Go to EULER Home
All About EULER 
 EULER-TAKEUP Report on Sustainable Service and Business Model

EULER-TAKEUP Project
Supported by the IST Programme of the European Community
Project Number IST-2000-29445

EULER-TAKEUP

Report on Sustainable Service and Business Model


Michael Jost

November 28, 2002

Version 1.2

EULER-TAKEUP Project Deliverable
Project Name: EULER-TAKEUP Project 
Project Acronym: EULER-TAKEUP 
Project Number: IST-2000-29445 
Deliverable Title: EULER-TAKEUP - Report on sustainable service and business model

Deliverable Number: D2
Version Number: 1.2
Date: 28 November 2002
Principal Author: Michael Jost
Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe
Zentralblatt MATH
E-mail: jo@zblmath.fiz-karlsruhe.de
Tel: (49)(30) 399 93 40
Fax: (49)(30) 392 70 09
Other Authors:
Ay-ling Ong (CWI),
Wouter Mettrop (CWI),
Dick Broekhuis (CWI),
Valdo Pasqui (UNIFI),
Michael Derr (FIZ)
Deliverable Kind: Report
Deliverable Type: Public/Restricted
Abstract: This report documents the work done in Work Package 2 of the EULER-TAKEUP project. The Work Package was carried out in order to define the EULER Business Model, based on user requirements and technological environment studies (Work Package 1 of the project) and supplier business cases, which were investigated. Based on this, a model for future, sustainable operation of the EULER services was developed.

The report starts with an Executive Summary, which is intended to be published e.g. in the form of  short announcements. The following section gives an overview of the analysis carried out in order to finally reach an agreement on the future EULER business model.
This model is then presented in detail in the remaining sections.

The report is divided into a public part which explains the general level of the business model to the public and states e.g. the conditions for new partners, and a restricted annex, available to the consortium and selected others, which focuses on the internal operations of the service. Material in the annex also document the research on options that have been discussed but were not chosen, and other topics that deal with possible future developments, that are currently not considered to be of public interest.


Note: This is the public portion of the Deliverable
.


Table of Contents

Abstract
Executive Summary
1. Introduction
2. Mission Statement and Guiding Principles
3. Organizational Framework
4. Financial Issues
5. Technological Issues
Annexes
Annex 1: Statutes for the "EULER Consortium e.V."
Annex 2: Memorandum of understanding regarding EDBM rights
Annex 3: Advertising regulations
Annex 4: EULER Data Delivery/Update Specifications, Model Agreement (centralized model) 
Annex 5: Options for metadata provision from Zentralblatt MATH to EULER
Annex 6: Legal forms and the VAT issue for the EULER service

Abstract

This report documents the work done in Work Package 2 of the EULER-TAKEUP project. The Work Package was carried out in order to define the EULER Business Model, based on user requirements and technological environment studies (Work Package 1 of the project) and supplier business cases, which were investigated. Based on this, a model for future, sustainable operation of the EULER services was developed.

The report starts with an Executive Summary, which is intended to be published e.g. in the form of  short announcements. The following section gives an overview of the analysis carried out in order to finally reach an agreement on the future EULER business model.
This model is then presented in detail in the remaining sections.

The report is divided into a public part which explains the general level of the business model to the public and states e.g. the conditions for new partners, and a restricted annex, available to the consortium and selected others, which focuses on the internal operations of the service. Material in the annex also document the research on options that have been discussed but were not chosen, and other topics that deal with possible future developments, that are currently not considered to be of public interest.

Executive Summary

EULER is a European based world class real virtual library for mathematics with up-to-date technological solutions, a sound sustainable business model, well accepted by users.

In particular, EULER provides a world reference and delivery service, transparent to the end user and offering full coverage of the mathematics literature world-wide, including bibliographic data, peer reviews and/or abstracts, indexing, classification and search, transparent access to library services, co-operating with commercial information providers (publishers, bookstores).

The EULER services provide a gateway to the electronic catalogues and repositories of participating institutions, while the latter retain complete responsibility and control over the creation and maintenance of their data collections as well as the access provisions pertaining to their offerings.

The EULER Consortium is a registered incorporated society (association), according to German law.

The EULER Consortium consists of full members and associate members. Only not-for-profit institutions can become full or associate members. In addition the Consortium recognizes another category: commercial parties may join as sponsoring members.

Full members consist of the current EULER participants and new members who are prepared to contribute actively to the Consortium.

Associate members
participate as information providers only. They provide metadata and regular updates of their data according to Dublin Core based EULER specifications.

Commercial partners (sponsoring members) are participants who contribute their metadata according to Dublin Core based EULER specifications and for which a higher financial contribution is required - they cannot be full members. 

The Consortium acts through its members to ensure the continuation of the EULER services. Members are required to provide metadata and regular (at least monthly) updates of their databases according to Dublin Core based EULER specifications. The necessary scripts for the conversion are the responsibility of the member. The Consortium can provide initial and basic technical advice. Co-ordinating tasks as well as technical and administrative tasks will be carried out by the Executive Committee. As necessary such tasks can be distributed among the full members. A Scientific Supervisory Board consisting of the European Mathematical Society (EMS), their appointed representatives, and other suitably qualified and recognized members is responsible to ensure the scientific quality of the EULER service, and advises the Executive Committee on scientific matters. The European Mathematical Society (EMS) represents the interests of the mathematical community for which the EULER service is made. The EULER services will remain under control of organizations representing the public interest.

The EULER Consortium will need income to provide the management, administrative and technical service to negotiate and sign contracts with new members and commercial partners. The Consortium determines the estimated income needed to keep the service running, and - if possible - to compensate the not-for-profit information providers.

Information provider expenses consist mainly of efforts to provide conversion tools for the metadata (one-time costs), the EULER engine and server, regular updating of data and end-user support. In principle the provider should carry the financial consequences.

Commercial partners will need comparable investments as other members. However, they will have the added value of PR and marketing means to a target audience. Therefore, they are required to contribute financially. In providing links to paid document delivery (pay-per-view from the sites of publishers, purchase of monographs, photocopy ordering from library members) as well as free document retrieval (e.g. full-text technical reports), the EULER service can be considered an information broker between the mathematical community and information providers. This fact should make it attractive to producers or vendors of mathematical publications and information to advertise through EULER for a target audience. Besides the normal inclusion of full metadata sets into the EULER databases, also a special targeted advertising programme is available.

Several initiatives are currently globally underway to establish a comprehensive Digital Mathematics Library, consisting of scanned images of the whole corpus of historical works, and genuine electronic publications in mathematics. The European Mathematical Society has expressed its interest in contributing to such a development, co-ordinate European activities, and liaise with other global partners. Several of the original partners of the EULER initiative are involved in these and similar activities. Concrete examples of initiatives are
a) the ERAM project which builds a collection of scanned material based on the "Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik" (1868-1942), and
b) the EMANI initiative which includes key players from Europe, the US (Cornell), and China (Tsinghua University).
Results so far are promising, e.g. the ERAM database covers now about 150.000 publications, with a big portion linked online to the archive of scanned works (fulltext archive) at SUB Göttingen. It  is already now available in EULER.
Research funding agencies world-wide seem to be interested in these developments, which makes it probable that the idea of a global Digital Mathematics Library will eventually be implemented. (See also the article of the executive director of the American Mathematical Society: John Ewing: Twenty Centuries of Mathematics: Digitizing and Disseminating the Past Mathematical Literature, Notices AMS, Aug 2002, 49(7), 771-777). In such an environment, where several partners would on a global scale work on such a distributed scanning and preservation project, a powerful end-user discovery tool will be needed that works independently from local specialities and formats, is capable of integrated homogeneous retrieval of heterogeneous distributed sources, and is scalable to cope with the amounts of data that are to be expected. EULER has proven that its model is an optimal choice for such a discovery system. Only few adaptations seem to be necessary.

Currently, EULER is in possession of two different technical options that are ready to run the EULER services:

 - A decentral model, consisting of special Z39.50 servers running at distributed sites, with a central search engine and user interface,
 - A central model independent of Z39.50, which has metadata repositories and user interface at a single place.

Both models are adequate to run the EULER services, however, they have specific advantages and disadvantages. For future developments, it is planned to work on a service model that combines the advantages of both systems while eliminating their drawbacks.


1. Introduction

Based on usability evaluations from the previous EULER project and other related user requirement studies (also feedback from participating partners), the user requirements were compared to technological options. This has led to a clear picture of requirements for systems and software adaptations.

The final choice of technological environments was made based on objective criteria such as final results of usability evaluations of the prototype software, organizational requirements, science policy constraints, and cost/benefit analysis. A plan for software and systems adaptations was specified (according to user needs and potential technical solutions), and carried out. Potential technical frameworks and limits were evaluated on a technical level.

The relevant work is documented in the Work Package 1 report of the project.

