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Issue Jump to: Announcements Back Issues Vol I, no. 1 Hard copies of back issues of the Bulletin are available at $5.25 per issue. Make all checks payable to the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies and place all orders with: Carla Rahn Phillips, Department of History, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA. Microfilm and microfiche of the Bulletin from its inception in 1969 is available, with a complete index. Direct inquiries to the General Secretary, David Ringrose, dringrose@ucsd.edu | The SSPHS BulletinLetter from the General Secretary: As you all know, our 2004 meeting was held in Charleston, South Carolina under the auspices of the College of Charleston. It was magnificently organized by Timothy Coates, who not only provided excellent accommodations (and food!) but kept the meeting within budget. The next meeting promises to be a similar success. It will be held in Lexington, Kentucky, April 6-9, with the support of both the University of Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky University. The organizers are Gretchen Starr-Lebeau (University of Kentucky, Program Chair) and David Coleman (Eastern Kentucky University, Local Arrangements). Preliminary materials on the conference have already been sent out. I call your attention to the remarkably low registration fee for this conference. This is possible because the two organizers have obtained the remarkable sum of $6,000 from their respective campuses to help subsidize the meeting. The most important change in the works for the Society this year involves the Bulletin. Faced with rising costs for both publication and postage, the Society voted at its business meeting to convert the Bulletin to an electronic format. Aware that not all members are able or willing to use that format, the motion included a plan to continue sending issues in hard-copy format to those members specifically requesting it. As you saw on your last dues notice, this involved a small surcharge to cover postage. The changeover is taking place under the Bulletin's new Editor, Professor Mary Halavais of Sonoma State University. She replaces Geoff Jensen, whose able leadership included a major collaboration with Ruth Mackay. Ruth has greatly expanded and professionalized the book review portion of the Bulletin. The last several editors have found that gathering information, editing, publishing, and distributing the Bulletin is a time-consuming one-person task. Since the Bulletin is the Society's most important activity aside from its annual meetings, we need to develop more ways to provide ongoing support for the editor. The shift to an electronic format has also been assisted by the work of Constance Mathers and Jim D'Emilio. As Membership Secretary, Connie has been keeping track of both mailing data and dues. As we rely more on electronic media, it is vitally important that all members keep her up to date regarding their email (as well as snail-mail) addresses. Corrections should be sent to Constance Mathers, membership secretary, at jomath@i-c.net or to her mailing address in the Directory. Jim, meanwhile, has taken over management of the Society website and is streamlining that operation. On another front, the Society voted to end its collaboration with the Universidad de Córdoba. This involved an experiment in which that University, with coordination by Professor Soledad Gómez Navarro, was to publish an annual volume that was a compilation of papers and extended abstracts from our annual meetings. Two volumes did appear (based on the 2002 and 2003 meetings), but subsequently, despite repeated appeals, it proved impossible to collect enough of the appropriate materials to justify the cost and effort of publication. At the same time, the project tended to undermine our own Bulletin, which also publishes abstracts of our conference papers. I look forward to meeting you at the conference in Lexington next April, and again at the 2007 meeting, tentatively scheduled for Miami, Florida. As ever, David Ringrose
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