Dear Members,
The January Central States Archaeological Journal was very late, arriving in late March, and was also very expensive! Since the bill for the January journal was not available when the Central States Delegates had their meeting, they were unaware of the additional expense. The cost of the January CSAJ was over $18,000 dollars! This was a great deal more than in the past and costs had to be brought under control. The Editor and the Publishing and Finance Committee were instructed to seek bids from other printers. The P&F Committee did, our former Editor did not. Our Editor was instructed to use another printer and our Editor resigned on April 2nd, 2005. On or about April 17th and 18th emailed files were sent out containing material which (in theory) was to be used to produce the April CSAJ. Those emailed files were fine for reviewing text, but the photographs were done at such a low resolution that they were unusable in printing a journal. The printed text received was formatted in such a way that it, too, could not be edited or errors corrected without additional expense. Also, there was not enough material emailed to complete a journal.
I was asked if I would consider becoming editor again. I could not. However, I did promise President Jack Willhoit that I would compose one final journal as quickly as possible if he could get me the material. I began working with what I had and began generating more material immediately. Shortly thereafter, I received three boxes of C.S.A.S. materials. None of the articles or photographs for the April CSAJ were in these boxes. I contacted those authors I could find and asked for emailed or original articles and photographs again. I also contacted former authors and generated other materials and began creating the April journal. While I am an old hand at producing journals, I have never had to produce a journal at such a late date with so little material. Still, I believe you'll find this is a fine journal despite its untimely arrival.
In addition to this problem, the broker for our former printer never sent the remainder of the January journals for which we had already paid. Legal steps are being taken to get our property from this individual, and these journals will be sent out as soon as we possibly can.
In the meantime, C.S.A.S. President Jack Willhoit has appointed Col. John F. Berner as our new Editor-In-Chief. John immediately began composing the July CSAJ. Many of you know John and know he has many years of publishing experience as an editor, writer, and author. He will be a fine editor for the CSAJ and will carry on our tradition of more than fifty years. John expects to be done with the July CSAJ within about two weeks. He, too, has had to deal with the shortage of reserve material.
As a former Editor-In-Chief and present officer of the C.S.A.S., I can tell you we all feel very badly about what this fiasco has done to our members. I know our members are anxious about their late and missing journals. In the past, when members contacted me about late journals. I explained what had occurred and promised that their journals would be delivered (though I never had a January journal come out in late March or an April journal come out in July). I was always confident that they would be pleased with the content and quality when they received them, as they always were. As in the past, I promise that you will receive your journals.
On behalf of the C.S.A.S., I personally apologies for the delays and assure you everything humanly possible is being done to get these journals out as soon as possible and to get us back on schedule. No one in the C.S.A.S. could have possibly imagined that an officer of our society would do what has been done, but it happened. Steps are being taken to make sure it never happens again.
If you have been holding back on sending in photographs and articles because of this situation, get your materials in to Col. John F. Berner immediately! If you had sent materials for publication in the last year, the C.S.A.S., probably doesn't have them anymore. Please send them again. John Berner's address is 195 Barrington Drive East, Roswell, Georgia, 30076-2314. His email address is johnberner @earthlink.net.
E-mailed articles are welcome, as are digital images. Typed articles are acceptable and welcomed as well. Hand-written articles need to be clearly written. We will do the best we can with all material received.
In closing, and because I know no shame when it comes to begging for material, I have to say, 'Write your page in history!' Our journal and American archaeology is better for your efforts. I thank you ask you to have faith. We will work through this crisis, and our society will be better for it in the end!
John T. Crowley C.S.A.S. 2nd VP.
