 |
Publishing
SIG
BUSINESS MEETING MINUTES:
June 2003 |
Business Meeting Minutes
ACE Publishing Special Interest Group
Kansas City, MO
Sunday, June 15, 2003
1. Introductions. A stellar crowd of 21 folks from all over the
U.S. (and one Pacific island nation) participated in the ACE Pub SIG business
meeting:
Nancy Zimmerli, KS
Sharon Wood-Turley, MO
Judy Winn, TX
Helen White, TX
Carol Whatley, AL
Donna Sheffield, KS
Judy Rude, USDA – Washington, DC
Carol Ouverson, IA
Dan Moser, NE
Bob Mitchell, WI
Natalie Johnson, NM
Cindy Gambill, GA
Glenda Freeman, AL
Peter Fredenburg, Philippines
Lori Colvin, TX
Robert Casler, AZ
Susie Bullock, TX
Diane Bowen, TX
Molly Bentsen, IL
Meg Ashman, VT
Cheryl Alberts, NE
2. PubSIG Reports. Just what has our group been doing all year?
Each spring and fall, the ACE board asks the SIG chairs to give an account
of the SIG’s activities during the previous 6 months. SIG Chair Jim Coats
(CA) has written and submitted the reports for 2002-03. They are posted
on the Pub SIG Web page under the heading “Chair’s reports to the ACE Board”
at http://www.uvm.edu/extension/acepubsig/.
3. PubSIG Goals. Every year we want to make the SIG more useful
and helpful to the members. Last year we decided on five specific ways
to accomplish this aim, and we think our SIG made pretty good headway on
four of these goals:
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Goal: Increase PubSIG members’ sharing of experiences in their units
of interest to other members.
Action: SIG members Vicki Miller (NE), Dennis Hinkamp (UT),
Evie Engel (OR) and Diane Bowen (TX) initiated four e-mail surveys. The
topics were electronic vs. print publishing, charging for downloads, customizing
PDFs, and the usefulness of readability software. The results of these
surveys are posted on our Web page under the heading “Surveys” at http://www.uvm.edu/extension/acepubsig/.
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Goal: Encourage members to use the PubSIG mailing list to troubleshoot
problems, and post all the suggested solutions.
Action: We think this was accomplished in the action for the
previous goal.
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Goal: Maintain the PubSIG Web page (e-mail the Listserv when Web
site content is added or changed).
Action: Pub SIG members Meg Ashman (VT) and Sue keller (AK)
reviewed the site on a regular basis and Kim Parker (VT) updated the site
as they advised and periodically posted reports and surveys. SIG chair
Jim Coats (CA) alerted the members when changes were made.
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Goal: Add C&A materials to the PubSIG Web site – winning entries
in the PubSIG categories along with their entry and judging forms.
Action: We posted the names of the winners but not the publications
or the entry or judging forms.
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Goal: Explore common interests between the members of the PubSIG
and the National Resource Management Officers group.
Action: Pub SIG Members Judy Rude (DC) and Natalie Johnson (NM)
attended the NMRO annual meeting in Chicago. Judy also prepared a presentation
on the NMRO for the ACE conference in KC.
Suggested goals for next year:
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To generate ListServ discussions among members, it was suggested that we
send out monthly queries. A topic suggestion by Robert Casler (AZ): What
is Extension’s definition of peer review?
Rather than just “maintain” the Pub SIG Web site, this year we might
spiff up the appearance and enhance the content.
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All members of the SIG will be invited to suggest goals via e-mail after
the meeting. Once we’ve heard from everyone interested, the SIG will hammer
out goals for this year and set about achieving them.
4. PubSIG Election
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Meg Ashman was introduced as the newly elected PubSIG Vice-Chair-Elect.
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Interested Pub SIG members are invited to consider taking a leadership
role in the SIG. The benefits? A better SIG for all, and the leaders can
get to know fellow members better, learn new skills and add another “professional
contributions” line to their dossiers.
5. Session notes. Because not all members of our SIG could make
it to the annual meeting this year, some of those who could attend volunteered
to take notes at several sessions, write up a report for posting on the
Pub SIG Web site. We hope this will extend the knowledge shared at the
meeting not only to members who can’t attend the meeting at all, but also
to those at the conference who had schedule conflicts. SIG members volunteered
to take notes at these KC sessions to be posted on the Web site:
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How to Catch the Urban Media’s Eye
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Publishing a Magazine In Print and On Line
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Paper or Pixels? Trends in Electronic and Print Publishing
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Grammar Training for Extension Faculty and Staff
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Writing to Change Behaviors
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Introduction to NMRO
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Success with Type
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Dealing with Change – Be the Solution, Not the Problem
6. State of the states: We invited members to discuss how the economic
situation in their states is affecting their units’ ability to serve clients.
The idea was to see if we can help each other solve common problems and
meet similar challenges. Meg Ashman said that Vermont will lose its only
graphic designer next year, and that she would like to learn how other
states handle outsourcing to free-lance artists. Carol Ouverson said that
Iowa charges all its clients for editorial and art services, and that she
can share information on using free-lancers. Natalie Johnson said New Mexico
moves up jobs in the queue for programs that need jobs earlier and can
share grant money with the communications unit. Illinois and Minnesota
also have lost all their designers.
7. Other: During the Introductions part of the meeting, many
members in attendance mentioned “reading” as a favored leisure activity.
Later it was suggested that interested members of the Pub SIG share titles
of books (fiction and nonfiction) they'd recommend..
– Submitted by Diane Bowen, Vice Chair
with thanks to Judy Winn (TX) for taking notes
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Address comments to Sue Keller.
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Last updated November 2003.