An investigation of supplier business cases was carried out, in conjunction with the main goals of the project:

EULER runs a digital library in mathematics from existing heterogeneous sources. When the projects started - but still today - there was a rapid increase in the number of networked resources with information on scientific results and ongoing developments in the field of mathematics. The user had to switch between a growing number of systems with heterogeneous user interfaces: These resource types are considered to be the most frequently used when conducting searches for scientific results. They are rarely interconnected and users have to search them one by one. The aim of the EULER project was to offer a one-stop-shopping site for users interested in mathematics. One single integrated networked based access point has been developed, covering a representative collection of the mentioned publications-related information resources in mathematics. A common user interface, available on the World Wide Web, allows homogeneous access to all integrated information types. The interface was developed in close co-operation with the mathematical user community, and is based on latest usability standards. Only one search is necessary to generate a broad range of (mixed) hits, irrespective of resource type and information provider - presented in a user-friendly way. The EULER services were developed starting with selected important information sources from the consortium partners. The goal was to design an open architecture. New sources of data from other information providers and libraries can be added easily.
The integration approach makes use of common resource descriptions based on the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES). The integration approach takes into consideration the requirements of the user community and the different information providers. Participating institutions are still autonomous in deciding on their scientific and organizational policies, while at the same time providing a common access strategy to their information services. The foremost requirement to achieve such an aim was to choose and apply suitable standards, formats, software, and protocols.

As the main results from the EULER projects, today we can rely upon the very successful search software and other achievements, together with a good knowledge of user needs, and a set of guiding principles for a sustainable service implementation and business model. 

These initial considerations have led to the following list of topics that were then considered to be of primary relevance for the EULER business model. In order to define the EULER business model, it is necessary to clarify, describe and define the following items:
The following sections describe the relevant topics in detail, one by one.


2. Mission Statement and Guiding Principles

EULER is a European based world class real virtual library for mathematics with up-to-date technological solutions, a sound sustainable business model, well accepted by users.

In particular, EULER provides a world reference and delivery service, transparent to the end user and offering full coverage of the mathematics literature world-wide, including bibliographic data, peer reviews and/or abstracts, indexing, classification and search, transparent access to library services, co-operating with commercial information providers (publishers, bookstores).

The EULER services provide a gateway to the electronic catalogues and repositories of participating institutions, while the latter retain complete responsibility and control over the creation and maintenance of their data collections as well as the access provisions pertaining to their offerings. In as far as the EULER service indexes or stores metadata records of its participants, these data are used strictly in accordance to the stated aims.

Based on the achievements of the two successfully completed EULER projects, the EULER Consortium works to achieve the following  goals:

The European Mathematical Society (EMS) represents the interests of the mathematical community for which the EULER service is made. The EULER services will remain under control of organizations representing the public interest.

3. Organizational Framework

This section focuses on the three organizational aspects:

Membership

The EULER Consortium consists of full members and associate members. Only not-for-profit institutions can become full or associate members. In addition the Consortium recognizes another category: commercial parties may join as sponsoring members. New members will be subject to approval by the European Mathematical Society and the EULER Executive Committee.

Associate members participate as information providers only. They provide metadata and regular updates of their data according to Dublin Core based EULER specifications. For libraries with OPACs it is highly recommended that they provide document delivery services, at least within their national boundaries.

Full members consist of the current EULER participants and new members who are prepared to contribute actively to the Consortium. In addition to the conditions required from associate members, they are also required to be actively involved in the EULER Consortium by appointing a representative who takes part in meetings and (electronic) discussions. Contributions with regard to technical support and know-how are welcome.

Commercial partners (sponsoring members) are participants who contribute their metadata according to Dublin Core based EULER specifications and for which a financial contribution is required, based on an agreement with the Consortium - they cannot be full members.

Contrary to commercial partners, not-for-profit members are institutions whose main objective is to provide or sell information but where notions like profit and shareholders value are not their main concern. Examples of such members are academic/research institutions and societies. Examples of commercial partners are for-profit publishers and book vendors.

FIZ Karlsruhe (Zentralblatt MATH) is a not-for-profit full member. However, they need to generate income for their service. Complete information will be provided to paid subscribers. Only limited data will be made available to non-subscribers. The relevant regulations are described in detail in Annex 5.

During the EULER-TAKEUP project, several institutions and commercial partners were contacted as potential new members, and informed on general aims and conditions. The project consortium has received several positive reactions following these requests, and further sucessful development can be expected.

Tasks of  Members

The Consortium acts through its members to ensure the continuation of the EULER service. It also performs the supervision and administrative tasks with regard to the addition of new members.

The tasks of the Consortium members consist of the following:
Co-ordinating tasks as well as technical and administrative tasks will be carried out by the Executive Committee. As necessary such tasks can be distributed among the full members. Specifically, the following tasks will be handled:
A Scientific Supervisory Board is installed:
Members are required to provide metadata and regular (at least monthly) updates of their databases according to Dublin Core based EULER specifications. The necessary scripts for the conversion are the responsibility of the member. The Consortium can provide initial and basic technical advice. The interfaces for requesting document delivery, pay-per-view of a full-text article or ordering a publication, including the rates, are the sole responsibility of the information provider. If a member does not have the means to provide the required programs or scripts, the Consortium can provide the necessary technical support against a fee per hour. At the discretion of the Consortium, such a fee may be waived.

Data provision and update procedures might need further specific agreements between the Consortium, the service provider(s) concerned, and the information provider, depending on special cases and needs. Model agreements and technical procedures are given in Appendix 5.

Legal Structure

The legal structure that was chosen for the EULER Consortium is that of an incorporated society (association), according to German law ("eingetragener Verein"). The draft statutes for the Consortium are included as Annex 1.

This decision was made after investigation of several options, in order to be able to decide on the basis of advantages and disadvantages, and consequences with regard to the organization and related issues (e.g. taxation).

The following options were studied in detail (the relevant detailed findings are presented in Annex 6). It turned out that the model of a foundation is not possible, especially because a foundation cannot have members. It can have affiliates and contributors. However, as soon as affiliates and/or contributors have some authority, e.g. influence on the Executive Director/Board, they can be regarded as members and the legal form of a foundation is not allowed. This is in contradiction to the aims and requirements stated above.

The objective of a co-operative association/society is for-profit. This is in contradiction to the stated aims. This legal entity includes also more liability for each member. Also ex-members remain liable during at least one year after a membership has been discontinued.

After comparing the remaining legal forms (Society/Association, EEIG) in more detail, the following observation were made:

Society/Association:
EEIG:
Both legal forms were seen as adequate forms for EULER. The final choice was made on the basis of ad-hoc criteria: The current Consortium members have seen it as less problematic to establish an association than to establish an EEIG, given certain organizational constraints internal to the current Consortium. Also, the question of unlimited liability was seen as problematic (although probably solvable).

During later stages, depending on the development of the EULER Consortium, a conversion into a different legal form might not be excluded. These possibilities, however, are not a point of the current agenda.

4. Financial Issues

The EULER Consortium will need income to provide the management, administrative and technical service to negotiate and sign contracts with new members and commercial partners. The Consortium determines the estimated income needed to keep the service running, and - if possible - to compensate the not-for-profit information providers.

Information provider expenses consist mainly of efforts to provide conversion tools for the metadata (one-time costs), the EULER engine and server, regular updating of data and end-user support. In principle the provider should carry the financial consequences.

Commercial partners will need comparable investments as other members. However, they will have the added value of PR and marketing means to a target audience. Therefore, they are required to contribute financially.

Depending on the technological options that will actually be used, a business plan will be made.

The following is a list of basic income/expenditures categories, that are seen relevant to EULER:

Income:

Membership fees
Members are requested to pay a (one-time) entry fee to join EULER. This is a fixed fee to cover the initial administrative and technical support costs.

An annual fee will be levied; it depends on the type of membership (full, associate, sponsoring) and may further be differentiated according to the size of the metadata of products to be included, and other criteria.

Funding
Funding (grants, gifts etc.) from other sources (e.g. mathematical societies, DFG etc.), should be sought after

Consultations
Basic technical advice concerning EULER specifications will be given to new members in any case. If required, advanced technical support can be provided at a fee: As already mentioned above, the interfaces for requesting document delivery, pay-per-view of a full-text article or ordering a publication, including the rates, are the sole responsibility of the information provider. If a member does not have the means to provide the required programs or scripts, the Consortium can provide the necessary technical support against a fee per hour.

Other paid consultations to third parties in the area of networked scientific information systems is another source of income.

