Time flies. Especially if you are the hardworking volunteers who bravely offered to put the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s 2014 annual meeting program together. June 2013 may seem like a long time ago, but Emilie Delquie and Jocelyn Dawson, the Co-Chairs (once again) for the upcoming meeting have been working with their organizing committee to start shaping the agenda. They would welcome your feedback and your help in doing this. So please could you take a few moments to answer two questions

Emilie and Jocelyn:

“The 2014 SSP Annual Meeting will be held in Boston on May 28-30 next year. We are already working on scheduling a strong program for attendees and would love your feedback on the tracks you would like to see if you were to attend the meeting. We are currently considering 8 tracks but will narrow it down to 5, so please click here to let us know what would be most interesting to you! Also, if you have any other suggestions for tracks, do let us know and we will be happy to incorporate the most popular ideas.”

A formal call-for-participation will be advertised later in November and this will be your opportunity to submit ideas for sessions. To help you with your thinking, here’s the theme for the meeting:

Who’s at Stake and What’s at Stake in our Interdependent Publishing Ecosystem?

 Scholarly publishing is not a collection of siloed players and processes.  To be part of the evolution of our community, organizations must look outward at the individuals and groups responsible for industry-shifting changes. The 2014 SSP annual meeting focuses on stakeholders in the scholarly community as both producers and consumers of content: funders, researchers, readers, publishers, libraries, societies, intermediaries, vendors, etc.

Who are the users, customers and main stakeholders in the scholarly information sphere? What are their needs, methods, goals, and challenges? What is changing and where do they see scholarly publishing going? Sessions will look at paradigm shifts in the way research is transmitted and will look at stakeholders’ changing needs, methods, and challenges, as well as collaborative solutions to facilitate information sharing.

If you are reading this, it’s because you are interested in the many aspects of scholarly publishing. The SSP is a volunteer organisation; every participant gives their time for free. That includes the Chefs at this blog and the many committee and board members (full disclosure, I’m an elected board member at large). The annual meeting is a considerable commitment for the organizers, but it’s also a commitment for every attendee as well, and this past meeting over 800 of you made that commitment. Thank you. Whether you attended or not, are a member or not, your help in shaping the next meeting will be gratefully received.