ASSOCIATES (vol. 2, no. 1, July 1995) - associates.ucr.edu
FROM THE EDITOR
This is our first anniversary issue. _ASSOCIATES_ was first
published on July 15, 1994. Looking back, it sure doesn't seem
it's been a whole year since we started soliciting material and
twisting arms to make each issue better than the ones before.
This is the first issue that I _thought_ (notice emphasis) we had
totally booked back in March and April. We had all sorts of
articles lined up...an impressive array bound to dazzle you. Silly
me. Between illnesses, overwhelming job responsibilities, births,
new jobs and anything else you can think of, we ended up with a
total of two articles out of the many we were expecting.
Does this mean that this first anniversary issue will be teeny and
uninteresting? Not hardly. Just means we had to come up with all
sorts of _other_ goodies for you...and you'll get to read the
delayed articles in November. I must admit that, while only
publishing three times a year makes it easier on those of us
publishing _ASSOCIATES_, it sure is hard waiting four months to
share the next group of neat articles with you. November sounds so
far away. And so much cooler, too :-)
We do have two more regular features on tap, both started by a
couple of our worthy editors. Bob Farnsworth will be reviewing
books of interest to support staff in each issue. As he put it, "I
think I can handle reading three books a year!" This does not mean
that you, our readers, shouldn't also be sending us book reviews.
There is an enormous amount of information out there, and sharing
it with your colleagues is the best way to assure that we will all
be moving up the ladder to greater and greater success.
In addition, Katie Buller sounds forth with a new column: "Library
Life: A Collection of Eclectic Rantings. For those of you familiar
with Katie and her "Scary Library Stories" presentations, you know
it will be an irreverant and humorous look at library life.
If you check out our section on "Archive, Gopher and FTP Retrieval
Information" (as well as "Letters to the Editors"), you'll see that
we are now available via FTP thanks to a request from Betty Arnold
at the University of Pennsylvania and the work of Nicholas
Eshelman, one of the more zany computer gurus here at KU. And
plans still creep along to make us available on the Web...with
pictures!
I gave a presentation on _ASSOCIATES_ at the national COLT
conference in June. Besides truly enjoying myself and getting a
lot of positive feedback about our work, I was gratified to find
out how many people subscribe to the journal and then print it off
to share with their colleagues. Our subscription base is about
2200 people from 32 countries, but it seems that we are read by a
great many more people than that...in addition to those folk who
read us via gopher, ftp and our archive files.
I also had the opportunity to meet briefly with Ed Martinez, the
Editor of _Library Mosaics_, which is the print journal for library
support staff. He and I were both in agreement that _ASSOCIATES_
and _Library Mosaics_ are not competitors, but rather colleagues in
the ongoing effort to improve the lot of library support staff
everywhere. For those of you interested in subscribing to _Library
Mosaics_, that information is provided in our "Calendar/Events"
area. Mention _ASSOCIATES_ when you subscribe. It won't get you
a cut in price, but it'll make us all feel good.
Kendall Simmons
Editor-in-Chief