During 2011 Kristine Edwards, a postdoctoral research associate in Jerome Goddard’s laboratory, will take over the editorship of Midsouth Entomologist from Chris Peterson, research entomologist for the Forest Service, who has served as the journal’s editor since its inception in 2006. The editorship of the journal is a five-year term and the transition comes at a time when the journal is established in the minds of the MEA membership and is poised to become a premier regional journal. Kristine and Chris will work closely to ensure a smooth transition and to continue the journal’s tradition of providing quality articles to the entomologists in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Alabama. The journal has been a positive benefit to the MEA, and provides free, open access research articles, reports, and special features.
Winter/Spring issue out now.
March 16, 2010I’m happy to report that the latest issue is posted and available at www.midsouthentomologist.org.msstate.edu
We have four research articles, five reports, the abstracts of the fall meeting, and two special features.
Please forward any noted errors (hopefully none) to me at the email address on the journal’s homepage or leave comments here.
Thank you to everyone who contributed and to all who read.
Changes to Published Abstracts
February 22, 2010Last week we discussed the published abstracts for the Fall Annual meetings. Starting with the current issue, the program of the meeting will be provided, followed by those abstracts that were received. This is to avoid having several pages of “abstract not on file” listings.
In the three volumes thus far, we have never gotten abstracts for more than 50% of the talks and posters given. This has surprised me, as many employers give credit for published abstracts in year-end reports and such. I had seen it as a perk of participation that we can provide to our members.
Our online format allows greater flexibility in the content of abstracts. It is not uncommon for such abstracts to contain pictures, tables, and other such helpful information. Although not intended to be a book of proceedings, extended abstracts provide value not possible with simply publishing the program.
I encourage everyone who presents at the annual meeting to provide an abstract to the program chair, preferably when you submit your title.
Launch of the Midsouth Entomologist blog
February 12, 2010If you are anything like me, when you see an internet “news” headline to the effect: “Blogger rips Celebrity X’s Grammy garb,” you put your tongue firmly in cheek and say “Phew! I’m glad there’s a blogger on the case. I feel better now!” So it is with a bit of “yeah, yeah, I know” that I decided to start a blog for the Midsouth Entomologist.
I’m hoping that by using this tool I can better inform the readers of Midsouth Entomologist of changes to the journal, needs or concerns, or announcements of interest.
Overall progress. We are continuing to grow after two full years of publishing, and submissions from outside Mississippi are becoming common. We have now published articles by authors in each of the five states served by the Midsouth Entomologist plus one from Missouri that will be in the February issue.
Changes to publication schedule. The first big change is that we have decided to publish in February and August instead of January and July. This is because so many of the peer reviewers are employed at universities. I get 75% of all submissions during November, and it is difficult to get peer reviews conducted during December, which leaves very little time for authors to make revisions in time for a January posting.
Indexing. In the next few weeks, I will begin inquiring about getting Midsouth Entomologist indexed so that the content will be more readily accessible. Each service has different requirements, such as publishing history, open access (which we of course are), and so forth. We are already listed on Directory of Open Access Journals, Journal Seek, and we are on the e-journal list of several university libraries.
Next issue. I am waiting for a couple more copyright transfer agreements and then the next issue will be posted by the end of the month. If all goes well, I should have twelve articles to post: 4 research articles, 5 reports, 2 special features, and the abstracts for the fall meeting. This is short of my goal of 15 articles per issue, but is still a good showing.
Reminder to authors. If you submit figures, please remember that I will need source files prior to publication. A figure embedded in MS Word might convert to a pdf without any problem, but for online HTML posting such figures cannot be displayed. If they are, then they cannot be resized or the quality is very much degraded.
Summer issue. There is currently one research article under peer review for the summer issue, and I have been promised one report. Please submit by early June to ensure that your article has time to undergo peer review to appear in the August issue.
Thank you everyone for your readership and contributions. Feel free to make comments here or to contact me directly.
