Minutes of the Theodore Dreiser Society Business Meeting

Friday, May 31, 2002
American Literature Association, Long Beach, CA
Present: Keith Newlin, Steve Brennan, Donna Packer-Kinlaw, Tom Riggio, Clare Eby, Jude Davies

1. Officers: Riggio nominated Newlin to serve as Vice President. Eby seconded the motion, which was unanimously approved.

Packer-Kinlaw, the new Secretary-Treasurer, reported on her conversation with Paul Orlov, former Secretary-Treasurer, concerning membership and the financial status of the society. Newlin is working with Orlov and Packer-Kinlaw on the transition. Society members are grateful to Orlov for his many years of service.

2. ALA location: Newlin announced that the next West coast location of the ALA (in 2004) will be San Francisco rather than Long Beach.

3. By-laws: Newlin moved to change Society by-laws regarding term lengths for President and Vice President to two years each. (That is, after two years as Vice President, that officer will automatically become President for two years.) Eby seconded the motion, which was unanimously approved.

4. Dreiser Studies: Newlin reported that the next issue will be printed in June, and that the journal now has a backlog. Because the new design (and longer issues) makes the journal more expensive to produce, Newlin recommends a modest rate increase for institutional subscriptions (from $15 to $25 domestic; from $20 to $30 foreign). No rate increase will apply to individual subscriptions. Newlin also reported that the availability of Dreiser Studies on Academic Search Premiere  has not affected the subscription base.

5. Dreiser on the web: A domain name has been acquired, TheodoreDreiser.org.  Society members discussed advantages and disadvantages to changing to this new addresses. At present, domain forwarding will be used to redirect inquiries to the current internet address.

Copyright issues make it problematic to place Dreiser Studies articles on the web. To address this problem, contracts will be provided to future contributors, specifying the journal as the copyright holder.

6. Dreiser bibliography: Brennan reported that the bibliography is caught up to 1997, and a batch will be published in the fall issue of the journal. Riggio reported that due to staffing issues at Penn, the on-line bibliography has been delayed. Bibliography Committee members should continue to collect material. Davies noted that an on-line Dreiser bibliography is available through ABES (Annotated Bibliography of English Studies).

7. 2003 ALA: One panel will be devoted to "International Dreiser," the second panel left open. Inquiries and proposals can be directed to Newlin  newlink@uncwil.edu), who, as Vice President, will be selecting the panels.

--minutes by Clare Eby