«Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle»
(Jacques Prévert)

1. Preliminaries of Humanities

• academic research in public institutions (universities, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, academies of sciences)
• largely financed by public funds (e.g. DFG)
• carried out in temporary projects (from birth to death)
• Verba Alpina = protypical example (funded by the DFG for 9 years)

2. The legacy of VerbaAlpina

2.1. A "cosmos"

• 9 years of data collection, data analysis, reflection, documentation, programming
• legacy (almost) totally digital, no paper
• Physical amount:
  • structured data in  database (latest VA-DB-Version: 2,5 GB; 24 project DBs, including 16 version DBs ["VA_"], 37 partner DBs ["PVA_"]),
  • 413 GB internal documents on fileserver (over 500.000 files!),
  • 44,2 GB  (another 145.069) files on webserver (including media files, e.g. fotos of concepts)
• What kind of data was created?
  • language data collection,
  • analytic texts/presentations
  • development of manifold online tools (partially for internal use: Transcription tool, typecasting tool; external: crowdsourcing tool, online map, methodology, LexiconAlpinum ...)
  • internal documents (e.g. protocols of weekly meetings, documenting project progress and explaining decisions --> important)
• Existence of numerous and manifold explicit and implicit connections between single elements of whole data stock ⇒ existence of whole "cosmos"

2.2. Issue stability

• "cosmos" ideally should remain stable in state at end of project
• Special case webportal: full functionality only in existing technical environment (File-, database- and webservers)
• In general: Webportal should (also) remain stable and accessible because of existing interlinkage from third party
• constant technical degrading process inevitable (updates of surrounding software frameworks require updating of VerbaAlpina code; external resources changed or vanished [e.g. recently: Stamen map tiles]; vanishing links)
• DOI no real solution as it still requires existence of functioning website
• container solutions (e.g. Docker) also *no* solution (mainly because of external dependencies, but also for security reasons)
• pace and severeness of degrading process not predictable (ITG will always try to provide quick fixes if resources available)
• For now, technical environment will be maintained and kept alive by ITG
• Measures taken at end of project in order to reduce effort:
  • Partial deactivation of Crowdsourcing Tool and of
  • social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram)
  • Creation of last VerbaAlpina version (23/2). System possibly put to read only mode

2.3. Measures taken

• Problem: Possible disappearence of institution responsible for hosting of data (= currently ITG - What happens if ITG vanishes?)
• Maintenance and keeping alive costs MONEY. Not provided by third party funding.
• Solution: transfer of responsibility to another institution - But: Which? Available resources for hosting and maintenance indispensable. Very important: TRUST mainly regarding stability/longevity!
• Options: Zenodo, Clariah-DE, NFDI? ... Hard to get overview, no compulsory rules, no standardized procedures
• Our choice (a very good one!): University library - BUT: Library can not fully substitute ITG (regarding hosting of current system)
• Therefore: Transfer of core data to repository at library ("UB Discover"). "Static" format that requires no or minimal maintenance (no "living" components, e.g. functioning online map)
• What are "core" data? Our choice:
  • structured language data ⇒ University library
  • semistrucured discursive elements (mainly articles in methodology and LexiconAlpinum; additionaly selected articles published on webserver) ⇒ University library
  • Program code ⇒ github
• Additionally: detailed documentation and description of data, methods and processes as well as functionality of developped website/tools/code
• Hope: future developers will be able to rebuild and maybe further develop tools and/or features of VerbaAlpina web developments.

Overview over selected "items" and their respective persistence perspective:

⇒ a schematic sketch of this change in chap. 2, 3 and a strategic proposition in chap. 4

3. Publishing of public research in Gutenberg Galaxy

• format of traditional publication: printed books, artikels
• publishers were needed for technical reasons (production, distribution) 

4. New horizon of publishing in www

• publishers are no longer needed ⇒ independence of research publishing from private business (see Krefeld 2023b)
• new formats of publication (platforms, not only results also work in progress) 
• new licences (CC BY-SA instead of ©) 
• new solutions for research data management (already working, see VerbaAlpina and LMU Library; cf. Kümmet u.a. 2018a, Krefeld 2022e)
  • • but: outcome of a special and longlasting collaboration, also in other projects (cf. fdm)

5. Purpose beyond VerbaAlpina: a mutual commitment by default

• a sort of an inheritance contract ensuring that the results of publicly funded research are available to the scientific community even after the death of the project
  • • • • languages - and dialects - belong to the intangible cultural heritage
        • as well the research traditions in which they are documented (e.g. lexicography, dialect atlases)

• funding = base of web publishing and permanent FAIR accessibility
• web publishing = condition of funding and permanent FAIR accessibility
• permanent FAIR accessibility = justification of funding and web publishing 

6. A possible initiative...

... for all of us who agree with the outlined commitment

• the organisers will write an open letter to be sent to the national funding bodies and to the ERC
• signed by the participants of our meeting who agree (and forewarded to other collegues?)