Back from the CSE and AJPP Meetings

Greetings again. I hope you’re doing well.

A few days ago I returned from attending 2 annual meetings, held one after the other. The first was of the Council of Science Editors (CSE). The second was of the African Journal Partnership Project (AJPP). Both were in San Antonio, Texas.

CSE is an organization of people involved in science-related editing and publishing. AJPP pairs African health and medical journals with leading journals in the United States and United Kingdom, in order to strengthen the African journals.

The CSE meeting included plenary sessions, concurrent sessions, exhibits, receptions, and an awards luncheon. About 400 people attended. There were registrants from North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

Among items I learned (or learned more about) at the CSE meeting were the following:

• More and more journals are posting articles online as soon as they are copyedited and laid out, rather than waiting for an issue to be complete.
• Abstracts of articles in the journal JAMA can now include a table in the results section.
• A website called Ronbun.jp provides scientific-communication advice in both Japanese and English.

The AJPP meeting was by invitation only. About 30 people attended. I enjoyed hearing the reports from the African journals. I also appreciated the other presentations, including one on using additional media to disseminate journal content.

I was at the AJPP meeting to talk about AuthorAID. Some attendees already knew about this project, and all seemed interested. I hope my presentation will lead to further collaboration.

Until the next post—

Barbara