Being a member of read-coop means joining a community with the shared goal of making historical documents accessible. As a co-operative, all members become co-owners of Transkribus, a platform that is revolutionising text recognition for historical documents. Curious to learn more? Click here

No, members do not earn profits. Instead, their contribution is focused on building the most significant platform for recognizing historical text, handwritten, typewritten or printed. The goal is not to earn profits to be distributed to shareholders but to facilitate collaborative efforts in unlocking our written past.

read-coop operates with a joint purpose, relying on the collaborative efforts of its members to maintain and further develop the Transkribus software. By prioritising purpose over profit, the co-operative ensures the best tools are provided while allowing everyone to contribute to and benefit from the value chain.

The requirements and fees for becoming a member depend on the type of membership:

For institutions: Membership requires the purchase of at least 4 shares at 250.00 EUR each, totaling a minimum of 1,000.00 EUR. Additionally, there is an annual fee of 25% of the share purchase price, which amounts to 250.00 EUR annually. In summary, the initial membership investment is 1,250 EUR.

For private individuals: Membership requires the purchase of 1 share at 250.00 EUR. Additionally, there is an annual fee of 25% of the share purchase price, amounting to a minimum payment of 62.50 EUR. In summary, the initial membership investment is 312,5 EUR.
 

No, the institutional membership cannot be invoiced as it is not considered a product or service in the legal sense. Instead, it is a contribution towards becoming a stakeholder in the cooperative. For accounting and legal reasons, we are unable to provide an invoice specifically for the membership. However, we can issue payment requests so that the organisation can process the payment for the shares, and your organisation’s administration can use the payment request for its records.

Yes, the share amount is refundable. The minimum refundable amount is 1,000 EUR for institutional members and 250 EUR for private members. If you decide to discontinue your membership in the future, the refundable amount will be returned to you.

In the context of institutional memberships at read-coop, there are two types of access: user seats and member associates. User seats, which can be assigned in the software, grant access to Transkribus features and are limited to 15 individuals from the organization. Member associates, on the other hand, are added through the website and have various privileges, such as making purchases at membership rates, enjoying membership discounts, receiving invitations to events organized by read-coop, accessing privileged information, and joining the readcoop Slack channel. Additionally, when an organization holds an organizational subscription in addition to the membership, the user seat number of the subscription will apply, potentially increasing the number of individuals with access to Transkribus features. Institutional memberships typically include 15 user seats, and any additional seats provided by the subscription will be in addition to this base number.

No, the buying account for membership is only relevant for administrative purposes, such as payment, allocation of member seats. Multiple users of the institution can enjoy the benefits of becoming co-owners of our cooperative, including discounts and access to exclusive features using their own user accounts.

Credits and subscriptions plans can be purchased using a central account and then distributed among users/researchers within your institution. For detailed instructions on how to share credits and allocate subscription seats to different users, please refer to our Help Centre: Visit our help center