Volume 23, Number 4
1999

Editor's Page

A Word from the Editor

Since everybody who knows how to print out the list of donors is on vacation this week, I will have to omit it this time.

Other matters on my mind involve readers' preferences, e-mail subscriptions, a faster way of sending mailings overseas, and the newsletter's 25th anniversary.

• Three years ago I sent out a survey, asking readers to indicate which subjects they would like to see more coverage of. The top two choices were "Supplies and Materials" and "Pests and Mold." I have increased coverage of mold in the last year, but supplies and materials have been neglected. I will try to change that.
• Now that e-mail newsletters have become popular, I am thinking of offering an e-mail or Web version, either of the entire newsletter, or only of the parts each reader chooses. This might not be hard to do. I have been delivering part of the Newsletter electronically for several years now to two readers. The Events column goes by e-mail to one publication in Germany and another in Italy just as soon as it is put together.

  All options are open for now, so let me know whether the electronic format appeals to you, either along with or instead of the paper version.

• The Post Office has been delivering the newsletter more slowly in the last few years, especially overseas. Sometimes surface delivery to Europe has taken months, and sometimes I suspect that either the P.O. or postal consolidators have thrown bags of "printed matter" mail away, figuring that it's only junk mail. The situation has gotten so bad that the Post Office itself held a conference of periodical publishers and mailers to tell them what they had been doing about the matter (read all about it in Memo to Mailers, "PMG Stresses Importance of Periodicals," v.34 #8, Oct. 1999, p. 1-2).

  I decided that for the time being anyway, we should use a category variously called Small Packet Air, AO Mail, or Regular Printed Matter--Air, for overseas destinations. It costs almost twice as much as Printed Matter Surface, but less than First Class Air.

• This is the 25th year of the Abbey Newsletter, although the quarter-century will not be complete until August 2000.

Ellen McCrady
abbeypub@flash.net

P.S. Subscription prices for individuals in 2000 will be only $35. Student rates will go back to $20.

People who have already prepaid can either get a refund or apply the overpayment to their next renewal. We will send a notice to all prepaid individual subscribers, with a form on which they can indicate their choice.

E. M.

Abbey Online

Updated 8/99

These are the back issues of the Abbey Newsletter and the Alkaline Paper Advocate on our Web page in CoOL (http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/abbey). A volume is judged to be "complete" in CoOL when the longer features of each issue are posted.

Also posted on our Web page are selections from North American Permanent Papers 1998.

Authors Please Take Note

Authors of articles and other contributions accepted for publication in the Abbey Newsletter will be assumed (unless they notify the editor otherwise) to be granting permission to publish their work in both print and electronic form, and to archive it and make it retrievable electronically. Authors retain copyright, however, and may republish their work in any way they wish.

Similarly with previous publishers of material who have given permission for their copyrighted material to be published in the Abbey Newsletter, the permission will be assumed to cover the electronic as well as the printed form.Masthead

The Abbey Newsletter: Preservation of Library & Archival Materials is issued eight times a year and has about 1000 subscribers. All subscriptions are for the calendar year. Checks or international money orders may be made out in U.S. dollars, payable to Abbey Publications; send to 7105 Geneva Dr., Austin, TX 78723, USA. Foreign checks must have the name of a U.S. bank printed on the front. International payments may be made by VISA or MasterCard.

Personal subscriptions are $45; institutional subscriptions are $55, and subscriptions for full-time students and unpaid interns $23. Overseas air mail is $15/year.

Paid advertisements, except for job ads, are not accepted. Job advertisements are billed at the rate of $50 for the heading and the first ten lines (50-55 characters per line), plus $2 per line thereafter. Any notice that is appropriate and newsworthy will be printed if there is room for it. Claims for issues never received will be honored within a year of publication.

The Abbey Newsletter is selectively indexed in Art & Archae-ology Technical Abstracts, and the Institute of Paper Science & Technology Abstract Bulletin. All issues are in print, and each volume has its own index. It is the policy of Abbey Publications to use permanent paper for all publications.

The Editor encourages readers to photocopy freely from the Newsletter; but the Editor's permission must be obtained before making more than 20 copies at a time of lengthy or signed articles. This lets us make any necessary corrections or updates, or contact other copyright holders for permission to reprint.

Most back issues from 1981 onward are on our Web page in CoOL <http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/abbey>.

Abbey Publications is a nonprofit corporation set up to encourage preservation of written or recorded information, including the use of lasting materials in the creation of records. The corporation has five trustees (Ellen McCrady, Gary Frost, Roberta Pilette, James Wellvang, and Thomas Clareson), and five officers (President Ellen McCrady; first vice president Gary Frost; second vice president Jim Wellvang; secretary Tom Clareson; and treasurer Paul Banks).