Publishing SIG NEWSLETTER May 2004

- Election for new SIG leader next year
- Official ballot ***
- Trading Aces and Disgraces ***
- Dinner, anyone?
- Walk this way
- Tahoe for everyone ***
- Website update
- Words about words
- Final note

*** marks an item seeking a response from you.

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Election for new SIG leader next year

Now that we have filled our slate of officers for this year, we need to round out the cast of characters for next year's PubSIG leadership. The new chair will be Meg Ashman of the University of Vermont, and Glenda Freeman of Auburn University will become the vice chair. Next we need to decide on the 2004-05 vice chair-elect.

Helen White of Texas A&M University has been nominated to be the '04-05 PubSIG vice chair-elect and has agreed to serve if elected. Asked for bio information, she wrote the following:
___
Helen is a writer/editor type for the Ag Program Marketing team in Agricultural Communications at Texas A&M University. She is:

• A member of several ACE SIG groups: distance education, marketing, writing, and publishing
• Part of the editorial team for Lifescapes, the Texas A&M Ag Program magazine that recently won a silver award in the ACE C&A program, and
• Chair of the registration committee for the 2005 ACE meeting in San Antonio (y'all come!).
• "A fine person doing a wonderful job!" - Diane Bowen
• "An industrious person running for election on no particular platform." - Judy Winn
• "One of the last of the true Southern belles." - Elizabeth Gregory

The ballot appears below. The election will be conducted by e-mail, starting now and ending at  midnight Friday, June 4.

Please cast your vote by e-mail using the ballot below (one vote per PubSIG member). The candidate who receives a majority of the votes cast by PubSIG members will be the winner.

Besides your votes, you are welcome to send in any comments about the candidate and her suitability for the position.

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Official ballot

 Select one candidate for the office of Publishing SIG vice chair-elect:
* Helen White, Texas A&M University
* Other (write-in candidate's name) ______________________

Please return this ballot via e-mail to d-bowen@tamu.edu by midnight, June 4. Only current members of Publishing SIG are eligible to vote.

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Trading Aces and Disgraces

We're looking forward to seeing everyone June 19-24 at our annual ACE professional development conference in Lake Tahoe. If you're fortunate enough to be coming to the conference, I'd like to encourage you to attend the PubSIG business meeting Monday afternoon from 4:00 to 5:15. It's our big chance to meet those far-flung colleagues face to face and to learn about how others across the country and around the world are meeting challenges similar to our own.

This year's business meeting will feature Trading Aces and Disgraces, an idea swap in which each of us discusses an experience (success or "learning intensive" failure), resource, product or a professional tool that might be useful or instructive to fellow SIG members. If you're coming to Tahoe, please be thinking about an idea or experience to discuss briefly.

***Please bring to the PubSIG business meeting an idea, resource or experience to share with your colleagues. Never fear, it won't be a big presentation - given the amount of time available, each person will have only about 2-3 minutes.

As for those who can't make the conference, we're planning to take notes at this session and e-mail a summary later this summer.

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Dinner, anyone?

Monday night's "dinner on your own" at Tahoe offers another opportunity for PubSIG members to connect. If you haven't made plans for that evening, you're welcome to meet us in the hotel lobby after the ACE Development Auction that night. We can decide on dinner destination(s) then.

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Walk this way

Heeding the expressed wishes of the membership, we PubSIG leaders did not plan a special workshop or tour during the Wednesday afternoon period offered to all SIGs at the conference. However, several of us are planning to participate in the Heavenly Gondola Walking/Hiking tour that afternoon, and any who would like to join us are welcome. The PubSIG strollers, hikers, walkers, meanderers, etc. can hook up just before or en route to the tour.

Networking au naturel (first definition, please!) or fellowshiping al fresco may never again be so beautiful!

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Tahoe for everyone

As at last year's conference, we are mindful that the economic situation in many states is preventing many from making the trip to the ACE meeting. Because we'd like to make the annual conference useful to all PubSIG members, even those remaining "back home," we're asking for volunteers to take notes at the conference's publishing-related sessions and write a short summary of them.

