booth in the publishers' room: OLAC plans for LSA

[Debbie Anderson]

Hello Jeff (and others),
I would be happy to help try to locate a projector for the LSA (if needed
for next January), as long as I can get the okay from the Linguistics
Dept. at Berkeley.

FYI: I am thinking about doing a session on writing systems and Unicode.
Bill Bright suggested the idea and I have already three speakers who have
agreed to participate. Bill said he'd moderate. I would hope such a
session -- if approved -- would not conflict with OLAC or other similar
"best practices" session but would rather be part of a "track," if this is
possible.

I'm cc'ing Helen on this.  Helen: We are discussing possible ways of
presenting OLAC at the LSA. (More discussion below.) What are EMELD's
plans for the LSA?

With best wishes,
Debbie

Deborah Anderson
Researcher, Dept. of Linguistics
UC Berkeley
Email: dwanders at socrates.berkeley.edu
or dwanders at pacbell.net

****************
-----Original Message-----
From: OLAC Outreach Working Group
[mailto:OLAC-OUTREACH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Jeff Good
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 1:31 PM
To: OLAC-OUTREACH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: booth in the publishers' room

Hello,

> Can we do a tutorial and a booth? If we have enough hands available,

Yes, I see no reason we couldn't. The "tutorial", as I understand it, is
just like a symposium. If the proposal is accepted, then we get a room and
a few hour slot or so for free. So, it's all about "hands"--and not money.
Of course, we might need to worry about equipment, etc.--but that seems
solvable enough.

> Or a session... probably a session is a bunch of talks, while a
tutorial
> ought to be more hands-on for the participants, don't you think? It
would
> be nice to make people fill out actual metadata forms right there in
front
> of us :-). But a session about  archiving, corpus management, and best
> practice would be good too. We could present the subgroups from last
> summer's EMELD workshop: resource conversion, etc etc.

I don't really know what a tutorial is versus a session other than the LSA
allows for either title to a block of time. It's hard to imagine a bunch
of linguists filling out Metadata forms while we pace up and down the
seats looking for errors.

I think, though, (and I'd agree) that we'd want this to be more like a
"teaching" session than a symposium, which has also been done. A symposium
would be us debating theoretical issues or the "future" of archives or the
like (in my mind). While, what we're talking about is practical advice.
The sort of thing that, at some point, will be in the School of Best
Practice or be codified in an OLAC document.

> I would rather do my spiel about documentation and archiving, which
refers
> to AILLA as an example, than just talk about AILLA by itself. The idea
is
> to improve corpus building and appeal to their self-interest: proper
> citation, easy path to "publishing", lines on their CV...

Yes--that's what I had in mind. I guess I meant documentation from AILLA's
perspective, which will overlap a lot with other archives. We'd just want
to coordinate tutorials for maximum content.

> Do tutorials or sessions cost us anything? Jeff, would you mind
finding out
> about those possibilities? Also how much time we get and what the
expected
> structure is (talks or lessons)? Then we can figure out how many
people
> we'd need to enlist.

Here's the info about "sessions" I pulled off of the LSA's web site
(specifically: http://lsadc.org/dec03bulletin/guide.html). They're
free--but require abstact writing, etc. They can go from 1 1/2-3 hours.

<quote>
D. Organized Sessions
Organized sessions typically involve more than one scholar  and are
expected to make a distinctive and creative contribution  to the meeting.
Proposals  for organized  sessions are NOT reviewed anonymously. These
sessions may  be:

1. Symposia which include several presentations on a  single topic 2.
Workshops focused on a specific theme or issue 3. Tutorials which give
intensive instruction in some  subfield of linguistics or a related field
4. Colloquia which include a major presentation with  one or more invited
discussants 5. Sessions of any other kind with a clear, specific,  and
coherent rationale.

The organizer(s) must supply the information requested on  the organized
session submittal form, which is available  from the  LSA Secretariat. In
addition,  the organizer(s) must submit the following:

1. A preliminary version of the proposal including 500-word  abstracts for
each presenter by 15 April 2004, to be  sent to the Program  Committee for
comments  and suggestions. 2. A fully detailed proposal (typically 2-5
pages) which  includes the purpose, motivation, length (1 1/2 - 3 hours),
and justification  for the session;  the names, addresses, and telephone
numbers of all participants,  including discussants;  and a complete
account, including timetable, of what  each participant will do. The
Program Committee reserves  the  right to select  participants and
discussants. 3. A 1-page description of the organized session for
publication in the Meeting Handbook. 4. If appropriate, a short abstract
of each participant's  presentation.

Organizers must submit a first version of the written proposal  by 15
April 2004 in order to receive comments and suggestions  from the Program
Committee.  The deadline for the final version of written proposals is 1
September 2004. </quote>

> Is Helen or an EMELD person on this list? I'm sure they will have wise
> thoughts on all of this.

Our EMELD rep. is Michael Appleby--Michael, do you any sense of how this
will or won't or could fit in with EMELD's plans next year?

Jeff