Museum Anthropology: Editors Report

For those who might be interested, the following is the text of the editor's report that I presented at the CMA Board and Business Meetings held during the 2007 AAA Meetings in Washington, DC.

Museum Anthropology Editors Report
November 11, 2006 - November 20, 2007

Jason Baird Jackson
Editor

This report, crafted in accord with AAA reporting guidelines, presents information related to the publication of Museum Anthropology (MUA) since the time of the 2006 AAA meetings. At those meetings, I presented a report covering the period October 15, 2005-November 11, 2006. My 2006 report was amended in early 2007 to report on the full year 2006 in the context of discussions of the future of the journal then ongoing between the CMA and the AAA Publications Office.

1. Total Pages and Issues Printed: In 2007, MUA published volume 30, comprised of two issues and a total of 167 pages.

2. Publication Timelines: In 2007, both issues of MUA were submitted on time and were published on, or ahead of, schedule. The content published in volume 30 is as follows.

Genre (N) [This information is given in a table in the original report]

Editorials (1)
Peer-Review Articles (5)
Commentaries (1)
Review Essays (1)
Digital Exhibition and Media Reviews (2)
Exhibition Reviews (3)
Book Reviews (17)

Total Items Published (30)

2007 was the first year in which MUA appeared immediately in AnthroSource.

3-4. Total Manuscripts Submitted and Accepted: For the period covered in this report, seven peer-reviewed articles were submitted and two of these were accepted.

For this period, the acceptance rate was thus approximately 29%. The lower submission rate and the lower acceptance rate both correlate with the very high submission rate in 2006 and the fact that the journal, during 2007, neared the point of being “full” for the remainder of my editorship (through June 2009).

For historical comparison, I would note that (as reported in the addendum to the 2006 editor’s report), for the period of my editorship preceding this report, 29 articles were processed of which 12 were accepted for a acceptance rate in the preceding period of 41%.

The overall acceptance rate for my editorship (late 2005 to present) is thus 39%.

5. Total “Revise and Resubmit” Manuscripts: Of the manuscripts processed in the period since the 2006 AAA meetings, none fell into the “revise and resubmit” category. One of the two papers accepted during 2007 had previously been reviewed in this category.

6. Average Processing Time: For peer-reviewed articles, the average time from submission to final result (acceptance or non-acceptance) during this period was approximately 3 ½ months. The shortest turn around time was 2 weeks, the longest was 10 months. This later (very unfortunate) instance was atypical and resulted from a chain of reviewer difficulties. With this instance excluded, the average turn around time was a little over 2 months.

7. Changes For 2008: Beginning with issue 31(1) in spring 2008, the journal will be published in cooperation with Wiley-Blackwell (W-B). While the underlying business arrangements of the AAA’s publication agreements with W-B are very different from those under which we published with the University of California Press through 2007, the basic size and appearance of the journal will remain unchanged, as will the scope of the journal’s editorial content.

The College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University has agreed to fully fund the journal’s editorial assistant position. This change translates into an additional $10,000 in subsidy for the “academic editorial office” during 2008.

8. Editorial Staffing: During spring 2007, Gabrielle Berlinger concluded her term as the journal’s editorial assistant. In fall 2007, Carrie Hertz began work in this role and will continue in it through spring 2008. Both are doctoral students in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University.

MUA editorial board member Daniel C. Swan has left the journal’s board concurrent with his new role as a member of the CMA board.

9. Total Number of Book Reviews Printed: As noted in (1) above, 17 book reviews were printed in volume 30 in addition to 2 digital media reviews, 3 exhibition reviews and 1 exhibition review essay.

While the editorial health of the journal continued to be robust during 2007, it was a very trying year in terms of the journal’s financial health and the challenges that the CMA board and I faced in negotiating the complicated currents of AAA finance and governance. Throughout this period I have been especially grateful to the CMA board and membership for its support, to Indiana University (for its extremely generous financial and logistical support), to the many peer-reviewers who have contributed their valuable time and energy to our field’s collective work, to editorial assistants Gabi Berlinger and Carrie Hertz, and to the many authors who have contributed their fine work to the journal. I also wish to acknowledge here the wonderful support that was provided by the journals staff at the University of California Press.