Dear AHA Member,
Fortnightly News is the AHA's new e-mail newsletter to be sent out around the first and fifteenth of every month to keep members up to date with the AHA and the history profession.
In this Issue
- 123rd Annual Meeting
- Pubs Shop – Directory Now Available
- Survey of Public History Professionals
- October Issue of Perspectives on History
- AHA Today – latest blog posts
Please feel free to forward this e-mail to your friends and colleagues.
123rd Annual Meeting
January 2-5, 2009, New York City
Forms for the 2009 annual meeting Job Center are now available online. Also visit the Job Center web page for general information about the Job Center, and specific information for this year.
Free Wireless Internet Hot Spots
Access to the Internet is key for many participants at the AHA’s annual meetings. This year, there are a number of options for those who need to get on the web.
The first, and most accessible, Internet option is the Internet Café on the second floor of the Exhibit Hall, in Americas Hall II in the Hilton (please note that you must have an AHA annual meeting badge to enter the Exhibit Hall).
For meeting attendees interested in venturing beyond the annual meeting headquarters walls to get online, we’ve created an interactive map (see image above) to lead you to free Internet hot spots available near the meeting hotels.
For more information on getting online at the annual meeting see this recent blog post on AHA Today: Free Wireless Internet in New York.
The AHA has partnered with WebsEdge of London, UK to produce HistoriansTV, a daily television program during the Annual Meeting. Each day of the meeting a new 30-minute news program will be broadcast, which will include interviews with key speakers, news from the conference floor, and several five-minute “thought leadership films” (pre-recorded).
If your institution would be interested in working with WebsEdge to produce one of the five-minute feature segments contact Mark Rose (mark@websedge.com) at HistoriansTV by October 20th. If you are selected to participate, your institution will be featured in the daily news program at the AHA Annual Meeting (and on a specially created web site afterwards).
There are a limited number of thought leadership film slots available. HistoriansTV will charge participating organizations $19,500 for expenses related to the production of your feature segment. The expenses cover production, travel to your location, camera crew, a reporter, and film editing.
See the related blog post on AHA Today for more information.
Preregistration and housing for the January 2–5, 2009 Annual Meeting opened on September 15. See below for the status of hotel reservations at each hotel as of 10/8/08.
Standard Rooms
- Hilton ($129 single/double, 1,300 rooms in block): 1,150 rooms sold
- Sheraton ($129 single/double, 1,500 rooms in block): 269 rooms sold
- Waldorf=Astoria ($149 single/double, 100 rooms in block): Sold Out
Suites
- Hilton: Sold Out (30 booked)
- Sheraton: Sold Out (38 booked)
- Doubletree Guest Suites Times Square: 30 suites available (ADDED on 10-8-08), original inventory of 85 suites sold out
Dates and Deadlines - 2009 Annual Meeting
October 15
Job Center reservation forms are posted to the AHA web site for downloading by institutions that will be interviewing in New York. Rooms and tables are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
October 20
Program mailed to members.
November 14
Final deadline for reserving a table or room for the Job Center.
December 3
Housing cut-off date for Doubletree Suites. Subsequent reservations taken on a space-available basis at convention rate.
December 12
Housing cut-off date for Hilton, Sheraton, and Waldorf=Astoria. Subsequent reservations taken on a space-available basis at convention rates.
December 15
Final deadline for canceling Job Center room reservations. Invoices will be mailed after this date, and no refunds will be given.
December 19
AHA preregistration closes; after 12 midnight December 19, attendees registering online pay onsite rates, or must register onsite.
December 19
Deadline to receive preregistration refund.
December 24 (noon): AHA headquarters office closes until January 8th to allow the staff time with family for the holidays before traveling to and from New York for the annual meeting. January 2
2009 Annual Meeting opens at 12 p.m., Hilton New York and Sheraton New York
Pubs Shop
The 34th edition of the Directory of History Departments, Historical Organizations, and Historians is now available for sale on the AHA’s new Publications Sales Shop, which was featured in the last “Fortnightly News.” Published annually, the Directory lists information on more than 800 history departments and historical organizations in the United States and Canada.
Members, be sure to follow the login directions to receive your member discount.
Survey of Public History Professionals
If you do public history work, either as a full-time professional, or even as an academic who does consulting or other public history work on the side, we ask you to respond to our Survey of Public History Professionals. This survey is being conducted with eight other historical organizations, in the hope that we can obtain a better understanding of the demographics, training, employment conditions, and expectations of public history practitioners. As an added incentive, respondents who provide an e-mail at the end of the survey will be eligible to receive one of two $100 Amazon.com gift cards. The drawing will be held December 1, 2008.
October Issue
Perspectives on History
Most of the text of the October Issue of Perspectives on History is now available online. It starts off with the article, “History Mom,” from AHA president Gabrielle M. Spiegel, in which she takes a look at “the complexities and challenges of combining motherhood and work.”
Three articles in this issue address K-16 education: Karen Halttunen’s “The American Historical Association and K–16 Collaboration”, Wilson Warren’s “Bridging the Gap between K–12 Teachers and Postsecondary Historians”, and finally Robert B. Townsend’s “How Qualified Are High School History Teachers?
A Statistical Impression.”And continue to prepare for the upcoming annual meeting in New York with a number of useful articles. Brush up on registration, accommodation, and transportation details with some useful reminders. Then check out researching options in the city, peruse the presidential sessions at the meeting, and read up on tours organized by the Local Arrangements Committee. And definitely check out both Linda K. Kerber’s final article in her Conference Rules series, and Jane Hathaway’s practical suggestions for running a job search. Thinking even further ahead? See the call for proposals for the 2010 annual meeting.
All of this plus an article on “Slavery-Era Disclosure and Atlantic Trade,” a report on the Third International Seminar on Decolonization, letters to the editor, and more are available in the October issue of Perspectives on History.
AHA Today
Some recent posts on the AHA’s blog, AHA Today, include:
- Could Ranking Journals Rank You? – examine recent efforts to construct humanities journal rankings (in Europe and the U.S.) as a way of measuring article scholarship, and considers what it could mean for you
- Black Americans in Congress – discover this new web site created by the House of Representatives’ Office of the Clerk, which explores the history of African Americans in Congress from 1870 to 2007.
- A Survey of Public History Professionals – complete a survey from the AHA, and a number of other historical organizations, that investigates the demographics, training, employment conditions and expectations of public history practitioners. (You could win a $100 gift card to Amazon.com)
- David Rumsey Map Collection Online – explore 120 maps from the David Rumsey Collection, and how they’ve been integrated into Google Maps.
Please feel free to forward this email on to a colleague or friend.
Contributions to this issue of Fortnightly News came from:
Kelly Elmore, Elisabeth Grant, Robert B. Townsend, and Sharon K. Tune
Last Updated: June 2, 2009
