2013 Byzantine Studies Conference

The 2013 conference will be held from October 31 – November 3, 2013 at Yale University, New Haven, CT

• Call for Papers - Deadline: Monday, 1 April 2013

December 21, 2012

To: The Members of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America
From: Derek Krueger, President of BSANA

Dear Colleagues:

I write to inform you of changes to the BSC Abstracts approved by the Governing Board and to explain their rationale. These changes were announced at the Business Lunch at the Byzantine Studies Conference in Brookline in November.

First, we will cease mailing print copies of the BSC Abstracts to non-attending members next year, with the 2013 meeting.  Instead, all paid members will receive the Abstracts by email attachment in advance of the meeting.  The Abstracts will also be posted to www.bsana.net.

Second, we will cease institutional subscriptions of the BSC Abstracts after the 2014 meeting.  The Abstracts will be available for free at www.bsana.net.

Nevertheless, we will continue to make print copies of the BSC Abstracts available at the BSC.

Read on for some background and explanation:

The future of the BSC Abstracts became the most important work of the Governing Board this year.  The board engaged in a sustained and thoughtful discussion over the spring and the summer of 2012 about the future of the BSC Abstracts, and reached a number of difficult but reasoned decisions.  I thank our Governing Board for their stewardship of this issue. These decisions ultimately represent the sort of adaptation and change that one might expect—and even regard as inevitable—as we progress in the digital world.

For years, the BSC Abstracts have been posted on the BSANA website.  Over the past few years, the Governing Board has had an ongoing conversation about the future of the printed edition of the BSC Abstracts in an increasing digital world.  Anna Gonosová, who has been dealing with institutional subscriptions to the Abstracts for many years had seen the number of subscriptions decline in the last 5-year subscription period and expected to see a significant drop when the next subscription period would begin in 2014.  She expected that most institutions would request a digital format only. I should stress that we were not making much money on selling the Abstracts.

1) The board voted overwhelmingly to cease institutional subscriptions to the BSC Abstracts in 2014, the end of the current cycle.  We will write all subscribers a letter informing them that the print run of BSC Abstracts is coming to an end. Given that the Abstracts are available online for free, the board held further distribution in print to subscribers redundant.  The BSANA expresses our gratitude to Anna Gonosová for handling the next two years of subscriptions, as well as for her dedication and service to BSANA in the distribution of the Abstracts over many previous years.

2) The board decided to discontinue maintaining our back stock of issues of the BSC Abstracts, which Anna has been storing in her garage.  Anna has agreed to handle the sale of these copies. BSANA is offering these back issues for sale at a very modest cost, mostly to cover shipping. Contact Anna at anna.gonosova@uci.edu for information about what copies remain.  Please place your orders by March 2013.

3) Over the past years, the mailing of the Abstracts to non-attending BSANA members has become increasing vexed.  Local arrangements committees have had trouble estimating the right number of copies to print, and there have been problems fulfilling orders in a timely fashion.  After all the work of planning the meeting, this had become an onerous burden.  Moreover, in the digital era, these copies have become increasingly redundant.  The board decided that that starting in 2013 (that is with next year’s BSC at Yale), we will not provide paper copies to BSANA members not in attendance at the BSC.  Instead, a pdf of the Abstracts will be mailed to all members in advance of the BSC meeting.  This will fulfill our important obligation to furnish all BSC members with a copy of the abstracts, and it will make the abstracts available on electronic devices.  

4) Finally, the board maintained its commitment that paper copies of the abstracts will continue be available to all attendees at the BSC. We recognized the very clear importance of having physical copies at the meeting.

Graduate student travel reimbursements for the 2012 Conference

Graduate students giving papers at the Byzantine Studies Conference who do not reside in the area of the conference are entitled to partial reimbursement of travel expenses. Find out how to apply for your reimbursement.