----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Greetings: Attached are the minutes from a meeting held at the Library of Congress in February between members of several cartographic information societies to discuss the potential for a joint publication outlet. The minutes were distributed to the meeting attendees in May. Representatives will discuss the minutes at their organization's this summer. To facilitate reaching the broadest constituency from the member organizations represented, the minutes are also being distributed via Maps-L. Please share your comments with member representatives. Thank you. Lisa Recupero Chair, Publications Advisory Committee, SLA Geography and Map Division Melissa Lamont Chair, ALA Map and Geography Round Table Minutes Discussion of cartographic information society publication potential February 14, 1997 Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division Conference Room 12:00-2:30 p.m. Attendance James Boxall (Dalhousie University), Margaret Brill (Duke University), David Cobb (Harvard University), Jim Gillespie (Johns Hopkins University), Ronald Grimm (Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division), Lucinda Hall (University of Minnesota), Donna Koepp (University of Kansas), Melissa Lamont (Penn State University), John Stevenson (University of Delaware), Lisa Recupero (Penn State University), Yvonne Wilson (University of California-Irvine) Purpose In response to concerns about quality, quantity, timeliness and consistency in cartographic information society publications, the above met to discuss alternative outlets for scholarly publications and other collaborative opportunities. Discussion Meeting convened with introductions and overviews of the present status of existing publications. The majority of the represented titles are still being published with some regularity. Most representatives, felt that their publications were struggling to meet traditional publication schedules. All the publications have experienced delays in the past several years and/or have reduced the number of issues per year. Discussion of the present situation and future opportunities raised the following issues: Membership concerns Concern was voiced about each individual organization losing identity if an "umbrella" publication was formed. Each organization has a strong identity, very often this identity is tied to its publications. A new title would need to prove itself (long-term), before it became a true alternative publication outlet. How large is the membership overlap among the organizations? Will a consolidated subscription base be large enough to support a new title? If an organization exists to communicate and bring people with common interests together, publications are the main vehicles for communication between members. Individual newsletters would still be necessary to convey organization information, such as meeting minutes and conference announcements, to the membership. Members should receive something for their membership in a society, but need to remember that a publication does not a society make. Format /Content concerns How would a new publication deal with the various content levels in the existing publications? For instance, WAML IB has a focus more on practical and "how we do it good" type articles, compared to the more scholarly/research orientation of G&M, ACMLA and MAGERT's Meridian. A merger with ACMLA has additional issues, including: 1) ACMLA receives a federal subsidy to keep the organization together in a way to represent each province. How would a merger with three US organizations affect that charge? 2) The Canadian government is supplying funding to it's subsidized organizations to explore developing electronic publications as an alternative to print. How would the format of a new publication impact this money? 3) Publications shared with ACMLA would have to address issues of bilingualism. What are we NOT seeing in the current journals that a new journal might address? Suggestions were made regarding format: 1) Issue a collaborative monographic series rather than a serial. 2) Issue each of the existing four titles under one cover to reduce production/shipping costs for each organization. 3) Produce one title, but have each issue produced by a separate organization (e.g. Spring WAML, Summer ACMLA, Fall MAGERT, Winter G&M), with a shared editorial board. Electronic journal concerns, included: 1) Many members still want print publications, something tangible that they receive in their mailboxes. 2) If an electronic journal was pursued, could 'interactive' media be explored? 3) If distributed storage was used, then an editor could be appointed to maintain links. Copyright problems were discussed regarding whether or not an independent publication could publish papers presented at annual conferences. (These papers are typically a primary source of article submissions to existing journals). Financial concerns How would the continuing crisis of drastically strained serials budgets impact a new title? Would libraries have money to pick-up a new title, even if they were potentially dropping 4 publications and replacing it with 1? What is the financial climate for smaller journals? Who will support/pay for an umbrella publication and handle it's on-going financial issues? Who within each organization will approve finances? Will organizations loss income by not producing an independent title? Concerns about using a commercial publisher vs. producing it in-house were discussed. Would costs be reduced by using a publisher? Publishers generally assume the cost of advertising and carry the finances. Would the organizations sacrifice some editorial control? General concerns Concern was voiced about the planned publication schedules for existing publications. This lead to discussion regarding the time-frame for implementing a new publication. A two to three year planning and implementation process was considered necessary. If an archive for Maps-L, or a related listserv was created, that could store threads (or related messages on a particular topic, regardless of when they were posted), would this replace the "how to do it well" and news/announcement features that current publications support? It will be very difficult to go back to separate publications once the titles are merged into a combined title. Organizations run the risk of losing an established title. Other fields within librarianship have different publication expectations. A comparison was made to documents librarians where the majority of the literature is published outside of its societies and organizations; map librarians expect their organizations to publish their literature. In what time-frame do we want to broach this idea to respective organizations? It was suggested that each organization will need to ask its executive boards and constituency "Where do we want to be in 5 years?" and "Where will we be if we do not do anything?" Conclusion Action *Minutes will be distributed to participants *All participants will be connected via e-mail listserv *Participants will take minutes to their executive boards and memberships for further discussion *Participation may be broadened to include the North American Cartogaphic Information Society, the International Map Trade Association, and the map librariansip organizations of Australia, Britain and Mexico. *A follow up meeting will be scheduled for fall of 1997 to discuss feedback from the organizations Outcome While no consensus was reached it was decided to continue the discussion after receiving feedback from the members of the organizations. Lisa A. Recupero, Earth and Mineral Sciences Librarian Earth and Mineral Sciences Library 105 Deike Building Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802 ^ ^ phone: 814/865-3694 >v< email: [log in to unmask] web: http://vector.gis.psu.edu/emsltop.html