also, please, at how I describe the staff jobs on our side, to see if I've omitted anything (or if anything seems redundant or unnecessary):

Lancaster staff:

a) Roger--to adapt the "MPI" hypertext program to "Early MSS" along with writing any necessary code for the special demands of the new edition. To consult with the SLU staff in solving design and coding problems that arise in the course of the project.

b) Ray--(Ray, we haven't discussed this sufficiently, but see what you think) to prepare the section of the edition on the two "first sketchbooks" and Mary Richardson's sketchbook, along with discussion of any other relevant drawings (that are worth discussing and available for reproduction). (I've already done a fair amount of work on the sketchbooks, but mostly having to do with dating; there's a lot to do still with reconstructing their contents, identifying subjects, explaining the contexts of their subjects in terms of travel and drawing instruction.)

c) Alastair--to write and code the section of the edition consisting of "Poetry of Architecture." (As another student position, Dinah Birch has mentioned that she might have a student able to work on the mineralogy notes. If that pans out, the student wouldn't be ready for a couple of years, and I believe that portion of the edition could wait til then. I've done enough on those writings to provide the bibliographic information we need for now.)

d) Keith--here's the tricky one, since NEH doesn't want a whiff of supporting coursework in the application. I can give Alastair travel money as a consultant, not as a student completing coursework. Similarly, Keith, you can't be paid (or donate time) as Alastair's supervisor. But I think we can legitimately list you as an evaluator of the edition--if only of Alastair's portion of it. I would like to have you evaluate all of the edition, but I don't know how much you're willing or able to do.

SLU staff:

a) David--to finish writing the edition and assist in coding the text, and to carry out final necessary research (there will be a precise timetable for completion in the grant narrative). If I can get some time off supported by the grant, and if we move forward on devising the design and code, I think I can finish within the three-year period of the grant. Certainly would like to. Remember, unlike the "MPI" project, all the materials have already been gathered, and half the edition has already been written.

b) My research assistant--to do routine coding; keyboard text; minor research tasks.

c) Our person in Computer Science--in consultation with Roger, to deal with day-to-day programming troubleshooting and coding problems.

d) Our person in Professional Writing--actually, to supervise the students (aside from my own research assistant) who will do very minor, but necessary work on the edition as course assignments. But while that feature of the project is attractive to my department, it's anathema to NEH, which won't support coursework and won't accept it as cost-sharing (unless students are paid specifically to do work on the edition). So instead, I have to say the Professional Writing instructor will be responsible for day-to-day web design troubleshooting and coding problems. It may end up that this position looks too redundant with that in Computer Science; however, if we decide we must work in XML, and if we intend to comply with TEI guidelines, then we'll need someone conversant in that, and I don't know that the Computer Science person will be interested in dealing with that; the Professional Writing person would be better for that. I'll learn XML, but I don't know that I'm capable of learning XML/TEI. (Roger, what do you think about this issue?)

e) Secretarial work.

4) TRAVEL is easy (relatively) since those costs are fixed by Louisiana state policy. But I do need to know how many times each of you would come over in the three-year term:

--Roger, should we budget once a year? twice a year? how often do you think necessary?
--Ray, you'd need to see the portions of the sketchbook at the Morgan, and the drawings that form part of the major early mss at Yale. I don't know how often you'd need to come to Louisiana--once? more?
--Alastair, I've worked it out with him that we'd get him over to visit the Morgan and Yale and give a presentation with me at STS, probably in spring 2004.
--Keith, I hate to leave you behind like a stray puppy, but is there specific work for you to do here?

Roger, this grant period would start in July 2003. I should be able to get you here before then on university money, but I don't want to put you to the trouble prematurely. On the other hand, I need to stake a claim early on travel money fairly early. I suppose it will make sense for you to come when we find that we can deal with design issues only so far at long distance, which means it wouldn't make sense for you to come earlier than the spring, you think?

AFTER Y'ALL HAVE HAD A CHANCE TO THINK THIS OVER, SINGLY OR COLLECTIVELY, CAN I GIVE EACH OF YOU, OR A REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL OF YOU, A PHONE CALL AT THE END OF THIS WEEK?

Keith, do you want to see a draft of the narrative before the grant is submitted.

I think that's all. Except, Keith, remember that I'd like to see the Leverhulme materials.

best,
David