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2/25/04</title></head><body>
<div>MIT EDITORS' CLUB<br>
</div>
<div>*Meeting Notes from February 25, 2004*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>A big welcome to three new members of Editors' Club, all of whom
attended this meeting. They are Heather Denny, communications
coordinator for the Libraries; Scott Turner, director of
communications for the Broad Institute, and Michelle Nhuch of the
Broad Institute's Office of Communications.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*Finding Freelance Writers and More*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Earlier this week Scott asked me how to find good freelance
writers. At the time I suggested sending a query to New England
Science Writers, then it occurred to me right before this meeting that
I'd forgotten the obvious: call MIT's Publishing Services
Bureau.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Fortunately, Bara Blender of the PSB attended this meeting, so I
immediately put her on the spot: "Tell us about the PSB!"
Bara explained that the PSB is a consulting office free to the MIT
community that helps connect MIT folks to a variety of vendors,
including graphic designers and freelance writers. One important
benefit: often the PSB gets lower prices from their vendors than you
or I could get by approaching vendors directly. Go to the following
URL for more info:<font face="Lucida Grande" size="-4"
color="#000000"> http://web.mit.edu/psb/</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*Online/Interactive Newsletters*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Jean Foster of Academic Computing asked an interesting question:
how many of us produce online newsletters? Send me a note if *you* do,
and I'll compile the results and share with everyone else.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Anyway, Jean was asking because she's planning to turn The
Insider, the newsletter out of her area, into an online newsletter and
she wondered about others' experiences. Fortunately Scott Campbell was
at the meeting, and was able to tell us a bit about the online
newsletters he produces for the Center for Transportation and
Logistics and for the School of Architecture and Planning.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>For the CTL, he simply sends out e-mail notices letting readers
know about a given story that's just gone up on the web. He includes
the URL, for those who want to read the full story. I personally find
his "alerts" quite interesting; he only sends out stories
that he believes "would be of wide enough interest." His
other newsletter, Plan, for the School of Architecture, is a GLOSSY
brochure-like document in its print form that, again, includes the
URLs for the full stories. Send a note to Scott if you'd like more
info on either of these publications; he's at scottc@MIT.EDU</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>But back to Jean, who brought up a second related topic. She is
thinking about adding a "blog" to the online Insider.
"What's a BLOG?" whined several of us. Essentially it's a
form attached to a story so that people can send in their opinions or
otherwise chat about the topic at hand. "It's designed for people
who like to expound---publicly," Jean said. Blogs can also be
great "for getting a discussion going." Jean further
explained that you can get free, open "blog" software that
you can install on your server....</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>* SPAM SPAM Go Away!*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The ongoing battle over SPAM came up yet again, and yet again
Susan Curran of Web Services kindly reminded us that there *is* a way
to (partially) control it.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Spam Assassin is a service available at <font
face="Lucida Grande" size="-4" color="#000000">
http://web.mit.edu/is/services/email/nospam/index.html</font>.
Essentially it deposits suspected spam in a separate e-mail box that
you can then review every day to make sure something "good"
didn't get picked up as well.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>A tip from me: I *thought* I'd already been using Spam Assassin,
and wasn't that impressed because I was still getting a lot of junk
mail. It turns out, however, that I was using just one tiny aspect of
the program. I finally got the entire program working (thanks to the
web site above), and have been VERY happy with the results. It catches
about 75 spam messages a day. Yay!</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*Next Meetings*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The next meetings of MIT Editors' Club are as follows. All are in
the News Office, 11-400, from 12-1.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Wednesday, March 10</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Tuesday, April 20</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Monday, May 10</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Tuesday, June 15.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Cheers!</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Elizabeth</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><tt> </tt></div>
<div>===================================</div>
<div>Elizabeth A. Thomson<br>
Assistant Director, Science & Engineering News<br>
Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
News Office, Room 11-400<br>
77 Massachusetts Ave.<br>
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307<br>
617-258-5402 (ph); 617-258-8762 (fax)<br>
<thomson@mit.edu><br>
<br>
<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www></div>
<div>===================================</div>
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