Dear SSP Members,
Last time I said hello, I was building my vacation reading list. Then I blinked, and now it is December! I don’t know how that happens, but I plan to add Alan Burdick’s “Why Time Flies” to my reading list and find out. And if only I could employ some of the time travel mechanisms explained in David Crotty’s Kitchen post on diagramming time travel, I might actually be able to accomplish my to-do list prior to the end of the year!
It’s a busy time of year for most people, and SSP has certainly been bustling these past several months. We had a number of webinars on topics including mid-career growth, open access books, and the quality and accuracy of science communications. The fall seminar in Washington, DC was an informative day focused on new directions in society and nonprofit publishing and featured speakers from the Meta/Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Gates Foundation, and the National Library of Medicine. We also held a number of regional events in Philadelphia, Durham, and at the Charleston Conference as well. There will be a new webinar series and more great regional events coming up in 2018 including our first regional event in the UK. We are also hosting our first pre-conference event in conjunction with Academic Publishing in Europe’s APE 2018: Ramping Up Relevance on January 15 in Berlin, Germany. I hope you’ll be able to take advantage of some of the great programing in 2018.
Speaking of programming, the Annual Program Committee is hard at work on SSP 2018 and wrapping up review on the more than 100 abstracts that were submitted for consideration. Simultaneously, the 40th Anniversary Task Force is working on plans to throw an amazing party in Chicago as well as support other activities to commemorate SSP’s 40th anniversary throughout the year.
SSP continues to spearhead a cross-organizational initiative to address diversity and inclusivity within the scholarly communications industry, and the SSP Board of Directors recently endorsed the joint statement of principles on diversity and inclusion proposed by the group. Alice Meadows interviewed Melanie Dolechek in a recent Scholarly Kitchen post about all of SSP’s work in this area.
Operationally, the transition of our membership database to new association management software is complete. If you haven’t renewed your SSP membership for 2018 yet, this is the perfect opportunity for you to log on, check out the new system and renew! Staff also just launched our new community engagement platform, C3, which is providing a new workspace, communication, and collaboration tools for committees and task forces. Within a few weeks, the C3 platform will replace the SSP-L listserv and members will also be invited to participate in a new member-only online community and discussion group.
I hope your end-of-year to-do lists aren’t too overwhelming, and I wish you all the best for Happy Holidays! As always, if you have any feedback, questions, or concerns, please feel free to contact me at any time throughout the year. Thank you for being a member of SSP!
With best regards,
Jennifer Pesanelli
SSP President, 2017-18
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