Web sponsoring (advertising)
In providing links to paid document delivery (pay-per-view from the sites of publishers, purchase of monographs, photocopy ordering from library members) as well as free document retrieval (e.g. full-text technical reports), the EULER service can be considered an information broker between the mathematical community and information providers. This fact should make it attractive to producers or vendors of mathematical publications and information to advertise through EULER for a target audience. Besides the normal inclusion of full metadata sets into the EULER databases, also a special targeted advertising programme is available:

No more than one Targeted Sponsored Link appears at the top of EULER result lists. They are displayed whenever the keywords or phrases that an advertising partner has opted for are searched for by one of the users of EULER. It is not necessary to be a (full or associate) member of the EULER Consortium in order to be an advertiser with Targeted Sponsored Links in EULER. Advertising with EULER is always targeted. Sponsored links displayed by EULER are always related to the user query. This principle avoids random advertising that is not related to the users interest, and therefore prevents "banner blindness", leading to higher impact of advertising campaigns. With Targeted Sponsored Links, advertising partners pay for an option to get their ad displayed at the top of the EULER result list whenever the keywords or phrases that an advertising partner has opted for are searched for by one of the users of EULER. Fees for advertising consist of a one-time installation fee and a monthly fee based on the duration of the ad campaign.
See Annex 3 for a more detailed description of Targeted Sponsored Links, and also below (section "Future Directions") on additional sponsoring models that may be investigated in the future. A commission from commercial partners whenever a paid transaction has been completed is considered too ambitious at this stage, but will be an option for the future.

Support for non-commercial publishers: The Consortium shall provide reduced rate, or even free advertising to non-commercial publishers, i.e. publishers that publish low-priced publications, e.g. societies, some university presses, and to journal titles that are part of the SPARC partner project. Free advertising on a journal title level (not article level) can be provided for electronic journals that are free on the Internet. A flexible pricing scheme will be used.

Other income
Other income consists e.g. of registration fees for scientific conferences and workshops organized by EULER.

Expenses:

Computers, software, network connectivity
This cost category comprises costs for computer servers and network equipment to run the EULER services, costs to acquire commercial software licenses if needed, and costs related to network connectivity such as Domain Name Services (DNS) and IP-connectivity providers.

Consultants
The Consortium may hire external consultants to carry out tasks that go beyond the normal activities of members.

Other expenses
Other expenses consists e.g. of costs for scientific conferences and workshops organized by EULER, of taxes, and of overhead costs related with the administrative tasks of the Consortium.

Taxation

Special efforts have been undertaken in order to understand the consequences of VAT and other taxation regulations for EULER. These issues are mostly independent of the legal form.

Taxation of collective earnings
Taxation of collective earnings (this excludes income from membership fees, donations, and funding grants) will happen in any case, the tax rate may be lower if the Consortium is recognized as non-profit by the tax office in charge.

VAT issues

VAT is a fairly complicated matter and the Consortium should consult a local specialist in the country where the bureau (or executive office) is located. The following is a summary of knowledge obtained so far. See also Annex 6 for a more detailed description.

In principle every legal entity has to worry about VAT as soon as it sells something (goods, services etc.) on a regular basis, whether it is a foundation, association, company or a natural person. It has to pay VAT for the goods (computers, software, paper, pencils etc.) that it purchases and the services (consultation fees etc.) that it requires. It is also required to add VAT to the invoices that it issues, e.g. consultation fees etc. - in fact it collects VAT charges for the government which have to be passed on to the tax office.

Since the VAT laws are based on the EU Sixth VAT Directive, they are the same in all EU countries, except for the amounts and percentages. The VAT percentages and (taxation) laws of the EU country where the official executive office of EULER is located is applicable.

Some activities are VAT exempt. These activities would normally be considered as subject to VAT but they have been declared exempt for special reasons. These fall within specific categories which are covered exhaustively in Sixth VAT directive, Article 13.

Specifically, some transactions like e.g. membership fees are not subject to VAT; they are not within the scope of VAT.

A legal body can be considered VAT exempt if the tax office regards it as a legal entity that does not take part in active economic life, which is often the case with the average association etc. It does pay VAT for purchases but does not need to collect VAT. It seems to be another thing if the association also provides consultations against a fee.

One can also avoid becoming a VAT collector by keeping income and expenditure in balance. The only thing that matters is the net difference between the VAT that is collected and the VAT that is paid. If the result of such a subtraction is currently less than EUR 1345 per year one does not have to pass on the VAT to the tax office. If one expect the difference to be less than EUR 1883 per year one can request to be VAT exempt (situation in The Netherlands).

If the legal body has been considered VAT exempt, it needs no longer charge VAT on invoices. However, every two years it will be required to prove that it still fulfils the requirements to remain exempt. Besides, as soon as it is expected that the situation to change it has to take the initiative to report this to the tax office.

If a legal body does both activities: purchasing goods and services and selling these and it is not regarded as VAT exempt, it will be considered an enterprise according to the VAT directive, even if the legal status is an association or any other non-profit entity. It will be assigned a VAT number. It has to charge VAT on invoices. It may then request a refund of the VAT charges that have been paid - usually it is computed against the VAT charges that have been collected. When an invoice from abroad, but within the EU (only for goods), is expected, it has to inform the foreign company that it has a VAT number and they will not charge VAT.

Consultation fees are subject to VAT. It is a complicated matter especially if it involves legal entities from different countries within or outside the EU. The basic principle is that services are assumed to have been carried out from the consultant's office (in any EU country), which means that the VAT laws of the country of its location apply. However, there are some exceptions, which can be interesting in some cases for customers to avoid being charged VAT on the invoices. One of the exceptions is in the case of the delivery of information services or hiring of personnel.

Rule: if these services are assumed to have been carried out at the location of the customer, the consultant does not charge VAT if the customer is an EU enterprise with a VAT number, or if the customer is a non- EU institution. This situation may regularly be the case with EULER.

A few hypothetical cases:

Consultant is located in Germany (or any other EU country) and works for a university library in Portugal (also an EU country). The university library is VAT exempt. The consultant or its employer has to charge VAT on its invoice and to pass on the collected VAT to the tax office in Germany.

Consultant is located in Germany (or any other EU country) and works for CWI in the Netherlands (also an EU country). The CWI is not VAT exempt and has a VAT number. The consultant or its employer does not charge VAT on its invoice. The CWI has to settle the matter with the tax office in the Netherlands (CWI charges VAT on the invoice but gets it back as a tax return).

Consultant is located in Germany (or any other EU country) and works for the Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (not an EU country). The consultant or its employer does not charge VAT on its invoice.

In cases 2 and 3 it is important that proper contracts were drawn to prove that services rendered have taken place in the locations of the customers. Expert help will be needed in preparing the proper contracts, which can be used when dealing with such customers as to avoid problems in the future.

Based on a hypothetical centralized EULER service, we assume that the situation would be as follows:

Income:
 - membership fees (not subject to VAT)
 - funding (not subject to VAT)
 - consultations (subject to VAT)
 - web sponsoring (subject to VAT)

Expenses:
 - computers, servers, software (subject to VAT)
 - consultants (subject to VAT)
 - hiring personnel (subject to VAT), assuming that EULER is not going to employ its own staff.

We assume that the income and expenses are more or less in balance. We see that a substantial part of the expected income components are not subject to VAT whereas all the expense components are subject to VAT. Based on this it means that EULER would be paying more VAT than collecting VAT. Therefore, it would be best if EULER would be considered an enterprise with a VAT number. All the paid VAT charges (for the expenses) will be refunded and computed against the lesser collected VAT - this would mean extra income.

Other tax types
Other tax types such as real estate tax, real estate transfer tax, motor vehicle tax, capital yields tax, and others are currently not seen as relevant for the EULER Consortium.

Accountancy

All legal entities must conduct the accounting in a proper way, and ensure that all taxation issues are covered. Data must be kept available for at least 7 years. After a legal entity has been dissolved for whatever reason, the accounting and other data must be kept available during 10 years. The keeper of this data must be registered in the proper registry so that any party concerned or their legal heirs can request the court for permission to have a look in those data.

5. Technological Issues

Status quo

Currently, EULER is in possession of two different technical options that are ready to run the EULER services:
 - A decentral model, consisting of special Z39.50 servers running at distributed sites, with a central search engine and user interface,
 - A central model independent of Z39.50, which has metadata repositories and user interface at a single place.

Both models are adequate to run the EULER services, however, they have specific advantages and disadvantages:

Decentral model

Central model
To overcome difficulties with the need to transfer metadata to a third party (the EULER service provider) in the central model, a model agreement has been drafted in order to prevent abuse of these data. See Annex 4 for the model agreement.

Another solution to the problem that information providers have to implement and manage a special Z39.50 server could be an intermediate service (provider) which collects data and hosts a Z39.50 server for some information providers.

Note that the "hook" mentioned above would - besides its benefits - also imply extra efforts in data conversion which would have to take place at the central engine site.

For future developments, it is planned to build a service model that combines the advantages of both systems while eliminating their drawbacks. See also below.

Software licenses

Decentral model
In this model, the EULER engine and user interface software is freely available as a result of the previous EULER project. However the Z39.50 server software which runs at the distributed sites of information providers (Zebra from IndexData), is freely available only for non-commercial applications. The version used in EULER is not maintained anymore. The compatible successor seems freely available for non-commercial applications, but just up to a certain size of data (which is generally too low for EULER information providers). Other applications would need a commercial license for a fee, a fact that might be disturbing  for commercial partners or providers of huge data sets.