If you're attending one of those breakouts, would you mind helping your fellow SIGsters  by reporting on it? These are the breakout sessions dealing specifically with publishing concerns:

• Designing Effective Public Education when Controversy Breaks Out, by Teresa Welch, Oregon
• Serving Spanish Speakers through National and Regional Collaboration, by Bill Watson, Extension in Espanol
• What Do Readers Want (and How Do They Want It)? Using a Web-Based Readership Survey to Evaluate an Online Newsletter, by Meg Ashman, Vermont
• What Every Reviewer Wants To Know, by Gloria J. Mosby, Texas
• Fighting the Budget-Cut Blues, by Elinor Ruark, Georgia
• Grammar is for Lovers, by LaRae M. Donnellan, Florida
• Web Pages Need Editing, Too, by Dave McAllister CSREES, USDA Publishing
• To Save Your Magazine's Sizzle, Make Sure You Serve the Steak, by Martha Jackson, Kentucky
• On-Demand Publishing: Perspectives from Across the Country, moderated by Evie Engel, Oregon

***If you plan to attend one of these sessions (or will present one) and would be willing to write a short report about it, please e-mail Diane Bowen at d-bowen@tamu.edu. Please include the name of the session you'd be willing to cover. Thanks!

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Website update

 "Which dictionary and thesaurus do you find most useful?" Last month, 21 members of the PubSIG weighed in on this question, and the results are posted on our website (listed under Surveys at http://www.uvm.edu/extension/acepubsig/.

A big PubSIG salute to survey contributors Joyce A. Bower, West Virginia; Diane Bowen, Texas A&M; Peg Boyles, New Hampshire; Charliese Brown, Kentucky State; Sandy Clarke, Iowa State; Jim Coats, University of California, Davis; Joyce Dolbier, Florida; Dale Evans, Hawaii; Glenda Freeman, Alabama; Kathy Garvey, UC-Davis; Sue Keller, University of Alaska/Sea Grant; Brian Meyer, Iowa State; Fred Miller, Arkansas; Vicki Miller, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Paul Neate, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Rome, Italy; Carol Ouverson, Iowa State; Sandy Ridlington, Oregon State; Susan Roberts (retired, Washington State); Judy Rude, Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service; Helen White, Texas A&M; and Judy Winn, Texas A&M.

Merci beaucoups also to Meg Ashman of the University of Vermont, who posed the question, and to Kim Parker, also of Vermont, who posted the responses to our website.

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Welcome!
During the past year, the PubSIG's mighty ranks have swelled, as 24 new ACE members have joined our group. We are looking forward to getting to know these communications professionals and to learn from their fresh outlooks and ideas.

Now in their honor, we hereby offer a big (virtual) round of applause to welcome our new PubSIG comrades: Peg Boyles, New Hampshire; Mark Chorba, Virginia; Rick Cooper, Oregon; Deborah L. Dalhouse, South Carolina;  Linda Evans, Florida; Kathy Keatley Garvey, California; Vicki Hamende, Wyoming; Serena Hoffman, Pennsylvania; Shana Hutchins, Texas; Becky J. Kirchner, Alaska; Thomas L. Laird, Pennsylvania; Elizabeth A. LaPorte, Michigan; Sandra Martin, Washington; Lyn McKinley, New Mexico; Jason Musselwhite, Mississippi; Pati Ray, Kentucky; Mary Ann Reese, Idaho; Sandy Ridlington, Oregon; Amanda Rudisill, Pennsylvania; Kevin Leigh Smith, Indiana; Linda Ulrich, Nebraska; S. Gopikrishna Warrier, India; Laura Whelan, Mississippi; and Ron York, Alaska.

Cheers to you who have joined our international fellowship of communications professionals: Willkommen! Bienvenidos! Swaagatam! and Dobro pozhalovat'!

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Words about words
Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt: it tingles exquisitely around through the walls of the mouth and tastes as tart and crisp and good as the autumn-butter that creams the sumac-berry. One has no time to examine the word and vote upon its rank and standing, the automatic recognition of its supremacy is so immediate.

- Mark Twain, American writer and journalist, 1906
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Final note
This is my last newsletter as the Publishing SIG chair. We often hear people say that they received more from serving in a particular position than they gave, and for me that sentiment has never been more true than now. These past three years in PubSIG leadership have been a learning experience of the best kind. Thanks to all PubSIG members for your participation, support and ideas, all of which have helped make this opportunity a true blessing to me.

Best regards,
Diane Bowen

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Last updated June 2004.