Our New, Bolder Newsletter President's Report
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Hamuli The Newsletter of the International Society of Hymenopterists volume 1, issue 1 2 August 2010 Our new, bolder newsletter In this issue... By: Andy Deans, North Carolina State University President’s report (Woolley) 1 Well, here it is—the inaugural issue of our new Soci- Webmaster/Archivist report (Seltmann) 3 ety newsletter, Hamuli. Before I dive too deeply into the Publishing on Hymenoptera (Agosti et al.) 4 details I want to acknowledge my associate editor, Trish Reflections on the future (Masner) 4 Mullins, who helped organize the newsletter, and especial- Report on the 7th ICH (Melika) 5 ly the talented contributors, who provided content. Thanks A student’s impression of 7th ICH (Talamas) 5 for helping make this enterprise happen! Australian checklist (Austin & Jennings) 5 Hamuli is an effort to revive the spirit of newsletters Sawfly research in China (Wei) 6 past—e.g., Sphecos, IchNews, Proctos, and Melissa— Sweeping Shrinkies (Heraty & Mottern) 7 an enthusiasm for communication that, if you’ve had Hints on scaning to PDF (Noyes) 8 the good fortune to read recent project newsletters, like Evaniid oviposition behaviors (Mullins & Bertone) 10 Skaphion and TIGER, still permeates through our com- Collecting in Măcin Mountains (Mitroiu) 11 munity. We anticipate publishing two issues per year, one Collecting in Kauai (Carpenter) 12 in January, and another in July, and we’re always accept- Collecting in China (Niu & Wei) 13 ing submissions that are relevant to ISH and Hymenoptera Jesus Santiago Moure (Dal Molin) 15 research more broadly, including member news (updates Member News 16 on projects, student opportunities, recent collecting ef- 7th ICH photos 18 forts), opinion and methods pieces, notes and photos from Membership information 19 the field, from museum visits, and from meetings, and just about any other content you can think of. Hamuli, much like its anatomical namesake, will hopefully remain an President’s report entity that facilitates consociation. By: Jim Woolley, Texas A&M University I hope you enjoy reading the new ISH newsletter as much as Trish and I enjoyed putting it together. Feedback Journal of Hymenoptera Research. After a transition is greatly appreciated, whether you have concerns about period this Spring, the new Editor, Stefan Schmidt, has content, comments about the layout, or questions about taken over all editorial duties for JHR and he is busily pre- how to contribute. Contact information is provided in the paring issue 19(2) to be sent to press in late summer. We masthead on page 2. v also have a change in the Editorial Board, Stefan and Matt Yoder have agreed to share the duties of subject editors for taxonomic papers of Symphyta and Parasitica for JHR. The other subject editors remain the same: Mark Shaw (biology, Symphyta and Parasitica), Jack Neff (biology, Aculeata) and Wojciech Pulawski (systematics, Aculeata). Thus, we have a restructured editorial team to face the challenges ahead. As most of you are probably aware, the numbers of manuscripts submitted to JHR has been in a steady decline in recent years. Although we continue to receive high qual- Metallopeus cupreiceps Konow in Shiqu, Sichuan. See Niu and Wei’s ity papers, the numbers are at or below the critical mass story about collecting sawflies in China on page 13. necessary to continue publishing the journal. We think the 2 Hamuli volume 1, issue 1 2 August 2010 primary reasons for this are the profound changes in the Accordingly, Mike Sharkey, Stefan Schmidt and I have scientific publishing landscape in recent years, in which we continued to negotiate with Lyubomir Penev at Pensoft have seen the explosive growth of on-line journals featur- Publications, and we are close to having a new contract in ing rapid review and turnaround, the possibility of using place. Our goal is to begin publishing JHR with Pensoft color plates at a nominal cost, and many other advantages. under the new model in 2011, beginning with issue 20(1) In many cases, these journals are open-access, which of JHR. Although it would be premature to provide full greatly increases access to them by the worldwide scien- details at this time, the new publication model will look tific community, thereby increasing citation statistics such like the following: as impact factors. In addition, the ability to enhance elec- • JHR will be published electronically by Pensoft Pub- tronic publications using semantic mark-up methods and lications and will be an open-access publication embedding links to external databases such as ZooBank • Printed copies will continue to be produced and and Morphbank is creating exciting and revolutionary new deposited in libraries to satisfy the current require- possibilities that are profoundly changing taxonomic publi- ments for publication in the ICZN. Printed issues cation in particular. will be produced as they fill. We estimate a mini- Clearly, we needed to fundamentally rethink the man- mum of three