Central model
Only freely available software is used in this model (Zope, Python, EDBM), however, EDBM usage requires a memorandum of understanding with the creators and copyright holders of this software, the Cellule de Coordination Documentaire Nationale pour les Mathematiques (Cellule MathDoc), Grenoble, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Ministere de l'Education Nationale, de la Recherche et de la Technologie (M'ENRT) and the Universit´e Joseph Fourier, Grenoble. For the lifetime of the EULER-TAKEUP project, such an agreement was signed (see Annex 2). A continuation of this agreement, between the copyright holders and the future legal body that represents EULER is already foreseen in this agreement, and can probably be made through addenda to the present agreement. No special difficulties are to be expected here, also since Cellule MathDoc was project partner in the previous EULER project, and has other close cooperations with current EULER Consortium members.

Future directions

It is obvious, given the rapid development in the area of Internet services, that a continuous adaptation of the service offers will be necessary.

New opportunities in the landscape of scientific information services
Several initiatives are currently globally underway to establish a comprehensive Digital Mathematics Library, consisting of scanned images of the whole corpus of historical works, and genuine electronic publications in mathematics. The European Mathematical Society has expressed its interest in contributing to such a development, co-ordinate European activities, and liaise with other global partners. Several of the original partners of the former EULER project are involved in these and similar activities. Concrete examples of initiatives are
a) the ERAM project which builds a collection of scanned material based on the "Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik" (1868-1942), and
b) the EMANI initiative which includes key players from Europe, the US (Cornell), and China (Tsinghua University).
Results so far are promising, e.g. the ERAM database covers now about 150.000 publications, with a big portion linked online to the archive of scanned works (fulltext archive) at SUB Göttingen. The ERAM database contents is already now available in EULER.
Research funding agencies world-wide seem to be interested in these developments, which makes it probable that the idea of a global Digital Mathematics Library will eventually be implemented. (See also the article of the executive director of the American Mathematical Society: John Ewing: Twenty Centuries of Mathematics: Digitizing and Disseminating the Past Mathematical Literature, Notices AMS, Aug 2002, 49(7), 771-777). In such an environment, where several partners would on a global scale work on such a distributed scanning and preservation project, a powerful end-user discovery tool would be needed that works independently from local specialities and formats, is capable of integrated homogeneous retrieval of heterogeneous distributed sources, and is scalable to cope with the amounts of data that are to be expected. EULER has proven that its model is an optimal choice for such a discovery system. Only few adaptations seem to be necessary.

Changing user demands
As the Internet develops, and the usage basis of the Internet broadens, expectations of users change. The EULER services will have to be adapted to new expectations.

New technological options
The rapid development of new technology which offers potential for better EULER services will be closely observed. A choice of such options that are currently seen as interesting is given in the remainder of this section. Especially, any options that will lead towards an harmonization of the central and decentral EULER service model will be closely studied, and applied if beneficial.

OAI Metadata Harvesting Protocol

It is agreed that the EULER service will support the OAI protocol, meaning that EULER information providers can be requested or stimulated to be OAI compliant, which can also be useful for a wider availability of data. Consequently, the EULER service will be updated by means of OAI harvesting. This would eliminate the need to provide conversion scripts. This would also mean that any other OAI service provider will be able to harvest the metadata of any EULER information provider, who is OAI compliant. However, EULER information providers can opt for the restricted OAI protocol, to be used among the closed EULER community only.

It is not very likely that commercial partners will be OAI compliant in the near future. The same is true for some potential members. For them, conversion scripts will still be necessary.

OpenURL Support
The idea here is to add "intelligent" links coded according to the OpenURL standard and implement a Link service (based on SFX server specifications) in order to present "context " sensitive references to users and to redirect them to the appropriate copy of documents.

Alternative advertising models: Sponsoring Mathematical Classification Codes
It might be desirable to have main MSC codes sponsored; e.g. 03, 05 etc. The 68 code should be divided into the 8 subgroups: 68M, 68N etc. Code 65 should also be subdivided. The codes that were primarily assigned should be taken into account and these codes will activate the advertisement of the sponsor.

Prior to the negotiations, the Consortium should set a differentiated sponsoring fee for the codes according to the total number of hits generated from the database. There are approximately 70 codes that should be interesting. The fact that a MSC code would cover an entire subject field, comparable to a large number of terms and phrases, should justify a relatively higher fee.

Queries may be conducted by entering terms/phrases/author names. The result of a query will be a listing of metadata, some of which will have MSC codes. To determine which of the resulting hits with different MSC codes will trigger the advertisement of the sponsor a computation of the occurrence of primary codes can be made and the primary code that occurs most would activate the corresponding sponsor.

Synonyms and related terms need not be sponsored separately because a certain subject field will be covered by a sponsor. An added bonus is to realize that queries using only author names or geographical names may also trigger an advertisement.

However, not all metadata records that are present within EULER have MSC codes. UNIFI items do not have MSC codes. A mapping of the used Dewey codes to the relevant MSC codes could be provided. The absence of MSC codes assigned to publications will be more apparent if more information providers will join EULER. On the other hand, it is not mandatory that all EULER records should have MSC codes. As long as a few of the hits have MSC codes the relevant sponsor will be displayed.

An objection against the sponsoring of MSC codes is that classification schemes are notoriously slow in adopting new and popular subjects. However, terms and phrases may be sponsored in combination with the MSC main codes, which will solve this problem.

This model is currently considered interesting though somewhat complicated for the initial period and will be an option for the future.

Other directions
It was also suggest to investigate the SRW (ZING) status in order to migrate to SOAP/XML/HTTP if this seems promising. The EULER group will stay updated with the emerging standards.

Annexes

Annex 1: Statutes for the "EULER Consortium"

The original version of the draft statutes is in German, since the association will be registered in Germany. They have been checked by a lawyer specialized in law of associations, and non-profit organizations.

An English translation is also given below, however, this translation was not done by a certified or approved translator.



Satzung

des

EULER Consortium e. V.


