By the time you read this, the annual meeting in Washington will be imminent. So mark your calendar right now for the OBS/TS Research Roundtable meeting! It is on Sunday morning this year, from 7:30-9:00 AM. The Roundtable meeting time has been moved around every year, but I hope that won't discourage our regular attendees, as well as all new attendees, from coming. We are a very informal group and we have an interesting discussion each year.

And this year, we have an added attraction! Frank Houdek, editor of Law Library Journal, has graciously agreed to come and speak with us. This column and the Roundtable meeting have often been used to advocate for the submission of more technical services articles to LLJ. Frank agrees and he will be able to discuss this with us in person. This topic came up when I was discussing my own idea for an LLJ article with Frank. So I can personally attest to his high level of interest and excellent suggestions for developing an article. In addition, Corinne Jacox, chair of the OBS/TS Joint Research Grant Committee, will be in attendance to report on the activity of the past year, grant-wise, and to answer any questions about how to apply.

SO COME TO THE ROUND-TABLE MEETING:

• if you want to learn more about and possibly submit something to LLJ;
• if you think you might want to publish (someday, even if not now);
• if you have published and want to share your experiences;
• if you want to find a co-author or refine an idea;

Just a few more details about the joint research grant … don't forget that the Joint Research Grant Committee is accepting applications until June 15, 1999! I hope you read the reports of the grants awarded last year in this column in the March 1999 issue of TSLL for inspiration. If not, do that right now! And contact Corinne Jacox cjacox@uo.edu if you have any questions. But don't worry if you miss this year's deadline, there's always next year!

I have an audiotape from the American Library Association (ALA) annual meeting in June 1998. It is called Publish? Perish the Thought: Kickstarting Your Writing With LITA (LITA is Library & Information Technology Association, a division of ALA). The speakers cover some good points regarding where to publish and how to get started writing, among other things. Let me know if you would like to borrow the tape.

Yes, another plug for the AALL/ Matthew Bender Call for Papers competition! As a member of that Committee, I am thrilled to see some papers with technical services topics were submitted this year. It's not too early to start planning for next year, so keep this avenue for publishing in mind. The deadline will likely be March 1 st or thereabouts. And papers that are not selected as winning ones may be sent to Law Library Journal for consideration. Check AALLNET for more information.

As I write this in April, I am taking a course called "Communicating Effectively," which is offered to IT workers here at the University at Buffalo. It is a 5-part course, of which I have only attended the first one so far. The focus is upon listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. I assume the parts about writing will be of most interest to the readers of this column, but as our instructor emphasized, writing actually involves all the other skills. Our instructor is Roger Stevenson, an English professor at Canisius College here in Buffalo.

Professor Stevenson has some interesting introductory things to say about writing. The stated focus is on business writing, as the intent of this course is to help our University staff communicate better as they perform in their jobs. But the tips already seem to be universal in terms of writing anything well. The presentation of writing as a process, rather than a product, makes a lot of sense to me. Professor Stevenson's steps in the process include composing, revising, and editing. He advises us to get everything in our heads down on paper, in great detail. In his words, "stop stopping"—just keep writing whatever occurs to you, even if it's not really related. It's better to have a lot to pare down, than the reverse. Revising as a separate step from editing is rather a revelation to me, as I find myself editing constantly (probably the cataloger in me). I'll try to write a report of the entire course after it concludes in late May.

OUR COLLEAGUES HAVE BEEN BUSY:

Anna Belle Leiserson, Linda Tesar, and Mary Miles Prince, contributed to The Internet Guide for Tennessee Lawyers, May 1998 edition.

Mary Dzurinko led a workshop on library management systems on March 12, 1999, which was sponsored by LLAGNY. Joni Cassidy was a guest commentator.

Margie Axtmann and Melody Lembke contributed to the special feature "Meet My Mentor" section of the Winter 1999 issue of Law Library Journal.

Kevin Butterfield is the new "The Internet" contributing editor for TSLL.

