Features AESE Meets the Rockies

Ginny Lowe ment has meant that less time has had to be The 38th annual meeting of the spent in cleaning up submissions. Like other Association of Earth Science Editors organizations represented at the AESE (AESE) was held at the Stanley Hotel meeting, OGS plans to develop an intranet in Estes Park, Colorado, near the foot of site to give its authors access to tools, data, the Rocky Mountain National Park. An and publications. Handouts of the print and excellent choice for the conference venue, CD-ROM “Author’s Package” were avail- the Stanley Hotel has beautiful turn-of- able at the meeting. the-century historic buildings and scenic Continuing the session, Karen grounds, and the surrounding area was per- MacFarlane (C S Lord Northern Geoscience fect for the roadside geology field trip. Centre) discussed how her office dealt with The AESE annual meeting began with merging with another geoscience resource registration and a welcoming reception to create a single, streamlined program.

on 3 November 2004, and the technical The change in office structure provided ARK sessions officially began on 4 November. the opportunity to develop a more for- P The meeting was titled “Achieving the mal standard for publishing. The goal in

Pinnacle of Our Profession”, but the theme defining the standard was to establish and ATIONAL of “how to do more with less” ran through- maintain quality and credibility while N out the meeting. As was evident from the allowing the flexibility needed to accom- presentations and responses, many editors modate continuing changes. Gretchen OUNTAIN are dealing with budget cuts and changing Gillis (Schlumberger) presented a fascinat- M expectations from their customers. It was ing snapshot of how the quarterly journal OCKY helpful to hear relevant and creative ideas Oilfield Review is prepared and produced. : R from our peers. She also talked about Schlumberger’s pro- Session 1, “Establishing and Documenting duction standards and about how it handles COURTESY Procedures for Editing and Production”, problems with contributing authors. Jane was the most helpful session in providing a Ciener (US Geological Survey [USGS]) HOTO P look at how other editors are dealing with presented information on how the USGS Alberta Falls the effects of budget cuts and concurrent Publishing Issues Group (PIG) established increase in customer expectations. Marg an interdisciplinary team to review the sible. Linda Guay (Geological Survey of Rutka (Ontario Geological Survey [OGS]) types of documents processed and the lev- Canada) concluded the first session with a presented information on how OGS has els of editing used throughout USGS. In presentation on International Organization dealt with a staff reduction of about 30% response to in-house inconsistencies, the for Standardization (ISO) certification while taking on additional responsibilities. PIG developed recommendations for levels of publishing services, which begins with Its efforts included designing an Open File of editing to be used with various types of examination and documentation of an Report (OFR) Microsoft Word template for documents, from light editing of abstracts organization’s current practices. The most authors to use; preparing an author guide- and outside articles to heavier editing for common result of the examination is a line package (in print and CD-ROM) with high-profile important publications. David restructuring of processes to allow the orga- resources, tools, and examples of OFRs; Schleicher (Qwest) followed up with an nization to streamline and become more setting digital standards for the submission intriguing presentation of how to use a “tri- efficient. ISO certification is not necessary of figures and photographs; and requiring age” method to apply the levels of editing to to achieve those objectives, but Guay’s authors to complete metadata forms with different types of documents. He focused on presentation demonstrated its usefulness as their submissions. Heavier author involve- quick analysis of documents to determine a tool to guide an organization through an what aspects of editing can be neglected overall improvement exercise. GINNY LOWE is an offsite editor working to allow dealing with aspects that cannot Session 4, “Developing Earth Science from her home in Loveland, Colorado, for the be neglected to focus available resources Publications for General or Dual General/ Integrated Ocean Drilling Program at Texas on making the information presented as Scientific Audiences”, focused on devel- A&M University in College Station, Texas. accurate, accessible, and credible as pos- oping data that are more easily acces-

Science Editor • May – June 2005 • Vol 28 • No 3 • 87 Features AESE continued sible to the general public.Vince Matthews publications directly from their Web sites. The conference concluded on 6 November (Colorado Geological Survey) presented That effort includes scanning archived with a board of directors meeting followed an overview of how the award-winning print documents and making them avail- by a field trip titled “Roadside Geologic publication Messages in Stone: Colorado’s able online. Discoveries in the Estes Park Region”, Colorful Geology was developed to reach Sessions 2 and 3 focused on the diverse which was a 1-day field exploration led a broad target population. Gretchen Gillis backgrounds and characteristics of earth by Jim Cole (USGS-Denver). Topics of (Schlumberger) introduced the dynamic science editors, hiring a scientific editor, the field trip included uplift and erosional online Oilfield Glossary, which makes continuing education options for writers history of the Front Range; deposition, exploration and production terminology and editors, and marketing our services. folding, metamorphism, and melting of publicly accessible at www.glossary.oilfield Session 3 concluded with a breakout ses- the oldest rocks of the Front Range; the .slb.com. Christopher Keane (American sion for discussion of how to encourage Big Thompson flood of July 1976; the Big Geological Institute) discussed the evo- authors of “underground published” mate- Thompson Project, moving water under lution of the publication Geotimes as it rials (OFRs, slide presentations, posters, the Continental Divide; glaciers, glacia- converted from a society membership pub- Web pages, and so on) to use editing ser- tion, and climate change in the last 2 mil- lication to a paid-subscription publication vices to improve their documents. Results lion years; and Roaring River debris fan and struggled to become self-sufficient. of the breakout session are to be published and other effects of the catastrophic Lawn Kirk Johnson (Denver Museum of Nature in AESE’s Blueline. Lake dam failure. & Science) gave a compelling presentation Session 5 presented innovations in earth The AESE meeting registration packet on popularizing geology and paleontology science publishing, including discussions of included the Geologic Map of Rocky for the museum audience. Kirk’s presenta- print-on-demand products, open-archive Mountain National Park and Vicinity, tion included excellent examples of how forums, and dynamic reports. Session 6 Colorado, by William A Braddock the Denver Basin Project links paleontol- presented a discussion of tools for elec- (University of Colorado) and Jim Cole ogy and historical geology to current issues tronic preparation of publications, includ- (USGS-Denver). Also included was Cole’s surrounding the use of a nonrenewable ing tips on using AutoCorrect in Microsoft Guide to Roadside Geologic Exploration groundwater resource to broaden the Word, an overview of converting archi- around Estes Park, Colorado, a beautiful public’s interest in both. Rick Borchelt val tables to readable data, and critical guidebook developed for the AESE field (Whitehead Institute for Biomedical information on making good choices for trip, also available to Rocky Mountain Research) concluded the session with a CD/DVD-ROM products. The technical National Park visitors. I strongly recom- critical presentation regarding news and sessions concluded with a presentation by mend that anyone interested in Colorado’s information needs of American science Bill Jones (Vision Graphics, Inc), showing geology obtain a copy of the Colorado leaders. Borchelt stressed the strong trend how his state-of-the-art printing equip- Geological Survey’s Messages in Stone: toward use of online resources for gather- ment works. It was interesting to see how Colorado’s Colorful Geology and Cole’s ing policy-relevant information, telling us clients can access their documents online Guide to Roadside Geologic Exploration that 97% of the roughly 8000 policy lead- to approve them before the printing pro- around Estes Park, Colorado and do a little ers look to the Internet for data to support cess takes place. exploring. their decisions. Throughout the annual meeting, entries Many of the presentations at the annual for the AESE Award for Outstanding meeting described how organizations are Publication were exhibited in the confer- moving toward multimedia release and ence hall. Winners were announced at the allowing clients to download reports and end of the conference technical sessions.

88 • Science Editor • May – June 2005 • Vol 28 • No 3