§ 1 Name, Sitz, Geschäftsjahr
(1) Der Verein führt den Namen: "EULER Consortium". Er soll in das Vereinsregister eingetragen werden; nach der Eintragung führt er den Zusatz "e. V.".
(2) Der Sitz des Vereins ist Berlin.
(3) Das Geschäftsjahr ist das Kalenderjahr.
§ 2 Zweck des Vereins
(1) Zweck des Vereins ist die Förderung von Wissenschaft und Forschung, insbesondere im Bereich der Mathematik und deren Randgebieten.
(2) Der Satzungszweck wird verwirklicht insbesondere durch folgende Maßnahmen:
a) die Förderung des wissenschaftlichen Informationsaustausches durch die Bereitstellung von umfassenden Meta-Informationen zu forschungsrelevanten Publikationen und weiteren wissenschaftlich relevanten Informationen, sowie Maßnahmen zu deren Standardisierung,
b) die Entwicklung und der Betrieb von allgemein und öffentlich zugänglichen, integrierten wissenschaftlichen Informationssystemen, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Anbieter- und Nutzerbedürfnissen und in Zusammenarbeit mit weiteren relevanten Diensten und Informationsanbietern,
c) die Förderung der Netzwerkbildung von Anbietern wissenschaftlicher Informationen - insbesondere wissenschaftlicher Bibliotheken, Referate- und Nachweisdiensten und anderer wissenschaftlicher Institutionen und Initiativen - zur Verbesserung des Austausches von forschungsrelevanten Daten, Dokumenten und Diensten sowie Kenntnissen,
d) die Verbreitung von Erkenntnissen zu Verfahren und Methoden der wissenschaftlichen Information in Form von Veröffentlichungen, wissenschaftlichen Tagungen und Schulungen, unter Berücksichtigung auch bibliothekarischer Belange,
e) die Zusammenarbeit mit anderen (internationalen) öffentlich-rechtlichen und/oder gemeinnützigen Institutionen und Initiativen, die die Entwicklung von Standards und Systemen im Bereich der wissenschaftlichen Information zu ihren Zielen zählen.
(3) Der Verein ist darüber hinaus berechtigt, alle Maßnahmen zu treffen und Rechtshandlungen vorzunehmen, die geeignet sind, dem in Absatz 1 genannten Zweck unmittelbar zu dienen.
§ 3 Gemeinnützigkeit
(1) Der Verein verfolgt ausschließlich und unmittelbar gemeinnützige Zwecke im Sinne des Abschnitts "Steuerbegünstigte Zwecke" der Abgabenordnung (AO).
(2) Der Verein ist selbstlos tätig und verfolgt nicht in erster Linie eigenwirtschaftliche Zwecke.
(3) Mittel des Vereins dürfen nur für die satzungsmäßigen Zwecke verwendet werden. Die Mitglieder erhalten keine Gewinnanteile und in ihrer Eigenschaft als Mitglieder auch keine sonstigen Zuwendungen aus den Mitteln des Vereins. Es darf keine Person durch Ausgaben, die dem Zweck des Vereins fremd sind, oder durch unverhältnismäßig hohe Vergütungen begünstigt werden.
(4) Bei Auflösung oder Aufhebung des Vereins oder bei Wegfall seines bisherigen Zweckes fällt das Vermögen des Vereins an die Europäische Mathematische Gesellschaft, die es ausschließlich und unmittelbar für gemeinnützige Zwecke zu verwenden hat.
(5) Der Verein kann sich zur Erreichung seines Zweckes weisungsgebundener Hilfspersonen bedienen, soweit er nicht selbst durch seine Organe und Mitglieder tätig wird. Darüber hinaus kann der Verein gemäss § 58 AO seine Mittel teilweise einer anderen, ebenfalls steuerbegünstigten Körperschaft oder einer Körperschaft des Öffentlichen Rechts zur Verwendung zu steuerbegünstigten Zwecken zuwenden.
(6) Alle Inhaber von Vereinsämtern sind ehrenamtlich tätig. Sie können jedoch gegen Nachweis eine Erstattung ihrer Aufwendungen erhalten.
(7) Die Mitglieder des Vorstands können darüber hinaus eine angemessene Vergütung erhalten, die sich nach dem mit dem Amt verbundenen Aufwand richtet und die mit dem gemeinnützigen Zweck des Vereins vereinbar ist. Über die Höhe der Vergütung entscheidet die Mitgliederversammlung.
§ 4 Erwerb der Mitgliedschaft
(1) Mitglied des Vereins kann jede voll geschäftsfähige, natürliche und juristische Person sowie Körperschaft öffentlichen Rechts werden. Es wird zwischen ordentlichen und assoziierten Mitgliedern sowie Fördermitgliedern unterschieden.
(2) Der Antrag auf Aufnahme in den Verein ist schriftlich an den Vorstand zu richten, der über die Aufnahme entscheidet. Der Antrag soll unter anderem die Angabe enthalten, ob eine Aufnahme als ordentliches oder assoziiertes Mitglied oder als Fördermitglied begehrt wird.
(3) Gegen eine vom Vorstand verweigerte Aufnahme in den Verein kann der Betroffene innerhalb eines Monats nach Zugang des ablehnenden Bescheids schriftlich Beschwerde beim Vorstand einlegen. Über die Beschwerde entscheidet die nächste ordentliche Mitgliederversammlung. Der Beschluss der Mitgliederversammlung ist endgültig. Mit der Aufnahme erkennt das Mitglied die Satzung des Vereins an.
(4) Ein Wechsel der Art der Mitgliedschaft kann schriftlich beim Vorstand beantragt werden und wird im Falle seiner Annahme mit Beginn des auf die bestätigende Beschlussfassung des Vorstands folgenden Kalenderjahres wirksam. Im Falle einer Ablehnung gilt Absatz 3 sinngemäß.
§ 5 Beendigung der Mitgliedschaft
(1) Die Mitgliedschaft endet
a) durch Tod, bei juristischen Personen sowie Personenvereinigungen mit ihrer Auflösung,
b) durch freiwilligen Austritt,
c) durch Ausschluss aus dem Verein.
(2) Der freiwillige Austritt erfolgt durch schriftliche Erklärung gegenüber einem Mitglied des Vorstands. Er ist nur zum Schluss eines Kalenderjahres unter Einhaltung einer Kündigungsfrist von drei Monaten zulässig.
(3) Ein Mitglied kann, wenn es gegen die Vereinsinteressen gröblich verstoßen hat, durch Beschluss des Vorstandes aus dem Verein ausgeschlossen werden. Ein wichtiger Grund im Sinne dieser Bestimmung ist unter anderem der Rückstand mit Beiträgen und Zahlungsverpflichtungen für einen Zeitraum von zwölf Monaten, wenn die Zahlungsrückstände nicht innerhalb einer Frist von 14 Tagen nach Absendung des zweiten Mahnschreibens erfolgt.
(4) Vor der Beschlussfassung ist dem Mitglied unter Setzung einer Frist von 14 Tagen Gelegenheit zu geben, sich persönlich vor dem Vorstand oder schriftlich zu rechtfertigen. Der Beschluss über den Ausschluss ist mit Gründen zu versehen und dem Mitglied mittels eingeschriebenen Briefs bekannt zu machen.
(5) Gegen den Ausschließungsbeschluss steht dem Mitglied das Recht der Berufung an die Mitgliederversammlung zu. Die Berufung muss innerhalb einer Frist von einem Monat ab Zugang des Ausschließungsbeschlusses beim Vorstand schriftlich eingelegt werden. Die Mitgliederversammlung entscheidet über die Berufung auf der nächsten ordentlichen Mitgliederversammlung. Macht das Mitglied von seinem Recht auf Berufung keinen Gebrauch oder versäumt es die Berufungsfrist, so unterwirft es sich damit dem Ausschließungsbeschluss mit der Folge, dass die Mitgliedschaft als beendet gilt. Ab Zugang des Ausschließungsbeschlusses bis zu dessen endgültiger Wirksamkeit ruhen die Mitgliedschaftsrechte des betroffenen Mitglieds.
§ 6 Rechte der Mitglieder, Mitgliedsbeiträge
(1) Alle Mitglieder haben das Recht, an den Mitgliederversammlungen des Vereins teilzunehmen, Anträge zu stellen und sich bei Diskussionen zu Wort zu melden.
(2) Alle Mitglieder sollen ihre relevanten (Meta-)Daten der wissenschaftlichen Informationsversorgung über die wissenschaftlichen Informationssysteme des Vereins der Allgemeinheit zugänglich zu machen. Über Anforderungen (insbesondere technische und wissenschaftliche), die an diese Daten und Informationsbestände zu stellen sind, entscheidet die Mitgliederversammlung.
(3) Nur ordentliche Mitglieder haben das aktive und passive Wahlrecht sowie Stimmrecht bei Abstimmungen. Jedes ordentliche Mitglied hat eine Stimme. Aufgrund schriftlicher Vollmacht kann jedes ordentliche Mitglied auch für bis zu drei andere ordentliche Mitglieder deren Stimmrecht ausüben.
(4) Die Mitglieder zahlen einen jährlichen Mitgliedsbeitrag, der von der Mitgliederversammlung für ordentliche und assoziierte Mitglieder sowie für Fördermitglieder gesondert festgesetzt wird. Hinsichtlich des von assoziierten Mitgliedern und Fördermitgliedern zu zahlenden Beitrags kann erneut nach Art und Umfang des vom jeweiligen Mitglied zur Verfügung gestellten wissenschaftlichen Informationsangebots und nach seiner finanziellen Situation differenziert werden.
(5) Im Falle von Erhöhungen der Mitgliedsbeiträge für assoziierte Mitglieder und Fördermitglieder steht diesen ein Sonderkündigungsrecht zu, von dem innerhalb eines Monats nach Beschlussfassung über die Beitragserhöhung schriftlich gegenüber dem Vorstand Gebrauch gemacht werden kann.
§ 7 Organe des Vereins
Organe des Vereins sind
a) der Vorstand,
b) der wissenschaftliche Beirat,
c) die Mitgliederversammlung.
§ 8 Der Vorstand
(1) Der Vorstand im Sinne des § 26 BGB besteht aus dem Vorsitzenden und zwei stellvertretenden Vorsitzenden.
(2) Der Verein wird gerichtlich und außergerichtlich durch zwei Mitglieder des Vorstands vertreten.
(3) Dem Vorstand können ein oder mehrere Beisitzer zugeordnet werden. Über die Zahl der Beisitzer entscheidet die Mitgliederversammlung. Der oder die Beisitzer nehmen an den Vorstandssitzungen teil und haben volles Stimmrecht.
§ 9 Wahl und Amtsdauer des Vorstands
(1) Der Vorstand im Sinne des § 8 Absatz 1 sowie die Beisitzer werden von der Mitgliederversammlung auf die Dauer von zwei Jahren, vom Tage der Wahl an gerechnet, gewählt; er bleibt jedoch bis zur Neuwahl des Vorstands im Amt.
(2) Jedes Vorstandsmitglied ist einzeln zu wählen. Wählbar sind nur ordentliche Vereinsmitglieder.
(3) Scheidet ein Mitglied des Vorstands während der Amtsperiode aus, so wählt der Vorstand ein Ersatzmitglied für die restliche Amtsdauer des Ausgeschiedenen.
§ 10 Zuständigkeit und Beschlussfassung des Vorstands
(1) Der Vorstand ist für alle Angelegenheiten des Vereins zuständig, soweit sie nicht durch Gesetz oder durch diese Satzung einem anderen Vereinsorgan zugewiesen sind. Er hat vor allem folgende Aufgaben:
a) Vorbereitung der Mitgliederversammlungen und Aufstellung der Tagesordnungen,
b) Einberufung der Mitgliederversammlungen,
