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BOARD REPORT: FALL 2004


Publishing Special Interest Group Report   

Fall 2004

Name of SIG: Publishing

Mission statement: To develop and recognize professional skills and facilitate networking and information sharing among ACE members who work in print or electronic publications

Officers:
    Chair: Meg Ashman
    Vice Chair: Glenda Freeman
    Vice Chair-elect: Helen White

Summary of SIG business meeting at annual conference:

Number of members attending: 20

Topics of discussion, decisions, plans, etc.: The summary of our business meeting is attached. In brief, we reviewed PubSIG activity of the past year and talked about ideas for new goals and activities for the upcoming year. Members were encouraged to be thinking about ideas for sessions and speakers for next year's conference. The bulk of the meeting was devoted to having each member introduce him/herself and share a resource, idea, experience, or product. (Notes from this editor's swap meet are posted on the PubSIG website, under "Notes from SIG Business Meetings.")

How are the leadership responsibilities being divided among the officers?

Glenda is coordinating the C&A judge selection and rules review.

Helen will coordinate nominations for the Award of Excellence.

Meg is writing and distributing a monthly newsletter for all SIG members (with contributions from and review by Glenda and Helen), planning and conducting the monthly SIG leader teleconferences, monitoring and updating the content of the PubSIG website, welcoming new PubSIG members, writing the reports for the ACE board, and handling the election of the vice chair-elect.

The three officers may rotate responsibility for facilitating "conversation calls"--a new initiative.

How are SIG leaders communicating with members, and on what schedule?
An e-mail newsletter is sent out every 1 or 2 months. So far, there has been an issue in September and another is planned for October.

How are SIG leaders encouraging members to communicate with each other?
PubSIG members often send out queries via the PubSIG listserv for advice and opinions on various issues. If this activity ebbs, the SIG leaders plan to "prime the pump" by posing a question of publishing concern to the SIG. We are also going to initiate "conversation calls" this year: A date/time and topic will be announced in advance and any PubSIG member who wants to participate--by contributing to the discussion or simply listening--will call in.

What is the status of the SIG Web site?
It is being updated monthly. A significant amount of new material was posted in early September, including summaries of some of the Tahoe sessions of interest to PubSIG members and notes from the "Trading aces and disgraces" session of our PubSIG business meeting.

What are the SIG's concerns relative to the C&A Awards Program?
Glenda sent an e-mail message to all PubSIG members in early September asking them about this. She is sending a separate report about this to Virginia Morgan for the Board.

What steps will you take to solicit nominations for the Award of Excellence? How will the SIG select its Award of Excellence?
Helen will solicit nominations from SIG members via e-mail and the chair, vice chair, and vice-chair elect will make the final selection using an evaluation process we developed and used successfully last year.

What steps are you taking to encourage members to submit articles and reviews to JAC?
We believe that many PubSIG members may think they have nothing to contribute to JAC. We'll try to encourage them by providing some information and examples in our newsletter. Meg will contact Linda Benedict about this and ask her to write a brief "solicitation" for us to include in the newsletter.

What other issues or concerns would you like to bring to the board? What action would you like to request?
Nothing at this time.

--Submitted by Meg Ashman, September 27, 2004

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Last updated November 2004.