BPG Column from the November 1996 AIC Newsletter
In the last issue, I neglected to thank Mary Lee for what was a long, hard, and fruitful year's work as Chair. Throughout the year, Mary insisted that it wasn't much work, but as I move into her seat, I see that she was simply being very modest; she did a tremendous job and we all owe her a great show of thanks.
Thanks are also due to Miranda Martin and Karen Pavelka, who updated the book and paper section of the AIC brochure Caring for Your Treasures: Books to Help You.
Annual Meeting
Betty Fiske and Eleanore Stewart are hard at work on the preparations for the Annual Meeting, but submissions have not been coming in adequate numbers, probably because other conferences are drawing away potential speakers. Betty and Eleanore have been busy calling people trying to recruit speakers, but as of this writing it is not certain that we will hold a one and a half day program as previously announced.
Abstracts for AIC June meeting in San Diego
The deadline for abstracts has been extended to October 31, 1996. If you were considering submitting an abstract and have missed the extended deadline, contact Program Chair, Betty Fiske. To clarify BPG policy on papers: although we have publicized "Adhesives" and "Exotic Materials" as subject highlights for this meeting, papers of any interest to BPG members will be welcome; professional quality papers from students of conservation training programs are welcome; papers presented at international or regional meetings are also welcome.
Publications
The Executive Council has begun looking at some publication-related issues and as a result the BPG Publications Committee, chaired by Robert Espinosa has been given the following charge:
- The BPG Publications Committee is asked to draft a general policy statement on BPG publications, outlining the mission of our publications program (why we publish), and setting at least a broad policy for matters such as peer-review, etc. The committee should coordinate its work with the AIC publications committee.
Scanning volunteer sought
If you have access to a desktop scanner and OCR (optical character recognition software), you can help us in the retrospective conversion of the older issues of the BPG Annual, so we can make them available in the BPG web pages. Get in touch with Walter Henry (whenry@lindy.stanford.edu or 415-725-1140).
BPG email list
Although the BPG email mailing list has been set up (it is intended to save on postage by letting the Executive Council send occasional announcements to members), we haven't yet loaded the membership list into it, and it will probably be a while before that can happen. In the meantime, you can subscribe yourself by sending the following message to majordomo@lists.stanford.edu:
subscribe bpg
As always, if there's any late-breaking news you can find it on our web page, and remember, the Executive Council wants to hear from you: send your ideas, proposals, gripes, prayers, to bpg-board@lists.stanford.edu