c) Ausführung der Beschlüsse der Mitgliederversammlungen,
d) Aufstellung eines Haushaltsplans für jedes Geschäftsjahr, Buchführung, Erstellung eines Jahresberichts,
e) Abschluss und Kündigung von Arbeitsverträgen,
f) Beschlussfassung über die Aufnahme und den Ausschluss von Mitgliedern.
(2) Der Vorstand fasst seine Beschlüsse im allgemeinen in Vorstandssitzungen, die vom Vorsitzenden, bei dessen Verhinderung von einem stellvertretenden Vorsitzenden, schriftlich, fernmündlich oder mittels elektronischer Medien mit einer Frist von einer Woche unter Mitteilung der Tagesordnung einberufen werden.
(3) Der Vorstand ist beschlussfähig, wenn mindestens zwei seiner Mitglieder, darunter der Vorsitzende oder ein stellvertretender Vorsitzender, anwesend sind. Bei der Beschlussfassung entscheidet die Mehrheit der abgegebenen gültigen Stimmen. Bei Stimmengleichheit entscheidet die Stimme des Vorsitzenden, bei dessen Abwesenheit die Stimmen der stellvertretenden Vorsitzenden.
(4) Die Vorstandssitzung leitet der Vorsitzende, bei dessen Verhinderung ein stellvertretender Vorsitzender. Die Beschlüsse des Vorstandes sind zu Beweiszwecken aufzuzeichnen und vom Versammlungsleiter zu unterzeichnen. Die Niederschrift soll Ort und Zeit der Versammlung, die Namen der Teilnehmer, die gefassten Beschlüsse und das Abstimmungsergebnis enthalten.
(5) Ein Vorstandsbeschluss kann außerhalb von Vorstandssitzungen auch auf schriftlichem Wege, mittels Telefax oder elektronischer Medien gefasst werden, wenn alle Vorstandsmitglieder ihre Zustimmung zu diesem Verfahren erklären.
§ 11 Der wissenschaftliche Beirat
(1) Der wissenschaftliche Beirat besteht aus mindestens zwei und höchsten zehn Personen, die nicht Mitglied des Vereins sein müssen.
(2) Die Mitglieder des Beirats werden von der Mitgliederversammlung auf die Dauer von zwei Jahren benannt. Scheidet ein Mitglied des Beirats während der Amtsperiode aus, so benennt der Vorstand ein Ersatzmitglied bis zur nächsten Mitgliederversammlung, falls durch das Ausscheiden die Mindestzahl der Beiratsmitglieder unterschritten wird. Die Beiratsmitglieder können für beliebig viele Amtsperioden erneut ernannt werden. Vorstandsmitglieder können nicht zugleich Mitglieder des Beirats sein.
(3) Die Mitglieder des Beirats wählen aus ihrer Mitte einen Beiratsvorsitzenden.
(4) Der Beirat hat die Aufgabe, den Vorstand zu beraten, insbesondere in wissenschaftlichen Angelegenheiten.
(5) Der Beiratsvorsitzende hat das Recht zur Teilnahme an den Vorstandssitzungen und ist zu diesen einzuladen.
(6) Mindestens einmal im Jahr soll eine Sitzung des Beirats stattfinden. Der Beirat wird von seinem Vorsitzenden schriftlich, fernmündlich oder mittels elektronischer Medien mit einer Frist von mindestens einer Woche unter Mitteilung der Tagesordnung einberufen. Der Beirat muss einberufen werden, wenn mindestens zwei Beiratsmitglieder die Einberufung schriftlich verlangen. Wird dem Verlangen innerhalb einer Frist von zwei Wochen nicht entsprochen, sind die die Einberufung verlangenden Beiratsmitglieder berechtigt, selbst den Beirat einzuberufen.
(7) Zu den Sitzungen des Beirats haben alle Vorstandsmitglieder Zutritt und das Recht zur Diskussion, jedoch kein Stimmrecht. Die Vorstandsmitglieder sind von den Sitzungen des Beirats zu verständigen.
(8) Die Sitzungen des Beirats leitet der Beiratsvorsitzende, bei dessen Verhinderung ein anderes Beiratsmitglied.
(9) Der Beirat bildet seine Meinung durch Beschlussfassung mit der einfachen Mehrheit der abgegebenen gültigen Stimmen. Bei Stimmengleichheit entscheidet die Stimme des Beiratsvorsitzenden. Die Beschlüsse des Beirats sind zu Beweiszwecken in ein Beschlussbuch einzutragen und vom jeweiligen Sitzungsleiter zu unterzeichnen. Die gefassten Beschlüsse sind dem Vorstand unverzüglich zur Kenntnis zu geben.
§ 12 Die Mitgliederversammlung
(1) In der Mitgliederversammlung hat jedes ordentliche Mitglied eine Stimme. Zur Ausübung des Stimmrechts kann ein anderes Mitglied schriftlich bevollmächtigt werden. Die Bevollmächtigung ist für jede Mitgliederversammlung gesondert zu erteilen. Ein Mitglied darf jedoch nicht mehr als drei fremde Stimmen vertreten.
(2) Die Mitgliederversammlung ist ausschließlich für folgende Angelegenheiten zuständig:
a) Wahl und Abberufung der Mitglieder des Vorstands,
b) Genehmigung des vom Vorstand aufgestellten Haushaltsplans, Entgegennahme des Jahresberichts des Vorstands, Entlastung des Vorstands,
c) Festsetzung der Höhe und der Fälligkeit der Mitgliedsbeiträge,
d) Beschlussfassung über die an zu veröffentlichende Daten und Informationsbestände zu stellenden Anforderungen (§ 6 Absatz 2),
e) Beschlussfassung über die Änderung der Satzung und über die Auflösung des Vereins,
f) Beschlussfassung über die Beschwerde gegen die Ablehnung eines Aufnahmeantrags sowie über die Berufung gegen einen Ausschließungsbeschluss des Vorstands.
(3) In Angelegenheit, die in den Zuständigkeitsbereich des Vorstands fallen, kann die Mitgliederversammlung Empfehlungen an den Vorstand beschließen. Der Vorstand kann seinerseits in Angelegenheiten seines Zuständigkeitsbereichs die Meinung der Mitgliederversammlung einholen.
§ 13 Einberufung und Beschlussfassung der Mitgliederversammlung
(1) Mindestens einmal im Jahr, möglichst im letzten Quartal, soll eine ordentliche Mitgliederversammlung stattfinden. Sie wird vom Vorstand unter Einhaltung einer Frist von einem Monat schriftlich unter Angabe der Tagesordnung einberufen. Die Frist beginnt mit dem auf die Absendung des Einladungsschreibens folgenden Tag. Das Einladungsschreiben gilt dem Mitglied als zugegangen, wenn es an die letzte vom Mitglied dem Verein bekannt gegebene Adresse gerichtet ist.
(2) Eine außerordentliche Mitgliederversammlung ist einzuberufen, wenn dies von mindestens einem Drittel der Mitglieder schriftlich unter Angabe des Grundes beim Vorstand beantragt wird. Daneben kann der Vorstand jederzeit eine außerordentliche Mitgliederversammlung einberufen, wenn die Interessen des Vereins dies erfordern. Die Vorschriften über die ordentliche Mitgliederversammlung gelten entsprechend.
(3) Die Mitgliederversammlung wird vom Vorstandsvorsitzenden, bei dessen Verhinderung vom stellvertretenden Vorsitzenden geleitet. Ist kein Vorstandsmitglied anwesend, bestimmt die Versammlung den Leiter. Bei Wahlen kann die Versammlungsleitung für die Dauer des Wahlgangs und der vorhergehenden Diskussion einem Wahlausschuss übertragen werden.
(4) Der Protokollführer wird vom Versammlungsleiter bestimmt. Es kann auch ein Nichtmitglied bestimmt werden.
(5) Die Art der Abstimmung bestimmt der Versammlungsleiter. Die Abstimmung muss schriftlich und/oder geheim durchgeführt werden, wenn ein Drittel der bei der Abstimmung anwesenden stimmberechtigten Mitglieder dies beantragt.
(6) Die Mitgliederversammlung ist nicht öffentlich. Der Versammlungsleiter kann Gäste zulassen. Über die Zulassung der Presse, des Rundfunks und des Fernsehens beschließt die Mitgliederversammlung.
(7) Die Mitgliederversammlung ist mit den erschienenen Mitgliedern beschlussfähig.
(8) Die Mitgliederversammlung fasst Beschlüsse im allgemeinen mit einfacher Mehrheit der abgegebenen gültigen Stimmen; Stimmenthaltungen bleiben daher außer Betracht. Zur Änderung der Satzung und zur Auflösung des Vereins ist jedoch eine Mehrheit von drei Viertel erforderlich. Für Wahlen gilt folgendes: Hat im ersten Wahlgang kein Kandidat die Mehrheit der abgegebenen Stimmen erreicht, findet eine Stichwahl zwischen den Kandidaten statt, welche die beiden höchsten Stimmenzahlen erreicht haben. Gewählt ist dann derjenige, der die meisten Stimmen auf sich vereinigt.
(9) Über die Beschlüsse der Mitgliederversammlung ist ein Protokoll aufzunehmen, das vom jeweiligen Versammlungsleiter und dem Protokollführer zu unterzeichnen ist. Es soll folgende Feststellungen enthalten: Ort und Zeit der Versammlung, die Person des Versammlungsleiters und des Protokollführers, die Zahl und die Namen der erschienenen Mitglieder, die Tagesordnung, die einzelnen Abstimmungsergebnisse und die Art der Abstimmung. Bei Satzungsänderungen soll der genaue Wortlaut angegeben werden.
§ 14 Virtuelle Versammlungen
(1) Mitgliederversammlungen und Beiratssitzungen können auch als Online-Versammlungen unter Einsatz geeigneter Kommunikationsmittel, insbesondere in Form von elektronischen Foren im Internet, abgehalten werden. Zu diesem Zweck erhält jedes Mitglied einen Nutzernamen und ein Passwort, mit denen das Mitglied über das Internet Zugang zum Forum erhält.
(2) Die technische Realisierung des elektronischen Forums muss sicherstellen, dass bei Diskussionen jedem Teilnehmer die Beiträge der anderen Teilnehmer zur Kenntnis gelangen können.
(3) Abstimmungen erfolgen derart, dass zunächst vom Versammlungsleiter die Teilnehmer bei Wiedergabe des Beschlussantrags zur Abstimmung aufgefordert werden und diese anschließend über ein vom Versammlungsleiter freizugebendes elektronisches Formular die Möglichkeit erhalten, abzustimmen. Es ist technisch sicher zu stellen, dass jeder Teilnehmer je Beschlussantrag nur eindeutig und nur einmal abstimmen kann. Auf das Ende der Abstimmung ist spätestens zwei Minuten zuvor hinzuweisen. Bei Schluss der Abstimmung nicht abgegebene Stimmen von angemeldeten Teilnehmern gelten als Nein-Stimmen.
(4) Als Versammlungsprotokoll ist eine elektronische Aufzeichnung des Forums vorzunehmen. Die Aufzeichnung ist nach dem Ende der Versammlung zu Beweiszwecken auszudrucken und vom Versammlungsleiter zu unterzeichnen.
§ 15 Satzungsänderungskompetenz des Vorstands
Der Vorstand wird ermächtigt, etwa vom Vereinsregister zur Herstellung der Eintragungsfähigkeit in das Vereinsregister oder vom für den Verein zuständigen Finanzamt zur Erlangung oder Erhaltung der Förderungswürdigkeit im Sinne des Abschnitts "Steuerbegünstigte Zwecke" der Abgabenordnung geforderte Änderungen der Satzung selbst vorzunehmen.
§ 16 Inkrafttreten
Die vorstehende Satzung wurde in der Gründungsversammlung vom 25. November 2002 errichtet.




