Update on various Outreach topics

[Jeff Good]

Hello OLAC-Outreach,

I wanted to send a message about various Outreach activities that had,
mostly to make sure deadlines could be met, moved off the list. This
primarily involved communication between me and Heidi and some people
not on the list (at EMELD, especially).

1) As discussed on the list some time ago, we've been working on a
proposal for an archiving tutorial for the LSA 2005 Annual meeting in
San Francisco. We just got comments back on the proposal that we sent
off for preliminary review. They were quite positive saying it was "a
very useful, incredibly important, tutorial that is bound to stir up
interest..." The LSA was concerned that our initial schedule was too
long, and Heidi and I plan to work on tightening it up a bit. We'll
probably do most of that off the list, too, since it could involve a
lot of e-mails that don't need to be read by everyone. However, if you
want to be included on the discussion, please let me know, and we'll be
happy to copy you on everything. The deadline for the final proposal is
September 1.

2) I don't know if this ever made the list at all because it had to be
done as quickly as possible (and, even then, has taken some time and is
not yet finished), but Heidi, Helen and Tony, and I (and, to a lesser
extent Steven) have been working to put together a proposal for a
course+workshop combination at the LSA 2005 Summer Institute. This
would be a course on archiving issues, broadly construed. There was no
intention to exclude people from the planning process by discussing it
off list. Rather, it is completely unclear how much of a chance the
proposal has at all. So, at this early stage, we didn't want to have
people put effort into something which could pan out to nothing.
However, if it looks like the course+workshop will go through, we'll
certainly let the list know. As with the tutorial, if you'd like to be
kept abreast of all the discussion, let me know and we can copy you on
the e-mails.

That covers what's been going on. This is a good opportunity to mention
one future project on the agenda, for later this summer: Looking at
getting a booth (or something) in the publisher's room at LSA. This
will cost about $1000 probably. Our hope is to spread the expense over
as many organizations as possible. The booth can be used as a place
where the tutorial can continue, if necessary, and also be part of
general outreach. If the finances don't work out, however, I've been
told we could also make use of the LinguistList room, assuming it is
large enough.

OK--that's just an update for now. Let me know if you have any
questions or comments.

Jeff