The 2010 CSE meeting in Atlanta was a resounding success, as all who attended would agree. The meeting kicked off on Friday, 14 May, with the CSE Short Course for Journal Editors. The Short Courses for Manuscript Editors, Publication Management, and Journal Metrics followed on Saturday. Essentially making up a “core curriculum” for publication professionals, the courses increase in popularity each year.
On Sunday, J Marshall Shepherd, of the University of Georgia, kicked off the meeting with a marvelous lecture, “Climate Gate”, in keeping with the meeting’s theme of “The Changing Climate of Scientific Publishing—The Heat Is On”. We were also informed and entertained by two plenary speakers. The first, George Luber, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spoke on the effect of climate change on public health. The second, Michael Lemonick, a well-known writer, journalist, and teacher at Princeton University, talked about the role of the mass media in public policy related to climate change.
The many sessions were well attended and offered a concert of topics of interest to editors, editorial-office professionals, and journal publishers. For example, the session “Changing Climate of the Workplace” focused on the flexibility that now allows for children in the workplace and creative time and work schedules. “The Virtual Office” presented strategies for disaster planning and issues related to having staff work at remote sites. Showing that CSE engages controversial topics, the session on “Banishing the Ghost” tackled the sometimes contentious issues surrounding ghost authors and writers; this session generated a lot of questions and lively discussion, and all left the session well informed by the speakers. Practical tips that could be taken home to the editorial office were provided by sessions on working with nonnative English-speaking authors, project management, preparing requests for proposals, and incorporating social media into the editorial-office workflow and online journal Web sites, to mention just a few.
The meeting was peppered with plentiful breaks for meals and refreshments, providing opportunities to chat with colleagues and meet new friends in the “Idea Lounge”, which was a hit with attendees and exhibitors alike. CSE meetings are a great forum for networking with other publishing professionals, and the Atlanta meeting was no exception. Our exhibitors contributed prizes for the drawings (one lucky person won an iPad!) and were visibly interested in the content of the sessions, judging from their participation in the presentations and discussions.
Much of the credit for the success of the meeting goes to CSE Past President Diane Lang and the members of the Program Committee and Short Course Subcommittee, who worked effectively as a team to create an outstanding meeting that was informative, comprehensive, and professionally rewarding. If you feel as though you missed the fun, we can only encourage you to attend next year’s CSE meeting in Baltimore (30 April–3 May 2011). Better yet, join the Program Committee and help to make it a success!
Denis Baskin and Ken Heideman,
Chairs 2010 Program Committee