Statutes

of the

EULER Consortium e. V.


1. Name, Location, Business Year
(1) The Organization bears the name: "EULER Consortium".  It shall be entered into the registrer of associations; thereafter it shall be bear the additional designation of "e. V." (registered society).
(2) The location of the Organization is in Berlin, Germany.
(3) The business year coincides with the calendar year.
2. Purpose of the Organization
(1) The purpose of the Organization is the promotion of science and research, particularly in the area of Mathematics and its related field.
(2) The purpose of the Organization is to be realized through the following measures:
a) the promotion of scientific information exchange through the preparation of comprehensive meta-information concerning publications relevant for research and further scientifically relevant information, as well as measures for their standardization; 
b) the development and management of general and publicly available,      integrated scientific information systems, taking into special consideration the needs of providers and users and in cooperation with other relevant service and information providers;
c) the promotion of a network organization of providers of scientific information - in particular scientific libraries, documentation and reviewing services, and other scientific institutions and initiatives - for the improvement of the exchange of relevant data for research, documents, and services as well as knowledge;
d) the dissemination of knowledge concerning procedures and methods of   scientific information in the form of publications, scientific conferences, and workshops, taking also into consideration relevancy for libraries;
e) the cooperation with other (international) publicly legal and/or non-profit institutions and initiatives that aim to develop standards and systems in the area of scientific information.
(3) The Organization, moreover, is entitled to take all appropriate measures and legal action that serve the purpose set forth in 1(1).
3. Non-profit Status
(1) The Organization pursues exclusively and directly non-profit purposes in the sense of the paragraph "Tax Privileged Purposes" of the tax regulations (AO);
(2) The Organization is unselfishly active, and it is not its main purpose to conduct business transactions;
(3) The Organization's resources may only be used for statutory purposes. The members do not receive any portion of profit and in their roles as members receive no other benefits from the Organization's resources. No person shall profit from expenditures that do not serve the statutory purposes of the Organization, nor shall anyone profit from excessively high compensation;
(4) In the event of disbandment or break up of the Organization, or in the event that the purposes of the Organization cease to be applicable, all property of the Organization shall go to the European Mathematical Society, which may only use this property exclusively and directly for non-profit purposes;
(5) The Organization can employ persons bound by contract to attain its purposes, unless it is not acting through its members or bodies.  Moreover, according to Section 58 AO, the Organization can bestow part of its resources upon another tax-privileged organization or an organization recognized by law for its use in tax-privileged puposes;
(6) All officers of the Organization work on an honorary basis. They may receive reimbursement for costs incurred provided they submit a receipt;
(7) The members of the Executive Committee may receive a reasonable remuneration that conforms with the duties of the post and that is in accordance with the non-profit purpose of the Organization. The General Assembly shall regulate this fee.
4. Acquisition of Membership
(1) Anyone who is a fully functional, natural, and legal person as well as any corporation recognized by law can become a member. There will be a distinction made between full and associate members as well as sponsoring members.
(2) The application for acceptance in the Organization is to be submitted in writing to the Executive Committee, which shall decide upon it. The application should state whether the application is for full or associate membership or for sponsoring membership;
(3) Should the Executive Committee reject an application, the person in question may submit a written complaint to the Executive Committee within one month after the entry of the rejection to the application. The complaint shall be decided upon at the next regular General Meeting. The decision reached by the General Assembly is final. Upon acceptance, the member shall recognize the Articles of the Organization;
(4) A change in the type of membership can be applied for through the Executive Committee and, in the event of its acceptance by the Executive Committee in the form of a attested resolution, will go into effect at the beginning of the following calendar year. In the event that this request is rejected, the same rules as in Paragraph (3) apply.
5. Cancellation of Membership
(1) The membership ends
a) through death, for legal persons as well as corporations upon disbandment;
b) through voluntary cancellation of the member in question;
c) through expulsion from the Organization;
(2) Voluntary cancellation follows a written request to the members of the Executive Committee. It is only possible to cancel at the end of a calendar year; however, the request must be submitted at least three months in advance;
(3) In the event that a member grossly violates the interests of the Organization, the Executive Committee has the right to expel said member through a resolution. An important ground for such action is, for example, nonpayment of fees or other monetary responsibilities for a period of 12 months, and further neglecting to pay within 14 days after the second warning;
(4) The member has to be given the opportunity to personally (or in writing) justify himself or herself before the Executive Committee subject to a term of 14 days.  The resolution for expulsion must contain the underlying reasons for the expulsion, which must be stated in a registered letter to the member in question;
(5) A member that has been expelled has the right to appeal the resolution at the General Meeting. The appeal must be made in writing within one month of the entry of the expulsion resolution to the Executive Committee. The General Assembly shall decide on the appeal at the next General Meeting.  If the expelled member does not make use of the appeal or surpasses the deadline, then the said member must submit to the consequences of the expulsion resolution, and the membership is dissolved. From the entry of the expulsion resolution and until this final effect, all rights of membership of said member rest.
6. Rights of Members, Member Fees
(1) All members have the right to take part in the General Assembly, to make motions, and to request to be heard at discussions;
(2) All members are to make their relevant (meta-)data concerning the provision of scientific information publicly available through the scientific information system of the Organization. The General Assembly shall decide upon the standards (particularly technical and scientific) to which the data and information must conform;
(3) Only full members have active and passive voting rights.  Each full member has one vote. On account of written proxy, a full member may also vote in the name of up to three other full members;
(4) The members shall pay a yearly membership fee, the amount of which, depending on full, associate, or sponsoring membership, shall be set by the General Assembly. With respect to associate or sponsoring members, the fee may be set individually according to the type and volume of the scientific information provided to the Organization by such member and according to the member's financial situation;
(5) In the event that member fees are raised for associate and sponsoring members, such members have the right to terminate membership without penalty by submitting written notice to this effect to the Executive Committee within one month after the entry of the resolution for the rise in fees. In particular, Section 5, Paragraph (2) no longer applies.
7. Bodies of the Organization

