FROM THE EDITOR
Jain Fletcher
This issue is late! Now, you could imagine that this situation might be due to laziness or to inattention to deadlines. However, that idea would be far from the truth. You see, the Conference itself was late, having been held later in Fall than ever before. It was held at the end of October, rather than at the end of September or the very beginning of October, which is its usual timing. This time, the Conference was so late it ended only a few days before the date that submissions to the December Newsletter were due (November 1). Indeed, all the other contributors had sent me their files around the official deadline. However, it would have been insensitive for me to impose such a short deadline on Jan Mayo (the Conference Reports editor) or the reporters. So instead, I gave them until December 1--a time when the issue should normally have been nearing finalization. This contingency decision was made because we were determined that all relevant material from the Conference would appear in the issue immediately following it, rather than deferring some or all of the reports for another issue. We felt this was a question of timely relevance, because learning about what took place at OLAC’s biennial meeting is important to its members. Please understand, the extended due date still represented a short timeframe. And yet, the reporters all came through on time--not one person requested more time. They are all to be commended for their responsiveness to their organization, not to mention their well-written and informative reports!
By the time the Conference reports file was submitted, the other submissions had all been received and edited. Still, it turned out that the compiled reports file was longer than expected, making it necessary to consider ways to include it in its entirety while still keeping the print Newsletter no longer than its target of 60 pages maximum. The solution involved a mixture of editing the Conference reports file a bit further, then taking a more careful look at the other submissions for their adherence to scope, for places to edit them down further or even to defer some of them until the next issue. For two of the longer reports from the Conference, I even took the unusual measure of abridging them in the print version, while retaining them in their entirety for the online version (where this abridgement occurs is made clear in the printed text). In the end, no option was spared. However, I believe everyone will find this issue to be lively and relevant, if perhaps a bit truncated in places. Please join me in thanking everyone--especially Jan Mayo and her band of Conference reporters--for their contributions to the issue.
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Last updated: December 20, 2006
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