LeGrande Fletcher co-moderated the discussion on "The Future of the Book" on the CRISTAL-ED list (Coalition on Reinventing Information Science, Technology, and Library Education), April 11-24, 1999 with Paul Wiener. See: http://www.uct.ac.za/org/cristal-ed/.

CURRENT PUBLISHING OPPORTUNITIES:

In the February 1999 issue of The CRIV Sheet, Richard Humphrey, CRIV editor, calls for additional writers. Contact him at: rhumphre@iupui.edu.

Peter Beck, editor of AALL Spectrum, asked in the March and April 1999 issues that those interested in editing the "Chapter News" or "Committee News" column contact him at pbeck@aall.org.

The AALL Professional Development Committee is looking for ideas for electronic list discussions, publications, and distance learning. Contact Carol Avery Nicholson Carol_Nicholson@ unc.edu for more information.

Linda Defendeifer is new columnist for Against the Grain, which addresses publishing mergers and acquisitions. Contact her with contributions at: defendei@law.uiuc.edu and include the subject line: ATG M&A [mm/yy] (month/year of your message).

A special issue of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science, entitled "Information Science at the Millenium," is scheduled to appear at the end of 2000. Contact guest editor, Terrence Brooks, at: tabrooks@u.washington.edu if you are interested in contributing.

Cataloging & Classification Quarterly is seeking "informed reviewers". Contact Michael Carpenter, CCQ's book review editor, lscarp@lsu.edu.

Papers are being sought for a special issue of Archives and Museum Informatics. The topic of the special issue is "Imaging, Visualization and Humanities Research" and the deadline for submission is June 30, 1999. See: http://www.archimuse.com/publishing/armu.guide.html or contact: J. Trant, editor-in-chief, jtrant@archimuse.com.

For all those planning to attend the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) annual conference at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, June 10-13, 1999, volunteer reporters for the NASIG Newsletter have been requested. Reports must be submitted by July 15, 1999. Contact: Maggie Horn mehorn@cnsvax.albany.edu (As an aside, I attended the NASIG meeting last year in Boulder, CO, and enjoyed it very much. It's inexpensive (especially if you stay in the dorms) casual, friendly, and extremely informative.)

News items are always needed for the "News From the Field" column of the Journal of Internet Cataloging. Contact: Gerry McKiernan gerrymck @iastate.edu.

A call for contributors was issued by the editors of MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship. See: http://wings.buffalo.edu/publications/mcjrnl/ or contact: Lori Widzinski, editor, at widz@acsu.buffalo.edu. (I believe I have mentioned previously that I am on the editorial board of this journal. Submissions have been down recently and I would strongly encourage anyone thinking of publishing to consider this journal.) Deadline for the next issue: August 30, 1999.

VINE, a journal covering IT applications in libraries and information services, is seeking contributions for a special issue on "Library Management Systems", with a deadline of June 15, 1999. See: http://agent.sbu.ac.uk/publications/vineaut.html or contact: Andrew Cox at coxam@sbu.ac.uk.

For those of you who are ALCTS members (Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association), you may want to consider the open invitation issued by ALCTS Online Newsletter editor, Dale Swensen. A new column, "Viewpoints," is being created and it will include "thoughtful essays" on various topics. See: http://www.ala.org/alcts/alcts_news/ for more information. (I would highly recommend reading this newsletter even if you are not a member of ALCTS or ALA. It's full of reports of what activities general technical services librarians are concerned about and dealing with every day.) A call for papers for the special millenium issue of Information Resources Management Journal has been issued. The deadline of May 1, 1999 for the special issue will have passed by the time you read this, but there is also a need for book reviews and case studies for this journal. See: http://www.brint.com/irmj.htm or contact: Yogesh Malhotra at: ymalhotra@fau.edu.

And just a general reminder: SIS and chapter newsletters almost always want/ need contributions, so contact those editors, either with a specific idea in mind or a willingness to run with an idea they may already have in mind.