The bodies of the Organization consist of the
a) Executive Committee;
b) Scientific Advisory Board;
c) General Assembly.
8. The Executive Committee
(1) The Executive Committee (in the sense of Section 26 BGB) consists of the President and two Vice Presidents.
(2) The Organization is judicially and extrajudicially represented by two members of the Executive Committee listed in 8(1).
(3) The Executive Committee may make use of one or more Executive Committee members, the number of which is decided by the General Assembly. These members of the Executive Committee take part in the Executive Committee meetings and have full voting rights.
9. Election and Term of the Executive Committee
(1) The Executive Committee, in the sense of Section 8 Paragraph 1, and the Executive Committee member(s) are to be elected by the General Assembly for a two-year term beginning on the day of the election.
(2) Each member of the Executive Committee is to be elected individually. Only full members of the Organization may run for election.
(3) Should a member of the Executive Committee resign during his or her term, the Executive Committee shall elect a replacement for the remainder of the resigning member's term.
10. Responsibility and Resolution of the Executive Committee
(1) The Executive Committee is responsible for all matters concerning the Organization, provided that these are not regulated by law or assigned to another organ of the Organization by these articles. It has above all the following duties:
a) Preparation of the General Assembly and setting up the agenda;
b) Calling the General Assembly to order;
c) Statement of resolutions of the General Assembly;
d) Setting up a budget for each business year, bookkeeping, compiling the yearly report;
e) Settlement and termination of employment contracts;
f) Resolution concerning acceptance and expulsion of members.
(2) The Executive Committee forms its decisions in the Executive Committee meetings, which are to be convened along with the agenda by the President, or Vice-President if the President is hindered, in writing, by telephone, or by means of electronic media at least one week in advance.
(3) The Executive Committee is a quorum when at least two of its members, one of which must be either the President or Vice-President, are present. The majority of valid, casted votes will decide the resolution. In the event of a tie, the President decides; if the President is absent, then the Vice-President decides.
(4) The Executive Committee meeting is conducted by the President; in the President's absence, by the Vice-President. The resolutions of the Executive Committee are to be recorded for the purpose of proof and are to be signed by the conducting officer. The signature should indicate the place and time of the meeting, the names of the participants, the resolutions decided upon, and the outcome of the vote for each resolution.
(5) A decision of the Executive Committee can also be made outside of the Executive Committee meetings in written form, per fax, or via electronic media provided that all members of the Executive Committee agree to this method.
11. The Scientific Advisory Board
(1) The Scientific Advisory Board consists of at least two and at most ten persons, who need not be members of the Organization.
(2) The members of the Scientific Advisory Board are to be designated by the General Assembly for a period of two years. Should a member of the Scientific Advisory Board resign during his or her term and the requirements concerning the number of members of the Scientific Advisory Board are thereby not met, the Executive Committee shall designate a replacement until the next General Assembly. There is no limit to the number of terms a person may serve as member of the Scientific Advisory Board. Executive Committee members cannot serve simultaneously as members of the Scientific Advisory Board.
(3) The members of the Scientific Advisory Board elect from amongst themselves the President of the Scientific Advisory Board.
(4) The Scientific Advisory Board is responsible for advising the Executive Committee, especially in scientific matters.
(5) The President of the Scientific Advisory Board has the right to attend the Executive Committee meetings and is to be invited to these.
(6) A meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board is to take place at least once a year. The Scientific Advisory Board is to be convened to meet by its President in writing, per telephone, or through electronic media at least one week in advance; an agenda is to be included. The Scientific Advisory Board must be convened when at least two members submit a written request.  If the request is not honored within two weeks, members who have submitted a written request to convene have the right to convene the meeting themselves.
(7) All members of the Executive Committee have the right to attend the meetings of the Scientific Advisory Board and the right to take part in discussions therein; however, they have no right to vote. The members of the Executive Committee are to be notified of the meetings of the Scientific Advisory Board.
(8) The meetings of the Scientific Advisory Board are to be conducted by its President. In the event of hinderance, another member of the Scientific Advisory Board shall assume this duty.
(9) The Scientific Advisory Board reaches its decisions with a simple majority of the valid votes given. Ties are settled by the President of the Scientific Advisory Board. The resolutions of the Scientific Advisory Board are to be entered as proof in a resolution log to be signed by the conductor of the meeting. The resolutions passed are to be immediately made known to the Executive Committee.
12. The General Assembly
(1) Every full member has one vote for each process in the General Assembly Meeting.  To exercise this voting right, another member may act as proxy through written permission. The written power of proxy must be made anew for each General Meeting the member wishes to exercise his or her voting right. No member may be proxy for more than three other members at any given meeting.
(2) The General Assembly is responsible for the following concerns exclusively:
a) Election and dismissal of members of the Executive Committee;
b) Approval of the budget set forth by the Executive Committee, acceptance of the yearly report, exoneration of the Executive Committee;
c) Determination of amount and due dates of the member fees;
d) Decisions concerning standards to which data and information must conform.
e) Decisions concerning changes in the Statutes and the disbandment of the Organization;
f) Decisions concerning complaints about the rejection of an application as well as an appeal against a resolution decided by the Executive Committee.
(3) The General Assembly may make suggestions in matters that are the responsibility of the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee may also request the opinions of the General Assembly in matters for which the Executive Committee is responsible.
13. Calling the General Assembly, Decision Making
(1) At least once a year, preferably in the last quarter, there shall be a regular General Assembly Meeting. It shall be announced in writing at least one month in advance and must include the agenda. The one month period shall commence on the day after the invitations are sent to the General Assembly. The invitation is to be sent to each member at the last address made known to the Organization;
(2) A special General Assembly Meeting is to be convened when at least one third of all members have proposed such a meeting in writing, which is to state the ground(s) for it. Additionally, the Executive Committee may convene a special General Assembly Meeting if it is in the interest of the Organization. The rules of the regular General Assembly Meeting shall be applicable;
(3) The General Assembly Meeting is to be conducted by the President of the Executive Committee; in the case of the President's hinderance, it shall be conducted by the Vice-President. If no member of the Executive Committee is present, the members shall elect a member to act as the conducting officer. In the case of elections, an Election Committee may overtake this role for the duration of the elections and the preceding discussions;
(4) The Secretary is to be selected by the conducting officer. The Secretary may be a non-member;
(5) The method of voting is determined by the conducting officer. The votes must be written and/or secret ballot if more than one third of the General Assembly with voting rights present request so;
(6) The General Meeting is not open to the public. The conducting officer may allow guests. The entire body shall decide whether to allow the press, radio, or television to the meetings;
(7) The General Assembly members present constitute a quorum;
(8) The General Assembly makes decisions based on a simple majority of the valid votes given; abstentions are not counted. To change the Articles or to disband the Organization, however, the majority must be at least three fourths in favor. For elections: If in the first round of elections no candidate has the majority of the given votes, there shall be a runoff between the two candidates receiving most votes. The candidate with the most votes in the runoff is then elected;
(9) Minutes shall be taken at the General Meeting. It shall be signed by both the conducting officer and the Secretary. The minutes shall contain the following: Place and time of the meeting, the names of the conducting officer and the Secretary, the number and names of members present, the agenda, the result of each vote and the method of voting. In the event that the Articles are changed, the explicit wording of the text is to be given.
14. Virtual Meetings
(1) General Assemblies and meetings of the Scientific Advisory Board may also take place as online-meetings, under the condition that proper communications means are available, especially in the form of an electronic forum via the internet. To this purpose, each member shall receive a user name and password with which the member has access to the forum through the internet;
(2) The technical realization of the electronic forum must ensure that each member has access to the comments of all other members during discussions;
(3) Voting is as follows: The members shall request an application to vote from the conducting officer. The conducting officer will send each member that requests such an application an electronic formu with which it is possible to vote. It must be ensured that each said member vote uniquely and only once per resolution application. An announcement must be made electronically two minutes in advance that the voting will end. At the end of the voting process, votes not received from members that are signed on shall count as nays;
(4) The minutes of the forum are to be electronically recorded. The record is to be printed after the end of the meeting as proof and is to be signed by the conducting officer of the forum.
15. Competence of the Executive Committee Regarding Changes in the Articles
The Executive Committee is empowered to take it upon itself to change the Articles in order to establish the requirements necessary for the entry of EULER Consortium in the register of associations, or to secure and maintain recognition as a non-profit organization in the sense of the paragraph "Tax Privileged Purposes" of the tax regulations (AO) from the tax agency responsible for tax matters concerning the Organization.
16. Effectiveness
These Statutes were established in the founding meeting on November 25, 2002.





Annex 2: Memorandum of understanding regarding EDBM rights


Annex of restricted availablility

Annex 3: Advertising regulations

Annex of restricted availablility

Annex 4: EULER Data Delivery/Update Specifications, Model Agreement (centralized model) 

Annex of restricted availablility

Annex 5: Options for metadata provision from Zentralblatt MATH to EULER

Annex of restricted availability.

Annex 6: Legal forms and the VAT issue for the EULER service

Annex of restricted availability.  

 


©2001, 2002 EULER Consortium
Supported by the IST Programme of the European Community: Project EULER-TAKEUP (IST-2000-29445)