The Formation of IASPR Continues

Attention everyone who is interested in the professional and academic reputation of the romance genre: Dr. Sarah of the Professors Brilliant is accepting applications for a host of positions, from treasurer to membership chair, as well as positions within the soon-to-be-awesome IASPR Journal.

So if you’re looking to be a part of the awesome and have the skillz to help out, take a look over there for the full details. I’ve republished the deets below the fold.

For IASPR:

Membership Chairperson: Are you organized? Are you proficient at the use of databases and spreadsheets? What about the dreaded and dreadful Mail Merge? Are you interested in being involved in IASPR? This job might be for you!

Treasurer: Do you have experience with maintaining dues for an organization and producing the necessary yearly report of assets? Do you have experience with non-profits? Are you interested in being involved in IASPR? This job might be for you!

Neither of these jobs will be very taxing, I imagine (I hope not, at least! We’re aiming for non-profit status! Badumbum!). You’ll be working closely with yours truly, the current IASPR President, on setting things up. Our goal is to start advertising its existence at the Popular Culture Association conference and the Princeton conference on romance, both in April. And then at RWA in July, so things should start very quickly. Experience is not strictly necessary for either job, although some financial/business/CPA credentials for Treasurer would be appreciated. IASPR applications due by March 20.

For JPRS: The journal, as currently envisioned, will be an online, blind peer-reviewed, open access journal, available to anyone to read, although you will need to be a member of IASPR once an article has been accepted for publication. It will evaluate, analyze, and otherwise discuss all forms of popular romance, not just romance novels. This could be popular romance in music, film, soap operas, celebrity life, art, or commercials/advertising—popular romance writ large. The journal will consist of academic articles, reviews of academic books on popular romance, as well as academic reviews of popular romance. I would like to be able to have comments after each article, so there can be conversations about the ideas in the articles as they’re posted.

Managing Editor: The Managing Editor will run the day-to-day operations of the journal:

  * Setting up journal to begin with, including indexing and cross-listing
  * Working with the Web Manager to make sure that the journal is running smoothly
  * Receiving articles from authors
  * Making sure authors are kept informed about progress of articles
  * Sending articles out to peer reviewers and keeping on the peer reviewers to send their reviews back to you
  * Formatting, organizing, and posting each issue (certainly one a year to start, hopefully two a year by 2011).

The ultimate executive decisions about which articles will be included will be made by the Executive Editor (currently Eric M. Selinger) and the Executive Board (TBA). The Managing Editor will work closely with the Executive Editor as s/he makes those decisions. We will eventually also have a Book Review Editor and possibly a Comments Moderator if the comments really take off, with whom you will also need to work.

Web Manager: The Web Manager will obviously run the technological side of the journal’s operations:

  * Coordinate with the web hosting service
  * Advise on the choice of and manage the open source journal software
  * Set-up comment ability and coordinate with Comment Moderator, if necessary
  * Coordinate with the Managing Editor and the Executive Editor on the organization and publication of each issue

JPRS applications due by April 1, 2009. Our goal is to publish the first issue of JSPR on February 14, 2010.

Please email applications (IASPR by March 20 and JSPR by April 1) for all positions to me {sarahfrantz [at] gmail [dot] com}. (I can open all MS OfficeSuite files, including MSOffice 2007. I also accept Rich Text Format files, but NOT Word Perfect or MSWorks.)

Include your CV, any other material you feel is pertinent, and a cover letter that includes:

  * Highlights and narrative of experience you have with required tasks
  * Interesting/unique ideas you have for the structure/organization/implementation of the Association and/or the journal
  * For the JPRS positions, any experience you have with Open Journal Systems or similar open access online software

(At this time, there is unfortunately no remuneration for any of the positions, except for a lovely line on your CV under “Service.” But nothing besides time will be required of you, either. All web-hosting, etc., will be paid for by the journal and the Association. If you’re an academic and get the Managing Editor position, you may be able to get a course reduction from your institution once the journal is official off the ground.)

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The Link-O-Lator

Comments are Closed

  1. Sally says:

    Very exciting-best wishes with getting this off the ground!

    I was curious, though, about the comment

    although you will need to be a member of IASPR once an article has been accepted for publication.

    Is this typical in this academic field?  I have to say I was surprised to hear this stipulation.  I’m in academics, in the natural sciences, and I’ve never heard of anything like this as a publishing requirement.

  2. Sarah Frantz says:

    Eh, depends, Sally.  In the humanities, if a journal is connected with a society or association, you usually have to be a member to SUBMIT to the journal, let alone publish in it. But most journals aren’t actually connected with a specific society. As this one is….well, the dues aren’t going to be that much ($25 for now), so I don’t think it’s that harsh a requirement.

  3. Just to give an example of the kind of thing Sarah’s talking about, if you submit a paper to the Journal of Popular Culture:

    Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication must subscribe to The Journal of Popular Culture for at least one year at the time of acceptance. Subscription includes membership in the Popular Culture Association.

    That costs $55.

  4. mirain says:

    It varies depending on the field and the journal.  I dated someone in Political Science who was shocked to learn that most journals don’t pay for articles. Sigh. If only I’d known I could get a grand per article I might have picked a different field.

  5. Sarah Frantz says:

    Oh, wow, mirain, really?  o_0 Getting PAID for writing—what a foreign concept!

  6. Really a good post, Post is good in regards of meaningful information. Thanks for the post.

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