LINGUIST List 8.490

Thu Apr 10 1997

All: LINGUIST Web Search, Call for Support

Editor for this issue: Helen Dry <hdryemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. linguist, News from LINGUIST: Search Facility, Call for Editorial Support

LINGUIST has had another year of growth. And we think LINGUIST's
expansion reflects the strength of the profession. Linguistics keeps
growing and diversifying; and, with your suggestions and support,
LINGUIST is keeping in step.

Our web site is offering increasingly extensive services. We are now
collecting dissertation abstracts and offering email address search,
topic pages, subscriptions services via the web, and both listserv and
web search of back issues. The web search, which is topic-sensitive,
has just been made available. It is accessible from the LINGUIST
homepage and at the URL:

	http://linguistlist.org/search.html 

We are also expanding our searchable database to include descriptions
of linguistics programs and a directory of linguists, as well as a
jobs database. These innovations (and others shortly to be unveiled)
have been made possible in great part by the grant from the National
Science Foundation, which we received last fall.

The email list has also changed. Once again, our subscriber list has
grown. We now have over 8700 subscribers, representing 80 different
countries. And this year we introduced LINGLITE, a version of the list
which gives the subjects of the messages and includes live links to
the issues, allowing subscribers to easily choose which LINGUIST
issues to read. In addition, this year we ran the first online
conference in linguistics and became a registered domain on the
Internet: linguistlist.org.

We recently encountered, as you know, a serious problem with listserv
distribution of issues. But, thanks to the amazing generosity of
certain subscribers (to whom we will devote a separate message), it
appears that the problem will soon be solved in a way advantageous to
us all.

Now, however, we must turn to the question of money for our graduate
student staff. The NSF grant cannot be used for the ongoing expenses
of maintaining the list. So once again we must ask our subscribers
for donations to pay the student editors, without whom we could not
possibly run a list of this size or maintain a diversified web site.
As most of you know, the student editorial staff of LINGUIST is
supported almost entirely by subscriber contributions.

This year we are losing all 3 of our excellent student editors: Ljuba
Veselinova will be moving to Sweden to write her dissertation,
supported by a scholarship from the University of Stockholm; Sue
Robinson will graduate this May from the masters program at Eastern
Michigan and has accepted a fellowship at the University of Southern
California; and Ann Dizdar has made the difficult decision to return
to teaching in the fall.

In the hope of recruiting others almost as good to take their places,
we have promised to raise the LINGUIST stipend to $5000 in 1998-99.
As you know, this is very little pay for 20 hours a week's work over
12 months and a very small stipend for a graduate student to live on
in the United States. Even this, however, gives us a difficult yearly
task: raising $10,000 through donations. Through the generosity of
the persons and institutions listed at the end of this message, we
have collected approximately $4000; so we need $6000 more to pay the
1997-98 stipends.

Michael Bernstein of Cascadilla Press has offered to take credit card
donations to LINGUIST during the month of April via the Cascadilla web site:

	http://www.cascadilla.com/linglist.html

Cascadilla receives no recompense for this service. It is simply a
generous act on their part, designed to serve the discipline through
supporting LINGUIST.

Contributions may also be sent by mail to:

The LINGUIST Editorial Support Fund
c/o Helen Aristar Dry
Dept. of English Language and Literature
Eastern Michigan U.
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
USA

We cannot run LINGUIST without student editors and we cannot hire them
without your donations to the LINGUIST Editorial Support Fund. If you
think LINGUIST is a valuable service, please continue to support our
efforts with your contributions.

We wish to close by offering hearty thanks to the people and
institutions who have already given us their support in 1997. A
special thanks goes to Deborah (Kela) Ruuskanen for valiantly assuming
the editorship of the LINGUIST Cookbook. When it is finished, it will
undoubtedly be a significant fundraiser for LINGUIST; and it would
never have gotten off the ground without Kela's prompt and generous
offer of help. In addition, we extend our heartfelt thanks to the 1997
contributors listed below. These are the persons and institutions
that make it possible for LINGUIST to continue. 

-Helen, Anthony, Daniel
LINGUIST Moderators

 **************************

1997 Contributors

Valued Supporters ($50 and under)

Galina Alexandrova
Lloyd Anderson (Ecological Linguistics)
Paula Baird
Mayrine Bentley
R. Joe Campbell
Judith Fuller
Keith Goeringer
Frances Ingemann
Knud Lambrecht
Ernest McCarus
Madeline M. Maxwell
Anita Mittwoch
Mary Schleppegrell
Antonio R. M. Simoes
Roland Sussex
U. OF MICHIGAN LINGUISTICS DEPT.

Patrons ($50 or more):

Bernard Comrie
Donald Freeman
LINGUISTIQUE AFRICAINE (via Cassian Braconnier)
Robert Ratcliffe


Mainstays ($100 or more):

BLACKWELLS PUBLISHING
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
CSLI
GARLAND PUBLISHING
INDIANA UNIVERSITY LINGUISTICS CLUB
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING, North America
KLUWERS PUBLISHING
MEDIA ENTERPRISE
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY, LINGUISTICS DEPT.
MIT PRESS 
SUMMER INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS, DIVISION OF LINGUISTICS
ROUTLEDGE