On 1st of July 2019 the READ project will turn into a European Cooperative Society (SCE). READ-COOP will serve as the basis for sustaining and further developing the Transkribus platform and related services and tools.
READ-COOP will be based on the EU directive of a European Cooperative (SCE). Though the SCE will be set up according to EU law it will be open to members outside of the European Community as well. If you are interested in working with Transkribus on a long run – join READ-COOP and benefit from the work done by your collaborators.
One of the main reasons that we decided to go for a coop is that we want to support a “culture of collaboration” between archives/libraries, humanities scholars, computer scientists and the public (volunteers). We believe that intersectoral collaboration and full control over data are key for a successful integration of machine learning technologies into society and daily life. And an SCE delivers the best infrastructure to realize this goal.
An SCE is a legal entity which is open to new members (institutions, natural persons). Members shall benefit from an SCE directly, there is no shareholder value. Moroever SCEs are organised in a democratic way: The final say has the General Meeting.
More information can be found here: https://read.transkribus.eu/coop/