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. Its purpose is to keep members up to date with the AHA, its advocacy activities, online publications, and other history related news items. We thought it would make more sense to encapsulate our updates all in one e-mail, rather than sending them out in a hodgepodge of separate messages.
In this Issue
- Annual Meeting Information
- Preregistration
- Hotel Reservations
- Dates and Deadlines
- HistoriansTV
- 2008 AHA Election
- Archives Wiki
- Perspectives on History - September Issue
123rd Annual Meeting
January 2-5, 2009, New York City
The January 2-5, 2009 Annual Meeting will be in New York City with events scheduled in two midtown Manhattan hotels, the Hilton New York (headquarters) and the Sheraton New York (co-headquarters). The AHA Program Committee has selected a roster of 230 sessions while 47 affiliated societies will sponsor an additional 110 sessions. Preregistration and housing will open on September 15. Links will be provided in the September 15 edition of Fortnightly News. The program for the meeting will be mailed and posted online in mid-October.
New Hotel Reservation Process for 2009
The meeting registration and hotel reservation process will be linked for the 2009 meeting. After preregistering for the meeting, attendees will receive an acknowledgment of preregistration that will include information on making a hotel reservation, either by customized hotel web sites or by calling the hotels directly. Annual Meeting attendees must first complete the meeting registration process before making a hotel reservation at the AHA’s meeting rates. This new process is designed to ensure that the deeply discounted AHA meeting rates (as low as $129 a night) are reserved for those who support the Annual Meeting—its attendees and exhibitors—and not for tourists and others who want to book a room in New York City for New Year’s Eve weekend.
See the AHA’s Annual Meeting web page for information on hotels, venue locations, preregistration and onsite registration rates, exhibit hall details, ground transportation costs from the three airports, and preliminary Job Center dates and deadlines.
Dates and Deadlines - 2009 Annual Meeting
September 15 |
Preregistration opens. |
September 15 |
Housing opens. |
September 30 |
Dues must be paid and address changes registered with the Membership Department in order to receive a copy of the Annual Meeting Program. |
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. |
January 2 |
2009 Annual Meeting opens at 12 p.m., Hilton New York and Sheraton New York |
Announcing HistoriansTV
For the first time, the AHA will offer a daily television program during the January 2-5, 2009 Annual Meeting. The AHA has partnered with WebsEdge of London to produce each day of the meeting a new 30-minute news program. It will include interviews with speakers, academics, news from the meeting floor, and several five-minute “thought leadership films” that will highlight programs and institutions. The daily program will be broadcast in attendee hotel rooms and in common areas of the headquarters and co-headquarters hotels. It will also be available on the AHA’s designated web site HistoriansTV after the meeting and on DVD. Watch for more information in fall issues of Perspectives on History and a forthcoming e-mail to the membership.
Annual Election of Officers
Ballots for the 2008 election have been sent to all members in good standing.
In responding to the ballot preference survey sent to the entire membership in August, if you indicated you wanted to vote by mail, ballots were mailed on September 2; if you indicated you wanted to vote online, an e-mail was sent on September 1.
If you need assistance with the online voting process or to change your preference (from paper to online, or online to paper), contact the AHA’s Help Desk at 866-720-4357 (toll free) or e-mail: ahahelp@electionservicescorp.com. Changes of address requests or non-election related questions should be forwarded to: http://www.historians.org/info/contact.cfm?u=members or call (202)-544-2422 (ext. 123).
Please return your completed ballot no later than 11:59 p.m. EST on November 1.
Archives Wiki 
As you return from what we hope was a productive and enjoyable summer, we hope you will take a few minutes to share your experiences in the archives at our new ArchivesWiki. We established this wiki to draw on the collective knowledge and interests of researchers and archivists to develop a rich resource for anyone venturing into new archives for the first time. It takes just a few minutes to sign-in and start adding information. If you have ever edited a WikiPedia article, you should feel right at home, and if not, there is a brief tutorial that should help you get off to a quick start.
We hope you will share your knowledge with others in the profession, help make this a vital resource for the discipline.
Perspectives on History
The September issue of Perspectives on History, which is currently on route to subscribers, touches on a diverse range of topics this month.
Within its pages you’ll find AHA president Gabrielle Spiegel on why “Getting Medieval” is problematic this day and age; information on the 123rd Annual Meeting in New York, including scheduled tours and forms for registration and housing; news from the profession; and much more.
Last Updated: September 3, 2008