printed issues per year initially. ner in which we publish JHR. Accordingly, in February of • Authors will be able to purchase printed copies of 2009 we formed a Special Publication Committee, chaired their publications on demand, according to a fee by Mike Sharkey, President-Elect, and Gavin Broad, Edi- schedule established by Pensoft, which should be tor of JHR, and consisting of Craig Brabant, Mark Shaw, very similar to the rates now charged for ZooKeys. Donald Quicke and Matt Buffington. The group was • ISH members will have the ability to publish in JHR charged with conducting a review of the possible options at cost, that is, at the rate charged by Pensoft Publi- for publication of JHR, and with recommending a new cations, currently €15 per page. Non-ISH-Members publication model and a new business model. They so- are welcome to publish in JHR, but they will pay an licited and evaluated proposals from Zootaxa and Pensoft additional surcharge. These rates include the option Publications (publishers of ZooKeys) among others. Their of including substantial numbers of color illustra- recommendations were both clear and radical: JHR should tions (we estimate about half of the pages of a typi- move to an open-access, electronic publication format cal publication will have color figures) and complete while continuing to publish printed copies to satisfy the dissemination of on-line content including assign- publication requirements of the ICZN. Since the proposal ing DOI numbers and sending content to indexing from Pensoft Publications was substantially more favor- databases and various specialized databases such as able in many respects, the Committee recommended that ZooBank. ISH engage in negotiations with them to establish a new • Rates for institutional subscriptions will need to publication contract for JHR. These recommendations be increased, but assuming three printed issues of were presented and discussed at the Annual Business approximately 200 pages each, a relatively modest Meeting in December, 2009, in Indianapolis, U.S.A. and increase should cover the cost of producing them. at the Annual Business Meeting held at the 7th Interna- Of course, under an open-access model, institutions tional Congress of Hymenopterists in Kőszeg, Hungary, in will also have access to electronic versions of the June 2010. Although many members have reservations or journal. misgivings about one aspect or another of these fundamen- We think the opportunity to work with Pensoft Publica- tal changes, there seems to be overwhelming support for tions will position JHR to be an innovator and a leader in moving JHR in this direction. the rapidly changing world of scientific publication. We Hamuli is published by the International Society of Hymenopterists. Contact information: Andrew R. Deans, Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University, Box 7613, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA. Fax: +1 919 515 7746 Ph: +1 919 515 2833 Email: [email protected] President: James B. Woolley <[email protected]> All submissions should be sent electronically to the editor, with textual contribu- Treasurer: Craig Brabant <[email protected]> tions as .rtf, .doc, or .docx files and images as .jpg, .png, or .tif. Deadline for the Secretary: Andrew R. Deans <[email protected]> first issue is December 31, while the deadline for the second issue is June 30. Editor, Hamuli: Andrew R. Deans <[email protected]> Associate Editor: Trish Mullins <[email protected]> Articles appearing herein should not be considered published for the purposes of zoological nomenclature. find us on the Web: http://hymenopterists.or g 2 August 2010 volume 1, issue 1 Hamuli 3 are tremendously excited about this new venture, perhaps outside of the Society. the most fundamental change in the way our Society does Its been an exciting year for the ISH website. We business since the publication of the first issue ofJHR 20 moved the site from its prior hosting company to Dream years ago. If you would like to provide input or advice or Host in August, 2009 and launched the new member’s share your concerns with us, please contact me at jimwool- database. The database is primarily used to keep track of [email protected] or Mike Sharkey at [email protected]. current members, so that they properly receive copies of Distinguished Service Award. The Distinguished the Journal of Hymenoptera Research. The combination Service Award was awarded to Gavin Broad at the An- of these efforts, begun by previous webmaster, Suzanne nual Business Meeting in Kőszeg, in recognition of “his Schulmeister, pushed the society into a web savvy position tireless, creative and dedicated service as Editor-in-Chief and saved us quite a bit of money. DreamHost (dreamhost. of Journal of Hymenoptera Research, 2004–2010, for his com) provides free hosting for non-profits, and we are no stewardship of the Journal through a time of great changes, longer using Allen Press services for our member’s data- and for maintaining and extending its scientific scope and base.