In the last issue of Perspectives we noted that we were reviewing whether to reapply for a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to aid the production of a third edition of our Guide to Historical Literature. Careful study of the comments from the batteries of peer, specialist, and computer expert reviewers of our original, unsuccessful grant application have persuaded us that a reapplication is worth doing. Accordingly headquarters staff are revving up their word processors and communicating with the impressive slate of editors to-be in order to make the November 1 deadline, assuming that the Research Division Committee will have put its imprimatur on the effort at its late September meeting.
While the blessings of microchips now make it possible to produce the Guide more efficiently, starting from scratch after twenty-eight years is still a major and expensive undertaking, and will require substantial support from NEH and other funding sources. But once this is accomplished, Oxford University Press believes the Guide will generate sufficient royalty income to cover the more modest costs of future revisions. In our next issue we will report on the Research Division Committee’s late September actions, but since the Teaching Division and the Professional Division meet in November this year, their activities will be covered in the December issue.
Over the past two years, we have often assured our faithful reader-members that the end of the job crisis for historians was in sight. We are very pleased to report some positive numbers to document this rosy forecast. Comparing the number of positions advertised in the Employment Information section of Perspectives over the last four Septembers’ issues, we get some encouraging statistics: in 1985, 83 positions advertised; in 1986, 96 positions advertised; in 1987, 131 positions advertised; and in 1988, 187 positions advertised! Should we not start talking about the coming shortage of historians?
